Apparently this logo isn’t original enough to qualify for any kind of legal protection at all. Anyway, there’s a sobering piece about Facebook in the current New York Review of Books, just a few weeks after I reinstated myself on it. I have been glad to hear from relatives and acquaintances from a very long time ago (I don’t think I’d ever be in contact with friends on these icy, abstracted terms). But I can’t bring myself to say the same thing to all of them at once, unless it was about Facebook itself. On the whole, I’m finding it empty and sad. I think of deleting the account every time I look, even as I confirm new “friends”. Users themselves don’t seem to be giving it much thought, and the NYReview article concerned very large-scale algorithms rather than effects on individuals. But by being on Facebook, am I not giving the shape of a certain acquaintancship away, even without giving them political ammunition or financial details? I think that’s really mine, and should stay that way. Or is it? Because without the software, the shape would not be the same.
