The New New New New New Facebook

[SSOWorld]

With all of the changes that are being made on Facebook - the latest being (unless another surprise has been introduced) making some personal information automatically link to and create pages.  I see all the "XXDOT has a Facebook page" in the regional threads and I'm suspicious.  When I spotted the Penn Turnpike page - it had (as almost all pages automatically created through personal info) a copy of the Wikipedia article on it. - at that time (3 days before this post), it only had one user who liked it - and no, it was not our very own PAHighways.

I'm growing concerned about this - and have dumped all my "likes and interests" as well as my Work info from my profile - That may be just the start.  I set all my profile privacy settings to Only Friends (except sending a message or adding as a friend) because even though I may have the public search option off - I believe search engines can still phish info from it.  The Founder's philosophy also bothers me.  He believes that everything on Facebook is automatically public.  Hence this is why I use Flickr and YouTube instead of Facebook to publish photos and videos, respectively.  I've also been rarely posting status updates - particularly to protect my professional interests.  I also will never, EVER, post a pic of myself on FB anymore.  They want something representing me? Ok, my cat will stand in for me. I also encourage those I know to tighten their privacy.  I've been helping my dad tighten his for example.

What's your view of how Facebook operates?  Do you have an account? 

NOTE: You don't have to spill the details if you don't want to.  I respect your judgment on the matter and I won't make fan pages from it

[shoptb1]

You're not the only person concerned about this.  However, if one is somewhat application-saavy, Facebook does allow you to customize most everything about your account from a privacy standpoint...you just have to go in and change the defaults.  The defaults, however, are the thing that is concerning to many folks, and has sparked the attention of US lawmakers.  In an effort to head off Congressional investigation into their privacy practices, Facebook is launching a simplification of privacy controls today:

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/25/facebook-to-simplify-privacy-controls-wednesday/?hpt=T2

I do feel that there will be some backlash from all of this social networking phenomena...something I like to call 'Over share'.  I personally really enjoy keeping up with people on Facebook, but I will admit that it leaves something to be desired.  That something is sacred peace and quiet, and as we all start to feel more and more connected, I think that many of us will be looking for more ways to ~unplug~ from the grid.

[SSOWorld]

I agree - the defaults they give you follows the founder's philosophy - everyone gets to see it.

[US71]

With all of the changes that are being made on Facebook - the latest being (unless another surprise has been introduced) making some personal information automatically link to and create pages.  I see all the "XXDOT has a Facebook page" in the regional threads and I'm suspicious.  When I spotted the Penn Turnpike page - it had (as almost all pages automatically created through personal info) a copy of the Wikipedia article on it. - at that time (3 days before this post), it only had one user who liked it - and no, it was not our very own PAHighways.

I noticed that with AHTD as well. Plus "Related Posts" that had almost nothing to do with AHTD. I "liked" it, but have since un-liked it. Maybe if they post some real content I'll go back.

I don't like FB's privacy policy of "it's public because we say it is". There are a few pics of me, but I usually post something else like a bridge or South Park icon. I've got public search off, but who knows?

I've got a couple specialized pages up. If I didn't, I'd be more inclined to leave Facebook.

[vdeane]

I don't have a Facebook.  In the past I've toyed with the idea of getting one (but never seriously).  In the wake of Facebook's current twitter envy, I don't think I'll ever have one.  No idea of what I'd do with one anyways.

This has led to the ironic situation that my Mom has a facebook page and I don't.

[agentsteel53]

I've always thought facebook was pretty stupid, going back to when you needed a certified ".edu" email account to join.

[oscar]

I've long been suspicious about Facebook's ever-shifting privacy policies.  I just don't trust it at all, and have declined all invitations to join.

Besides, I have my own websites, which let me put out for public view exactly what I want, and nothing more.  But I can see Facebook being a tempting option for people without personal websites, who still want a presence on the Web.

[J N Winkler]

I have a Facebook account.  I am personally not too bothered about "privacy creep" on Facebook because I believe restraint in disclosure has to begin at my own mouth.  I tend to be less worried about privacy issues than about dealing with people I know who are Facebook friends but are not really friends for confiding in.  I have never actually "defriended" anyone on Facebook but I have blocked one person's Facebook posts because she tends to be really frank about health and family problems and I prefer to look at her posts separately, on an occasional basis, without having them mixed up with other posts in my news feed.  I have also blocked the feeds of three others because their wall posts irritate me.

