A lot of great points here, but let me offer a couple of quick responses:

You say:
“I hope I’m not misrepresenting the heart of our conversation by suggesting that while I am trying to suggest that folks work for greater control over their online identity and presence, you are stressing the ways in which the conditions of possibility of such control is (always?) governed by ‘protocol.'”

This is a perfect description of our disagreement. Or, better, it’s a perfect description of where my focus differs from yours.

You close with this:
“to remove protocol entirely from the realm of agency seems to fetishize it.”

I need to respond to this part because it’s the only point at which I think you’re not representing my argument fairly. I am not removing protocol from the realm of agency – I am trying to account for the agency of protocol. Agency can be both human and nonhuman, and software/protocol exerts agency. And this is the crux of the problem for me when it comes to the Facebook flare up. People are not always realizing that human agency is but one factor in a complex matrix.

Clearly, given the frequency with which I am finding people refer to Galloway’s Protocol, I should find time to have a look myself. That said, I hope I’m not misrepresenting the heart of our conversation by suggesting that while I am trying to suggest that folks work for greater control over their online identity and presence, you are stressing the ways in which the conditions of possibility of such control is (always?) governed by “protocol.”

I wonder if the binarism between protocol and its others (the speed bump and the speed limit), though, is too absolute. There is a lot of space in between having no control (say,a corporation deciding by fiat that everything I contributed to a social network, when access was limited, should suddenly be public) and having absolute control (only what I want, when I want, forever and always). And I think the extreme suggestion that one must act as if anything could be public is fundamentally unreasonable. Email has established a reasonable expectation of privacy (even for folks who don’t feel like breaking out their PGP key for every message); if someone publishes your email against your wishes, your problem is not with email, but with that individual. Remove any notion of control or privacy from email and, like the idea of theft viewed from the perspective of the categorical imperative, email itself evaporates as an incoherent idea. (What is an email written as if everyone could see it? A blog post? Whatever it is, it isn’t email anymore.)

When people complain about Facebook, I take them to be similarly complaining about a sort of violated contract. It is a (perhaps naive) social contract (rather than the EULA, say). And obviously it isn’t legally binding. But to say Facebook as a “network works on the principle of easily flowing information” doesn’t even acknowledge what the complaint is. (It is also not entirely fair; Facebook built up its user base precisely by being a segregated, controlled, part of the internet where information flowed at least a little less easily).

There is probably more to say here; but my basic point is that there is a wide spectrum of expectations of how, and by whom, data should be controlled. And I don’t think that there is anything about the internet that would necessarily and absolutely preclude individuals having a greater degree of control over their online existences (even if Facebook is almost certainly not such an service). (Coincidentaly, Dave Winer mentioned an apposite project on his blog today; a protocol to give individuals greater control over their own data).

I’ll close by turning to your own final comment which I take as indicative of our disagreement. I’ve heard the line about “conservative about what you provide,
liberal in what you accept” before (which wikipedia informs me is sometimes called “Postel’s law”); but always as a principle of software design and development—never as a piece of social advice. To rely on such a law to govern how we interact with one another would be a unfortunate fate indeed. From my perspective, it seems just as important for individuals to find ways to establish and respect social norms within technology, as to force their social behavior to conform to software design principles. And, indeed, to remove protocol entirely from the realm of agency seems to fetishize it.

(At the risk of ending on a non-sequitur, you have a great design for this blog; very nice. Cheers!)

Perhaps I should have been a bit more precise. Your question – shouldn’t we try to change it? – is a good one. However, I think one of the mistakes people are making is that they’re not asking this question in a way that takes into account what is possible. Alexander Galloway (who, as you can see, I’m drawing on a lot in this discussion) explains the difference between “protocol” and simple rules or guidelines by comparing speed bumps to speed limit signs. The former compels people to slow down. In fact, it makes them want to slow down. This is the realm of protocol. It’s not about persuading people to go slower. Speed limit signs, on the other hand, are less about protocol and much more about creating a layer of rules on top of protocol. In this situation, the protocol is smooth roads where people can drive as fast as they want. The signs might have some success (particularly if there’s some kind of speed trap), but it won’t have the same affect as a change in protocol.

When people argue that Facebook should treat data differently, their hoping that speed limit signs will change things instead of thinking about how protocol works (and the Web is based on a model of smooth roads). And the biggest problem is that most people signed on to this world of protocol without understanding much about it to begin with. Facebook has slimy policies, yes. And people can try to persuade them to change it (or, they can leave). But the bottom line is that the network works on the principle of easily flowing information, Facebook is capitalizing on this (as are a whole lot of other companies, Google being the biggest player).

With regard to President Obama’s email/Blackberry policy: I think this might be a place where we just flat disagree. The Web is built upon the principle of being conservative in what you provide and liberal in what you accept from others. The first part of this statement is important, whether or not you are famous. And until people stop buying into the fiction that information posted online can be “private,” they’re going to continue to misunderstand how “their” data (again, it is NOT theirs once it enters the network) is going to circulate into various rhetorical contexts.

For presidential candidates perhaps the strategy of writing every email as though it were going to be published in the New York Times is prudent. But it is hardly a standard to which we all need hew; and it is certainly not a policy we would will into existence. Trying to imagine a social work which would empower its users rather than simply commoditize them seems to be a preferable solution to simply accepting that no such solution can exist.

I’ve heard some folks propose government regulation. I’d like to imagine that isn’t necessary. I mean, if we were to ask what a hacker would do, why wouldn’t she build such a solution?