Win Prizes in January, Just for Being a Friend

Thank you for being a friend.

Self Serve celebrates our 4 year anniversary in January, and we're thanking you with freebies, prizes and fun.  Become our facebook fan.  Between January 22 and 29, we're giving away prizes every day to our facebook friends.  "Like" the Self Serve page today, and win birthday presents next month.

Haven't seen Self Serve on facebook in awhile?  Our page temporarily disappeared a few months ago- so make sure you like the new and improved Self Serve page!  Join the conversation; there's never a dull moment!

Folks in New Mexico can find our class listings on facebook, too.  Save the date for our birthday celebration at Self Serve January 22nd.

Social Network -Disconnection or Interconnectedness?

I've posted before about feeling disconnected in a virtual world.  Do online connections and social networking help us feel more connected, or are we just turning into robots staring at flickering machines?

Several experiences brought new light to the question.  A Facebook connection brought me instantly closer to a distant friend, and two views of social networking and the digital age shed light on how we really can use technology for building relationships.

A recent connection via Facebook caught my attention.  A friend I'm not close to in everyday life wrote a post on a personal struggle she experienced and it touched me.  I reached out and we discussed intimate challenges in a way we never had before. 

I recognized if it weren't for timing, that connection wouldn't have been made.  Sure you may have 500 friends posting status updates everyday, but you don't see them all due to the timing of your connection with your friends online.  Could there be some serendipity to whose updates you see?    In a world where we can feel isolated, we can seize these digital connections and help real relationships grow.

A recent NY Times piece highlights that perhaps Facebook isn't so foreign from our day-to-day friendships after all.  While we can have 500 or 1000 friends on Facebook, Robin Dunbar points out the average is still close to 150.  It may be an illusion that we have more, superficial friendships and connections in a digital world, when in fact tools like Facebook merely connect us better with existing friends and communities.

The film Connected is featured at Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and looks to speak to these issues in a new way.  Filmmaker Tiffany Shlain points out we can acknowledge the world's interconnectedness, declare our interdependence and use our world of technology for good.  Connected also seeks to engage viewers and use the film for positive social impact.  Instead of viewing everyday life and digital interactions as juxtaposed or foreign from one another, the project invites us to use technology to deepen our connections.

Censorship Week: When it's up to Facebook, who gets a voice?

Yesterday, Facebook decided to shut down yet another progressive group's page. A page promoting a gay kiss in for the Pope's visit to Spain was removed. Sorry, Pope.

After some brief meta-research, I have created a list of groups Facebook censors. Don't be surprised if your pages and causes are removed with no warning. Especially if you are:

• Palestinian
• supportive of freeing a peace negotiator
  
• pro-porn feminists
• anti-muslim bloggers
  
• anti-homophobia artists
  
• anti-labiaplasty and pro-vulva
• saying Facebook sucks
• union activists
• BP boycott supporters
• artists representing the nude body
  
• mentioning Facebook competitors Myspace or Friendster
  

And that list is just from a few searches.

Should we feel better if Facebook seems to use equal-opportunity censorship across the board? Of course I enjoy the irony of joining the National Coalition to Fight Censorship on Facebook. And don't forget to check out Self Serve on Facebook, too!

I am Woman. Hear Me Get Censored!

Thank you, Brianna Stallings for posting this blog about the exhausting nitty-gritty of facebook censorship. It's hard to roar (with a community of 1300 fans) when they delete our Self Serve fan page.

The Censorship of Sex Positive Facebook Gets Attention

I am proud and pleasantly surprised at the growing attention on Facebook's unfair censorship. The Self Serve page was disabled, Violet Blue's Our Porn, Ourselves Page was disabled, and now folks are talking about it on Jezebel, Carnal Nation and even in Psychology Today's blog.

I was just thinking how Matie and I didn't mean to raise this issue. People use facebook everyday to discuss life, relationships, culture and share it with their friends and communities. That includes talking about soccer, politics, music and yes -- sex. The freedom to do so, even on privately owned Facebook, is critical. Paying attention to who gets shut down and who doesn't is key.

When will images of the bodies we all have not be considered obscene?