I wouldn't want to minimize the privacy issue, but I tend to think most of the problems are self-limiting because Facebook doesn't really have the ability to "lock in" users to its platform.  The problems tend to be most serious for those who have made a huge prior commitment to Facebook by giving it a significant volume of data--friend lists, wall posts, pictures, etc.--for free.  People like me who have under 100 Facebook friends, make wall posts perhaps just once every two weeks on average, and rarely visit Facebook more than once a day have relatively little to worry about.

[rawmustard]

Supposedly Facebook's set to introduce "simpler" privacy options some time this week, maybe even as early as today (ETA: yep, they have an event scheduled at 10:30 PT). Of course, they're not being very forthright about what simpler means, which is why there's such a backlash against them. Although I am concerned about their practices, it obviously hasn't bothered me to the point where I'll permanently delete my profile. Much of society today doesn't take privacy as seriously as they used to do. I'm amazed at the number of people who have made private residences venues on Foursquare and then have their check-ins forwarded to a public Twitter stream. (As a Foursquare user, I absolutely will not check-in to my or anyone else's private residence.) When Facebook rolls out its location service, when taken into account with the privacy settings flub, I have no doubt people will unwittingly make a location public that they more than likely didn't want to be known to the rest of the world.

I am sort of baffled as to why Facebook found it necessary to create pages from interests, even from generic items. It seemed not that long ago FB wanted to put the kibosh on generic pages. Obviously it gave up on such a daunting task. Much too often, there ends up being duplicate pages for a lot of organizations (the P-A Turnpike just one of many examples), and FB's making pages out of interests exacerbates this problem.

[huskeroadgeek]

I've never been concerned about privacy issues with Facebook, because I don't have anything on Facebook I would consider of a real private nature. I don't post very often-about once every couple of weeks, sometimes more often, sometimes less often and I don't confide anything real private. I don't tell people about what I am having for dinner or what I am doing at any particular moment, because frankly I don't think most people care about that stuff. I don't have a whole lot of pictures-mostly just pictures from family gatherings that I have been tagged in. I don't care if people see what pages I "like"(I still don't know why they changed to "liking" a page rather than "being a fan of") because anybody who knows me shouldn't be surprised at the kind of stuff I am interested in. I guess I really don't understand the extra concern some people have about privacy when you control what you put on your page in the first place. It also seems to me that those that should be the most concerned about privacy usually aren't-teenagers who post updates constantly talking about everything they do and every thought they have and post many pictures of themselves, including some that later on they will probably regret having posted.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

After posting on MTR, having my own website for 10 years, and posting on message boards (such as this), I don't have much left to hide from anyone, be it friend, foe, family, or gov't.  I can ignore ads.  Groups or interests, well shoot don't you want to be with likeminded individuals? That's why advertising is catered towards those sympathitical to their interests/ideals.
Unless you really have something to hide, this national belief that someone is out to get us (indivudually) is bordering on ludacris.

I should add, that my main complaint with Facebook is they keep changing stuff every 30 days or so.  Just stick with something for 365 days.  80% of the site isn't broken and doesn't need tinkering (which leads to more problems as we've seen).

[corco]

My view is that facebook is a free corporate service and in order to use a private-sector service for free, there's going to be strings attached that one may not like. If one doesn't like it, they shouldn't use it. I don't post anything on there I envision regretting later, and I have privacy turned up so that non-friends (and some friends like family who don't need to see pictures of me chugging boxed wine in my early college days) can't see things I don't want them to see.

That said, I'm not paying any money to use facebook, so I see that as their right to do whatever they want. They've never done anything really dirty- when they revise privacy controls they leave your old ones in place and say "Hey, we've changed privacy controls- go check it out "

There's things I don't like about facebook, but facebook doesn't and never has cost me money, so it's not my right to complain.

