With friends like those...

[j4]

One of the reasons that I don't bother making friends-only posts is that PEOPLE TALK TO EACH OTHER. I mean, in real life. Face-to-face. Realtime fully-interactive non-digitally-mediated 3D chat sessions. You know.

Sometimes people pass on gossip. But more often people just don't have a clue who can "see" a post and who can't, and they may well mention a post to a friend (a real friend, not a LiveJournal "friend") but only realise when they meet with blank incomprehension that that friend has been blocked from seeing the post in question.

It's interesting what gets around, though. It's interesting how complete a picture I can piece together of what's been said that I can't see, without even trying. I probably wouldn't bother trying; the content doesn't really interest me. But the information flow fascinates me; the unspoken assumptions (usually wrong) about who won't talk to whom. (I'd love to try to track the progression of a piece of news or information: to mention it in one place only and see how far it gets. The only problem would be how to determine where the information had got to: if you ask people "Did you know [whatever]?" you risk triggering false recognition.)

Personally I tend to take the view that if I say something anywhere, at all, it will escape eventually. Information wants to be free. If it's so horrible that I couldn't bear somebody to read it, then I probably shouldn't be writing it; if I write it, then as far as I'm concerned I have to be prepared to take the consequences of people seeing it.

Basically I don't like trying to solve social problems with technical solutions; if I wanted to try to control what other people said to each other, LiveJournal certainly wouldn't be the tool I'd use. I can't imagine wanting to do that, but some people are strange, eh?

Comments

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

If it's so horrible that I couldn't bear somebody to read it, then I probably shouldn't be writing it;

This is the central reason that's put me off keeping a personal journal. Other than the fact I tend not to want to talk to myself, if I write deeply personal things down, then someone will read them sooner or later. It's not a trust issue, because these things can happen by accident, or could be someone I don't know. As you say, it's just a fact.

I do make a lot of friends-only posts, simply to avoid potential trouble with an employer, and the occasional restricted post if it's something I'd say to a few people but not say out loud in the pub.

I am coming around to the view that livejournal is simply more hassle than it's worth, though. The negative consequences are starting to outweight the benefits.

[ottah.livejournal.com]

Everything on my journal is auto friends-list only because there are people in the world that don't know the whole picture about me, and I don't want them to, or to be confronted by them.
I use a couple of custom groups but I do point out who's in the group during the post - this is just coz sometimes I need to tell a few relevant people something, and the quickest way is via lj. I also know that said people will not go a-gossiping about such stuff.
Having read various people's views, I wonder if I should change how I should do this...although it could be boring for people to have to read a list of who else can read my post first...or I should stop posting if I don't want everyone to read it, maybe. Who knows?

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

I think the custom friend groups work for just letting a group of people know something, provided everyone's aware of the limitations of just reading a post.

I wonder if knowing who was in each friend-group would just make the whole "friend list" syndrome that much worse by people stressing about what they can see and not see.

Ah, sod it. Let's just carry on as before.

[ottah.livejournal.com]

It's not worth the hassle is it!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

When I make restricted posts it's generally because I'm uncomfortable with the idea of some person or people reading them; those people might just be "random people who don't know me" or they might be more specific. Of course it's possible that someone who can read it might pass it on to someone I'd rather they didn't, or mention something about it, but it's far from a certainty that anyone will do so; with a small and consciously selected audience it seems fairly reasonable to assume a certain amount of common sense and discretion.

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

There are several reasons I would make a post friends-only.

The first, and most important, is that I have a couple of custom friendds list and stuff that goes to them is just stuff that would not interest/has nothing to do with anyone outside those lists.

The second is stuff that I don't mind people in general knowing, but I'd rather not have as public knowledge. I don't care if that knowledge gets passed around, however. Also one of the reasons that I do not have my name connected to my journal, so that, for example, workplaces won't easily locate it. (Not that most people try, but working with techies means that sometimes someone finds those pictures of me wearing false breasts.)

The final reason is stuff that I just don't want located by bots and webcrawlers. Even though my journal is noted as being off-limits, I don't trust the web.