Social media can only exist because people are willing to post information for free. It’s is a public surrender of information at every step, and that information becomes the raw material for social media companies can exchange for investment or advertising. It’s no wonder, then, that people who use social media are comfortable surrendering some privacy to it; it’s hard to imagine how it works without that. The net result of this is that, where the public and the crowd once offered some form of anonymity, people are happily or nonchalantly or begrudgingly trading that privacy away. It’s part of what makes the era of Big Data possible. It’d be nothing without people offering up tiny details of their lives. You can’t have Big Data without each of us becoming big data points…