Do you think that Facebook is distorting the true meaning of friendship?

[Bradley P]

Yes, among lots and lots of other things. Facebook distorts everything it touches, pretty solidly.

It's like this. The internet is an ant farm already. We're the ants and anyone can peek in from the outside at any time. The dirt only does so much to hide us when we're all under glass.

But things like Facebook and Twitter? The combination of their popularity and design makes them the Magnifying Glass of that ant farm--this is where people go when they aren't aware of how heavily they're being watched. This is also where the "ants" get cooked under the magnified light, so to speak.

The problem with this is that more and more of the mainstream internet is starting to DEMAND Facebook account access in an attempt to "verify" who everyone is--people are misusing the Facebook account (according to FB's own Terms of Service, mind you) as an easier-to-stalk version of what Open ID was originally meant to be.

The real life version of this would be DEMANDING that people show up at the airport and fly wherever they go, even if they don't have the money, and even if it would make more sense to drive, just so the TSA gets their free groping.

But yeah. On the strictly social level, Facebook does distort the concept of "Friendship", no question. It turns what used to be face-to-face conversations and outings between a few friends into a loosely connected, half-incoherent clutch of files shared between and among thousands of _actual strangers_ who never meet. It warps the _Word_ "friendship" until it loses all meaning.

And it also does this to the words "internet", "privacy", and "self-respect" as well. Not to mention "Internet Economy", but hey.