Your Facebook Friends Are Watching You—Did We Just Move Closer to 1984?

George Orwell's novel 1984 begins with Winston Smith, the main character, seeing posters saying BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. In 2010, that could be replaced with FACEBOOK IS WATCHING YOU. Or rather, YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK ARE WATCHING YOU. You and your friends can now post where you are and share this information, if you so chose. Facebook showed off the power of this new location feature at a launch event this week with a giant projections of a U.S. map showing where people were checking just moments after Places launched. TechCrunch writer MG Siegler called it "Facebook's Awesome Dark Knight-Esque Live Check-In Display." But it was one of the scariest things I've seen.