Friends?

[av8rmike]

Everyone lately seems to be going "all-friends-only all-the-time" with their journals. What's up with that? Are people becoming more zealous about their privacy, or has other stuff been going down that I just haven't seen?

I see no need to go friends-only here. I already protect individual posts that I don't intend for unfiltered consumption, and everything else is so mundane and inconsequential I can't imagine why anyone would care.

Comments

[unclebill35.livejournal.com]

There was a time when trolls took info from enties and blew them out of proportion in anon communities, promting many to make the switch.

[tidesong.livejournal.com]

Awwww, cute kitty!

[unclebill35.livejournal.com]

He'll do.

[av8rmike.livejournal.com]

Certainly I knew about all of that. I just figured I never registered on anyone's radar enough to become a target, necessitating going friends-only. I was curious if there was a recent surge in anon "activity".

[tidesong.livejournal.com]

I'm not going friends-only, just friends-mostly. It's not really a change; I've been doing it for a long time, and anything really personal gets heavily filtered anyway. I just realized I'm not entirely comfortable with random people reading things. Probably not necessary to mention it, but I did anyway.

[av8rmike.livejournal.com]

Can I be on your filters? ;P

[tidesong.livejournal.com]

*smirk* You're kidding, right? You're on all of them.

[sperfur.livejournal.com]

I resisted going FO for a long time, then I got paranoid.

When you think about it, it is silly to think that someone could steal your info, use it against you - whatever. However, once it's been done, it can't be un-done. Then all you can do is wish that you'd been more careful all along.

[scout1222.livejournal.com]

You're the only one on my FL that's done it recently, and I admit I wondered if there was something that prompted you to do that.

I have several people on my list that have been FO for a long time. I've never really considered it, myself.

[sperfur.livejournal.com]

I've had, oh, four of my FL go FO in the past week. The last one to do it linked an article that listed a handful of bad things that could happen to you if you reveal too much online, so I followed suit.

[av8rmike.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's any personal info I post that isn't already easily obtainable, but I understand about paranoia. There's no way to really know how much information someone would need.

[hirsch222.livejournal.com]

I've found that I've been friends-locking any journal entry that may mention
* work - Kept private for obvious reasons.
* money (including big sales/purchases) - I don't want any signs of my financial status, good or bad, in a public space.
* other people (friends or family) - Cyberstalking is made easier through unfiltered blogging. Not that I expect my friends would be targets, but I think that it's courteous to provide some periphery privacy

As a result, it seems like I friends-lock about 75% of my posts. As a result, the remaining 25% is kind of trivial material, but at least it serves as a sign that I am actively on here and posting things.

What I would really like to see would be an LJ feature that would let you extend "friends privileges" to "friends of friends." For the most part, I generally trust the company my friends keep and I wouldn't mind sharing with the "extended network," but there isn't a way to easily set it up.

[av8rmike.livejournal.com]

The rare times I discuss work, I make sure it's protected, just so there aren't any possible conflicts.

As far as your wish-list feature, it sounds interesting but probably hard to implement. If you think about how many friends you have, then how many unique friends they, you could already be talking hundreds of people. Unless you were very selective about who you add to your own friends list, you would be policing an awful lot of people.

[hirsch222.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't really manage the "friends of friends" list. For most protected posts, there's only a limited number of people on this earth that I'm really protecting the entry from. I just think it would be cool to have a security level somewhere between "everyone in the world" and "just the 40 or so people I directly know on LJ."

I don't really expect my friends' friends to look at my LJ unless they get really bored, but sometimes I would like to refer to a private post on my own LJ in a friend's posts comments. In those cases I would generally want the comment readers to be able to read that post without friending them all or publicizing the post.

[geobabe1.livejournal.com]

I went FO partly because of the anon trolls, but mostly because my mom found my LJ. It wasn't so much that I don't want her knowing what's going on in my life as I got tired of the confused emails asking me to explain my jokes.

[av8rmike.livejournal.com]

I think I'm safe from my parents so far.... but I also don't talk about things in the open I wouldn't want them to find out, anyway.

[violaman.livejournal.com]

You won't be safe from them if you keep leaving your LJ link on Mom's computer when you visit her. I saw it in her IE location bar the last time I was home. You gotta clear that history bar when you're done blogging about how dull our hometown is, mon frere.

[iampunha.livejournal.com]

My entries are friends-only in terms of comments because an acquaintance of mine spilled his logorrhetic seed where I wish he hadn't, and I didn't want to have to deal with it.

Anything I post about my job(s) is friends-only due to my not wanting various and sundry to see it and because sometimes it'd be negatively representing the folks in question.

Sex stuff, for obvious reasons, though my mother is on my list, which kinda defeats the purpose.

And then there's the very basic "It's my house, and folks didn't play by my rules" issue. Some years ago, some troll came a-trollin' and ... well, yeah. So these days, I'm taking a different approach to things.

[av8rmike.livejournal.com]

Eww. I hope he cleaned up after himself.

Sorry.... =)

[karlgrenze.livejournal.com]

Mostly Friends only, although some things are public...

I don't want information I talk about doctors and professors to be known (whether good or bad).

Some of my rants I don't want someone to find out.

If my parents search for me, I don't want them to see my posts.