A few thoughts tonight.

Had a great conversation early about the need for bloggers to be sincere with their content. It wasn’t another one of those “keep it real” type of discussions, more so about writing what you feel without limitation. I was reminded of a post I read earlier this week that touched on a few of the same ideas.

Much of what I discuss here is media analysis and social commentary. However, that shouldn’t mean that I am obligated, or that anyone is obligated for that matter to use their blog or their mini-blog for the promotion of consciousness raising on any level. I personally feel driven to discuss certain issues, while at the same time my blog and my mini-blog can cover superficial topics that deem interesting enough to write about. I’m not that one dimensional to sincerely write content on one topic. Furthermore, if it comes to my attention and I have an opinion about it, I’m most likely going to write about it.

Another thing that I’d like to discuss tonight that holds some relevance to this discussion is the stalking of people’s mini-blogs and social media accounts by human resource workers. What one says on their Facebook page or their Twitter stream, if not work related, shouldn’t be used as means to gauge their work performance. We as a citizenry have truly allowed the marketplace to dictate far too many rules of our personal behavior. We are already in a situation where most of our lives are controlled by how we make our money, and we spend most of our lives at the workplace. Many of us hate our jobs and now we have to worry about job security in our personal online associations.

There may not be much one can do about the draconian practices of the corporate world, so I’ve been advising many of those that respect my advice to make two accounts and stop using identifying names as your login name. If that is more than you are willing to do, I say boycott the social media application altogether. We are the writers, artists, bloggers, what have you that provide the content for all of the web. What is twitter without people making updates? What is the point of having a twitter account, or a Facebook account that you can’t openly express yourself on?

The more I spend time on the web, the more I realize how much it reminds me of the blinking boxes in George Orwell’s “1984″. We have truly given up much of our private lives in the pursuit of entertainment and information that is not being fairly appreciated by those we do business with. Without the person interacting through these mediums, they cease to exist. And I believe that a message needs to go out that it is end-users that should be given the highest regards in certain matters. Even with private accounts the owners are able to sell information about our surfing habits with advertisers and who knows who else. I enjoy using the service, but I have read three people thus far expressing how a company has gone through their time line and suffered some sort of reprimand. I don’t personally fear expressing myself, yet, when will this stop? I understand that it is a public forum, so is a restaurant. I don’t expect the waiter to pass my credit card information on to any other businesses.

We make the web what it is.

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