In The Beginning

In the beginning there was Facebook. Facebook divided the heavens from the earth, the skies from the firmament, the water from the land. Facebook looked around itself and declared itself Good.

Then there came creatures from every corner of Chaos (because, as it is written, if you build it they will come). And Facebook rejoiced, because where the creatures were, there followed advertising dollars.

But time passed, and Facebook began to wonder at itself. And, wondering, Facebook became arbitrary. And having become arbitrary, Facebook became angry. "The Facebook thy Facebook is an angry Facebook," it declared, and it began to send plagues of boils and locusts down on the people. And therein was the beginning of the end.

Which is a way of saying: I have for the past several months been using my Facebook account as a means of creating--both for myself and for others--a node of conscience in the strict sense of the word: shared knowledge. One of the means I have used has been the posting of many links--all to a variety of points of information available to anyone in cyberspace. In short, my Facebook account has been among other things an aggregator, which I have used for my own ends but also for the use of others, and many others have communicated to me that they both enjoyed and benefited from the nature and the range of the content I was posting.

Today, however, I opened my Facebook page and found the following note:

Please Read This!

Warning! Your account could be disabled.

Your use of our Share feature indicates that you may be in violation of Facebook's Terms of Use. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in your account being disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page.

Given the nature and tone of this "warning"--which does not say that I have actually violated any rule, but that I might have done so, and that continuing to do so (rather in the vein of beating your significant other, which you might not be doing, but when did you stop doing it exactly?) could result in actual banishment.

As a consequence, I have decided to move the bulk of my activities to a blog, where I am not subject to the whims of Facebook moderation.

Hence, the problematical breach birth of mine own private Mindbook--my own, but anyone else's as well. Welcome participants (if any): anyone may enter here, without abandoning any hope whatsoever.