Facebook has personally helped me and my family in situations where the law has been too slow, and I really think that most social problems CAN be solved by putting all data out there. Transparency begets Justice in every situation. However, there are two problems (at least) that deserve some attention. 1. Centralization of control 2. Privacy related issues By Centralization I mean the fact that the data is not truly free at this point as we have Facebook in the middle. But be confident that this will solve itself as people come to understand the intrinsic capital in their data, which is theirs to share in the first place. The first big Facebook contender will be a decentralized SN where people retain rights over all their information and they control what they share. This is coming from the Linked Data side of things via Certificates and fractal webs of trust. See: this article (http://bit.ly/1kuuMw) and podcast by Kingsley Idehen & Jon Udell. (Disclaimer: Kingsley is a good friend of mine and I totally think he rocks ;). Now, the second issue is privacy. People ask themselves the following question: will my leaked personal data bite me back at work? Socially? in my relationship? etc. On this front, you should also be relieved because if a problem affects everyone, then it is no longer a problem. We'll either solve it collectively, or adjust our social parameters. For instance. I used to be worried about the crossing of info between work life and personal life. I now use it proactively as a tool. Of course, it fails every now and then ( drunk pic, etc ), but since it is happening more and more often to more and more people, it becomes more of a funny anecdote than a real problem. Remember, we're one big happy family torn apart by power thirsty, narcissistic sociopaths over the years. Their chances of success are growing dimmer and dimmer. ( Anthropologically speaking, this redefinition of society already happened once before when we learned to talk and team up against abuse ). So, keep it up Facebook. You won't get it right, but you'll sure make a dent in history ;) - Aldo Bucchi from FriendFeed MT Plugin