Big Brother is Friending You

In "Facebook Aims to Extend its Reach across the Web," reporter Brad Stone explains how the company intends to use its Facebook Connect feature to highlight relevant content from companies such as "the Discovery Channel and The San Francisco Chronicle, the social news site Digg, the genealogy network Geni and the online video hub Hulu." Although the article does engage with economic advantages and privacy concerns, there is not much said about the rhetorical implications of this kind of linking of what many young people see as a communication program that hosts their main e-mail application to web content-providers. Facebook claims that it learned from its experiences with user revolt during the Beacon fiasco and actually consulted with groups involved in mobilizing resistance, such as MoveOn.org, before the launch of Facebook Connect.