Blog Post #1

By Matthew Boyle | mboyle@flagler.edu

Since the inception of social media services such as MySpace, Twitter and Facebook, users had not been able to easily, if at all, erase their presence on the Web sites until Moddr, a new media lab in Rotterdam, developed the “Web 2.0 Suicide Machine.”

According to TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld, social media users will, with the help of the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, actually be able to erase their web presence by just typing in their credentials for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or LinkedIn and it will delete all your friends and messages, and change your username, password, and photo so that you cannot log back in.

TechCrunch said the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine eliminates or changes any and all identifying user characteristics and is irreparable. It permanently gets rid of your stuff.

Social media relate to the issue of “Online Identity” in the sense that users willingly disclose their private information on a regular basis. Users often are ignorant to the fact that they are publicly disclosing private information. Also, they usually don’t even face their actions’ consequences until it’s too late.

Users tell Facebook what they like to eat, what movies they watch, what books they read, where they go to school, what sports they like, what political beliefs they have, etc.

You give Facebook gold. You line Mark Zuckerberg’s pockets and, even if you try to close out your account, he’s still going to make money off your information.

An advertiser can come to Facebook and say, “I want my ad to show up only on the pages of people who like Zombie movies,” and that’s what they get.

If Facebook and other social media site users start committing “Web 2.0 Suicide,” expect those social media giants to hit lulls in revenue streams. Expect them to start losing money because their niche audiences get smaller. The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine deletes any and all information that could be used for social media moguls to make money.

From Facebook, the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine deletes what you like to eat, what movies you watch, where you go to school, etc. You get the point.

What I expect to happen, which has already started, is for social media Web sites to block the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine’s IP address because the identifying characteristics users willingly and ignorantly provide social media giants with are advertisers’ dreams. Facebook blocked it and the other major social media Web sites should follow soon.