The guards in the tower…
Google wants to kill anonymity. So does Facebook. Their business models depend on it. They want to kill anonymity more than privacy, but if they continue to kill privacy context, people will continue to be up in arms.
[From A Latter Day Panopticon? *or* Is Google trying to kill privacy? at Brian Conley's News & Notes]
Exactly.
An anecdote:
I have a friend who is more interested in being a spectator on the Internet than a participant. He and I talk at length about Twitter, Facebook, etc and I’ve worked with him on projects involving social media in the past. He has never held an account however.
This friend told me the other day he signed up for Twitter, but wanted to see if he could remain just a spectator, not participant. Hidden and not in the fray.
It took me seven days to find him on Twitter. 0 followers, 0 tweets, 0 following.
It is the panopticon, and the guards are watching.