[J N Winkler]

My view is that facebook is a free corporate service and in order to use a private-sector service for free, there's going to be strings attached that one may not like. If one doesn't like it, they shouldn't use it. I don't post anything on there I envision regretting later, and I have privacy turned up so that non-friends (and some friends like family who don't need to see pictures of me chugging boxed wine in my early college days) can't see things I don't want them to see.

Part of the problem is that by changing the structure and defaults of the privacy settings on a frequent basis, Facebook is making it difficult for people to maintain levels of privacy they have already established.  This amounts to unilateral renegotiation of the implied contract you have with Facebook as a Facebook user.

That said, I'm not paying any money to use facebook, so I see that as their right to do whatever they want. They've never done anything really dirty- when they revise privacy controls they leave your old ones in place and say "Hey, we've changed privacy controls- go check it out "

Yes, usually through a floating window which appears when you are in a hurry and trying to get done with Facebook before you have to move on to other things.  If they were really interested in making you an informed customer, instead of exploiting customer inertia, why don't they send you an email so the message sits in your inbox as a reminder?

There's things I don't like about facebook, but facebook doesn't and never has cost me money, so it's not my right to complain.

But you are already giving Facebook valuable consideration by giving it access to your personal data, which it can then turn around and use to sell advertising.

Notwithstanding Facebook being free at the point of use, the problem of Facebook's shifting privacy defaults is really an instance of the general problem of unequal contracts.  You are only you; Facebook is a large organization.  When Facebook changes its privacy defaults, it does so unilaterally, without consulting you.  To the extent that the combination of changes in defaults and customer inertia results in more information being public, and therefore available to advertisers, Facebook's revenues increase, but you get no participation in that, and you are stuck with the cost of reviewing your Facebook settings to ensure that information you want private is still private.

This is not to say that oversight and regulation of Facebook is necessarily a better or more socially useful remedy than just walking away, but the concerns about privacy are not without foundation.

[bugo]

Somebody needs to come out with a social networking site that does not sell data, does not change things willy-nilly, and doesn't constantly change the privacy policy.  I do believe Facebook will go the way of Myspace.  Something will come along and replace it, and I hope the company that runs it is more ethical than the Facebook owners.

[agentsteel53]

Something will come along and replace it, and I hope the company that runs it is more ethical than the Facebook owners.

here's hoping it's less colossally dumb.  I will have to admit, facebook is less over-the-top stupid than Myspace.  Though it's still filled with people who "sPe1L lYk3 T1Hz", the general site design guidelines allow for far less obnoxious blinking HTML.

[vdeane]

Here's a good blog post on the subject of Facebook: http://steve.grc.com/2010/05/24/facebook-and-the-ford-pinto/

[J N Winkler]

The comments section is interesting too.  Some of the commenters realize that the blogger's assumption of profit maximization is oversimple, and are dancing around the general theory of the firm like blind men trying to describe an elephant.

[agentsteel53]

dark red background with black text?  is that just my browser rendering the page poorly?  I refuse to believe Steve Gibson is that poor at webdesign; the rest of his sites are reasonably well-made, and show an awareness of CSS.

[algorerhythms]

dark red background with black text?  is that just my browser rendering the page poorly?  I refuse to believe Steve Gibson is that poor at webdesign; the rest of his sites are reasonably well-made, and show an awareness of CSS.

Your browser must be rendering the page poorly. It shows up as white background with black text on mine.

[agentsteel53]

Your browser must be rendering the page poorly. It shows up as white background with black text on mine.

must be parsing the CSS incorrectly, as the fonts are not customized either, implying that those styles are not read.  I'm on ffox 3.6.3

[mightyace]

Unless you really have something to hide, this national belief that someone is out to get us (indivudually) is bordering on ludacris.

I agree.  My concern is more with being a "target of opportunity" rather than anyone targeting me specifically.

I have a facebook page, but I've never done much with it.  Don't care to spend the time.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

It doesn't bother me because I simply don't post anything on there I wouldn't want the whole world knowing about.

My current profile pic is a picture of my car & I've got "tagged photos" (those tagged by your friends) turned completely off (i.e. visible to me only.) so the only photos visible to friends only on my profile are those I posted myself.

It's not that hard to keep people from knowing everything - and when in doubt, just don't post it if you wouldn't want anyone knowing it.