I’ve seen this before. The thing is, I think they deal with different KINDS of private information. The consequences, for instance, are one way of telling them apart — information spilled on facebook doesn’t have national consequences. But is the privacy of an individual any less important than the privacy (or personal secrets) of a nation? Also, an individual exercises full control over the information s/he wishes to give out. If you don’t want people to know anything at all about you, don’t join FB. Leaks doesn’t work quite like that, I think. I’m not taking sides here, obviously, all I’m saying is it’s not as simple as the strip makes it out to be.
Oh, I know.. This is black-and-white and the issue has tonnes of greys. The strip just pokes fun with a (perhaps skewed) perspective. It's for laughs. I've already written what I don't like about Assange. Sometimes transparency can do more damage than good. And Assange is forcing sometimes a high dose of it down nations' throats. While we do (or should) have control over out information, and as a service dealing with personal info, fb should provide that control, it doesn't. Personal info is sold to ad agencies. The 'normal' settings when one joins are tweaked so as to allow maximum (unwanted) sharing. And when Megha from Wardha town joins fb, she inadvertently opens her most personal stuff to loads of people because she assumes that settings won't be what they are. And you can't fault her for not having heard in on the privacy and control debate. I know I'm articulating this badly, but the assumed normals argument has been said much better by others. In a way, both are the same: WikiLeaks leaks stuff that governments don't want to get out. Facebook cheats users into sharing more than they would've in full awareness.
pontify 
I’ve seen this before. The thing is, I think they deal with different KINDS of private information. The consequences, for instance, are one way of telling them apart — information spilled on facebook doesn’t have national consequences. But is the privacy of an individual any less important than the privacy (or personal secrets) of a nation? Also, an individual exercises full control over the information s/he wishes to give out. If you don’t want people to know anything at all about you, don’t join FB. Leaks doesn’t work quite like that, I think. I’m not taking sides here, obviously, all I’m saying is it’s not as simple as the strip makes it out to be.
Oh, I know.. This is black-and-white and the issue has tonnes of greys. The strip just pokes fun with a (perhaps skewed) perspective. It's for laughs. I've already written what I don't like about Assange. Sometimes transparency can do more damage than good. And Assange is forcing sometimes a high dose of it down nations' throats. While we do (or should) have control over out information, and as a service dealing with personal info, fb should provide that control, it doesn't. Personal info is sold to ad agencies. The 'normal' settings when one joins are tweaked so as to allow maximum (unwanted) sharing. And when Megha from Wardha town joins fb, she inadvertently opens her most personal stuff to loads of people because she assumes that settings won't be what they are. And you can't fault her for not having heard in on the privacy and control debate. I know I'm articulating this badly, but the assumed normals argument has been said much better by others. In a way, both are the same: WikiLeaks leaks stuff that governments don't want to get out. Facebook cheats users into sharing more than they would've in full awareness.