Security culture

This week I engaged in an activity that I rarely even think about - fighting on the internet.

Granted, I spend a fair amount of time reading over things online that make me very angry, and then spend even more time griping about them to my friends in "real life", but there are very few instances where I feel compelled to actually jump in and say my piece.

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine was criticized (on facebook, full disclosure) for having joined a group whose aim was to support those who had been arrested in relation to the fire bombing of an Ottawa RBC. This dude, who I've never had the pleasure of meeting in person, told my friend that she had been living in the North End too long, and kept making references to "hippies" and "terrorists".

I don't want to go into the gritty details, but the catalyst was that this dude had the nerve to say that the Olympics were ok because "BC Natives supported [them]". If there's one thing I wont keep quiet over, it's the god damned Olympic games, and there was no fucking way I was going to let his bullshit slide. Long story short, we battled back and forth until he ended up deleting everything he wrote. I don't know what that means. Either I won, or he was the more mature person and decided to back out. While I would totally respect someone who decided to pull out of a pointless online battle, something tells me the kind of person who would say something like "I hear you can get high from just the smell of the hippies they're burning in Toronto" is not the kind of person who would be like "This is silly, I'm not fighting anymore".

In any case, I didn't actually start writing this post to brag about potentially having won a facebook fight (woohoo), I actually started writing this post to talk about a seemingly unimportant detail in the above anectdote: my friend joined an online group to support those who had been arrested in relation to the fire bombing of an Ottawa RBC.

What the HECK, people?!

Yes! Absolutely, those people need support. They are facing extremely serious charges (like terrorism! seriously!), and even if they weren't, the judicial system is designed to crush human beings and destroy them from all angles at once. They need money, because legal representation is extremely expensive (sometimes I feel like fighting a court battle is akin to playing Warhammer, all the really kickass pieces are way too expensive for everyone to be able to afford.), and they need to know that there are people in the world who believe in them and their cause, but do they really need a fucking FACEBOOK group?

Does that guy I shared a couple of classes with in junior high, or that girl I worked with at the NDP call center, really need to know that I'm totally down with the fact that someone blew up a bank? No. It doesn't do ANYONE any good. Maybe it would give me a sense of self satisfaction, showing off how damn radical I am, but it's so not worth it.

I know that I'm an enormous hypocrite. I do plan to phase out my usage of facebook over the summer, but the fact is that I continue to use it, and engage with it enough that I friggin' fight with people on it regarding very important issues in my life. There are hundreds of photos of me on there, they've learned how to advertise to me, and there is just way too much personal information floating around.

I think the first time I seriously balked at mt friend's transparency on the internet(facebook) was when all of a sudden, people were anouncing to the world that they were "attending" an "event" called "Steal From Work Day". I shit you not, people felt the need to alert to all their friends, their family, and the random acquaintances that they felt too polite to deny false friendships to, that there was one particular day in April where they would steal from their jobs. Dude, the internet is not PRIVATE, and bragging to the internet about intended theft is fucking STUPID!

So here's the hypocrisy rearing it's head again, as here I am, exposing myself to the internet, but somehow Facebook just seems so much worse. I feel like here I can muse about things like firebombing and shoplifting and various sketchy topics, but I don't feel quite as bad about it since I'm not putting a big stamp saying "I'm going to fuck up my job by commiting a crime!" next to 400 pictures of my face, my hometown, and my relationship status.

Seriously, my dear friends, stop posturing on Facebook about your fucking revolutionary exploits, and just fucking do it already. Don't "attend" stealing from work on one specific day. If that's how you want to bring the total destroy, then just do it and keep damn quiet about it, because the more you let your bosses and your aunts and your aunt's bosses know the heaty shit you're in to, the more difficult you're going to make things for yourself and for others.

So please. Support arrestees, fuck the pigs, steal from work, etcetera etcetera, but keep social networking the heck out of it.

And DON'T talk to me about the Olympics, I'm burnt out.

(Also, please note that I'm really not as angry as I may sound. I'm actually in a super-good mood today, but I guess sometimes passion and anger get confused with eachother?)