Facebook won't be killed by another product, but by the growing data-mining and exploitation of its data (probably not even by Facebook itself). If you post often enough, Facebook (and/or twitter and g+) provides a map of all your activities, affiliations and even aspirations in great detail (often with geolocated photos, and cross-linked posts by people you have confirmed as friends), which is a treasure trove of information for companies which want to find out more about you.
Facebook has privacy controls to pretend that they're hiding your data, but in the words of its founder, those who trust in them are 'dumb fks' - they are there to encourage more sharing, not less, and are constantly undermined by the company itself.
That data has not been exploited properly at all yet, but when the great data-mining scandal of 2021 hits, and people are regularly being denied services (insurance,travel,benefits,jobs) because of risky activities in their youth, or confronted with just how much anyone can find out about the last 30 years of their life with a trivial search, there will probably be a swing back to much tighter personal control of information, treatment of all data posted to any service as already in the public record, and a general acceptance that maybe we shared too much. Perhaps our concept of privacy will shift, but I doubt it will extend to letting corporations and governments mine the highlights and interstices of our life for every salient fact, which is where we are headed if people continue to use Facebook or similar services their entire life.
One thing I do think might change gradually is that we'll stop believing that pseudonyms on a forum or privacy controls on a sharing website can protect your identity in any meaningful way, and start accepting that anything posted anywhere can and will be traced back to us.
I think in aggregate the data over a span of 10 years would be much scarier than name,address tel no. etc. at a given point in time, however Spokeo is actually making this point anyway right now - they look like they're collecting exactly the sort of data I'm talking about, if you want to call it 'public records' that's fine - most people aren't thinking through the implications of leaving a public trail like this. Not all the data will be available for everyone, but when the data-mining becomes advanced enough, and if you've left a trail on social media, you're talking about possibilities like:
Your exact coordinates at say 20,000 points in the last 10 years (from pics or posts by you or others)
Your meetings with, relationships with, and messages to friends over that time (again posts by you or others)
Your activity at work/home, when you worked, when you didn't (again posts by you or others)
Your use of alcohol and other drugs (legal or not)
Your opinions on almost every topic (culled from various linked postings via your Facebook ID say)
Your membership of hundreds of websites (again culled from links to Twitter/FB logins say)
NB This doesn't just apply to Facebook but I think it will trigger real hesitations about opening up your data to them or similar sites when this sort of scandal first hits in a big way. It also applies in a smaller way even to forums like this.
Of course if someone can mine your email or your bank accounts (i.e. your gov), they'd hit a similar treasure trove of information, so the change with social media is that a lot of your activity is public or only semi-private (and therefore likely to become public), and innocuous in isolation, but possibly very useful/dangerous in aggregate if you and your friends post enough of it.
"Public records" means data generated by the government that are available to anyone. Drivers license registration, voter registration and participation, county auditor databases, arrest records, etc are all accessible to anyone (usually a nominal fee is involved, may also vary slightly by jurisdiction). People aren't "actively" creating these, it's a byproduct of government transparency and public oversight.
That's what I'd take it to mean too, but the parent mentioned spokeo, which made me unsure if they were redefining the term to include anything public as they appear to harvest data from social media too. Official records are for most people pretty static, more familiar and more predictable than social media, and thus less dangerous, at least imho.
If you mean G+, of course it's no different. If you mean email, typically only governments and courts can get access to that without hacking. I don't feel it's as insidious as daily public postings.
True, but most facebook friends rarely, if ever, merit an actual email. And when they do, unless they are also in gmail, it won't trigger as large a cascade of edges gaining weight in a massive social graph.
Facebook has privacy controls to pretend that they're hiding your data, but in the words of its founder, those who trust in them are 'dumb fks' - they are there to encourage more sharing, not less, and are constantly undermined by the company itself.
That data has not been exploited properly at all yet, but when the great data-mining scandal of 2021 hits, and people are regularly being denied services (insurance,travel,benefits,jobs) because of risky activities in their youth, or confronted with just how much anyone can find out about the last 30 years of their life with a trivial search, there will probably be a swing back to much tighter personal control of information, treatment of all data posted to any service as already in the public record, and a general acceptance that maybe we shared too much. Perhaps our concept of privacy will shift, but I doubt it will extend to letting corporations and governments mine the highlights and interstices of our life for every salient fact, which is where we are headed if people continue to use Facebook or similar services their entire life.
One thing I do think might change gradually is that we'll stop believing that pseudonyms on a forum or privacy controls on a sharing website can protect your identity in any meaningful way, and start accepting that anything posted anywhere can and will be traced back to us.