A Closer Look at Facebook's New Privacy Options
Chances are you wouldn't tell grandma about the wild party you went to last Saturday night. Likewise, you might have spent Sunday evening at home knittin' a mitten and only feel secure enough in your manhood to share pictures of your fiber craft with family. While real life communication lets us share different things with different people, online social networking has tended to have two modes: public or private.
Last week, Facebook announced a move to support a much more sophisticated understanding of privacy that's more like what real people have in real life. It's a major shift in how Facebook works. We think the initial reporting on the news missed the point (ours certainly did) and the new privacy features are poorly implemented so far - but the changes being made on Facebook are important.
When Facebook announced last week that users will now have a new set of privacy options for sharing content, we got the story wrong. We thought everyone's shared items were going to be changed to public by default, but Facebook HQ emailed to tell us that only people with public profiles would see that happen. Those are the only people to see the new interface so far. Users whose privacy settings are set to friends only will maintain that as their default setting in the future, the company says.
We think most other reports on the news missed a key point, too, though. Everyone focused on the new option for shared messages to be publicly visible outside the constraints of a Facebook user's friends network - people called it a shot at the wide open paradigm of Twitter. In fact, the biggest change may be that sharing options are becoming much more granular - more human.
A Different Understanding of Privacy
How can anything shared on the internet be considered private? University of Massachusetts-Amherst Legal Studies student Chris Peterson tackles the contemporary reality of privacy on Facebook in a very readable new draft thesis paper titled Saving Face: The Privacy Architecture of Facebook (PDF).
Peterson argues that the idea that anything published ought to be understood as intended for public distribution is an antiquated understanding from the era when publishing was expensive and required a lot of effort. The opposite is true today. Likewise, Peterson argues that the dominant legal framework today "recognizes as private only that which is completely secret."
Instead, Peterson says that a more appropriate understanding of privacy today is based on context. We expect our communication to go on in an appropriate context (no drinking in church or praying in the bar) and we expect to understand how our communication will be distributed. If a college friend took photos of you drinking in a bar and showed them off to people in church, you might feel your privacy has been violated in both appropriateness and distribution. The bar is a public place, though, and not completely secret. Thus the need for a more sophisticated understanding of privacy that is more than mere secrecy.
Privacy on Facebook
Facebook to date has not supported such a sophisticated understanding. It has prided itself in talking about privacy and limiting visibility of user messages to a user's friends. Are all your friends in one big bucket, though, in real life? Now that grandma, the boss, younger siblings, clergy, cops, creeps and others are all on Facebook - the only safe way to communicate in this all-or-nothing privacy environment is to be very bland and only share things that will be appropriate for everyone.
"...the privacy architecture of Facebook destroys contextual integrity, because almost every aspect of its design directly conflicts with norms of distribution." Peterson writes. "The way information flows through Facebook is nothing at all like the way information flows through the corporeal world. It is an 'environment that is fundamentally unnatural, in conflict with the one we evolved to live in.' This tension between individual and environment causes the most common privacy problems experienced by members of Facebook...Facebook is a 'system that communicates everything to everyone at the same time' and in the same space."
Now: The New Privacy on Facebook
Perhaps no longer! The new Facebook publishing feature lets users share things with just a particular list of their friends. (Or with the public at large if they so choose.) The contexts are un-collapsed. Communication is human again. That's a very big deal and is the kind of change that could make far more people comfortable sharing far more information about their lives on Facebook. It's also a feature that no major competitor (namely Twitter) offers.
Facebook may be solving one of the biggest problems in social networking - the unnaturally uncontrollable nature of communication. This new feature is clearly still in its infancy; even users who are able to control who sees their messages can't control visibility of other actions, like joining groups. Mobile clients remain dumb "all or nothing" publishing tools when it comes to privacy.
We still stand behind what we have said in our previous coverage of Facebook and privacy - that the walled-garden approach of the site represents a huge loss of opportunity in innovation in tracking public sentiment and data mining. Looking elsewhere for now, though, it's very interesting to note positive developments towards a more sophisticated privacy policy.
Once this feature is rolled out to all Facebook users, we expect that group creation and curation will become more common activities and we also expect that net effect on public messaging will be a big increase. There may be something in it for everyone, privacy minded people, people who want to discuss things in appropriate contexts and conversation scientists wanting more public messaging to analyze.
Too Bad It's So Confusing
Unfortunately, it's very difficult to manage the new privacy settings as they are currently constituted. Several members of our staff struggled to make changes to message-specific and default privacy settings really stick. The feature is confusing if not outright broken. A lot of messages intended for limited distribution are going to be sent out wider than the author intended. That's not good.
Ultimately some more clarity around just what Facebook wants to do with privacy would be really helpful. The company tends to talk in very simple terms to its users but has recently hired professional lobbyists in both the US and Europe to advance its privacy agenda. But what is that agenda?
From the UK Guardian last week:
According to Chris Kelly, the Californian web company's chief privacy officer, the five-year-old startup has been engaging in talks with government officials in various countries for some time, but its growing size and importance means it is essential they "understand our philosophy".He said: "There is a concern we've had for some time that - in a well-meaning attempt to protect consumers - legislators or regulators would end up passing laws that would keep people from the beneficial sharing of information."
We emailed Facebook last week to ask "what is that philosophy?" and the usually responsive communications team there has sent no reply. Update:
Facebook has replied and we'll be interviewing Chris Kelly as soon as possible in our ongoing coverage of these issues. The company's privacy policy is readily available but that doesn't speak to some of the most important nuances when it comes to a new form of communication for hundreds of millions of people.
This newest change in the privacy options for sharing content on Facebook represents a major change to the nature of communicating on the site. If it's implemented well it could make a dramatic difference in the way people use the site. Given the change underway and the company's move to lobby governments around the world in favor of its privacy philosophy, we think it would be a good idea to have a more thorough public conversation about what that philosophy is.
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I agree. I'm a bit concerned with the recent changes (it pretty much kills the last reason I was using Facebook, the closed network). If this is not handled properly, it could lead to the first user revolt where folks actually leave the service (you know, instead of just creating a protest group or fan page.)
Marshall:
So if I'm understanding this correctly--and when the privacy settings are actually working properly--I'll be able to share some status updates and items with "everyone," others with just family, others with just those specific lists of contacts I've created. This is good.
Last month at Social Media Breakfast San Diego I led a discussion about how Facebook has been changing our conversational relationships, disrupting those barriers (either hard or soft) that we've traditionally built between different circles in our non-online lives: family, church group, college pals, etc. This more nuanced approach to privacy that Facebook is enabling should help reverse at least some of that.
Enjoying your coverage of this story.
Bryan | @BryanPerson
Marshall,
Thanks for gleaning some important points from Chris' draft thesis. I started it last week and was pulled away before I could finish it. I will definitely go back and finish it now.
Besides having a conversation about the privacy philosophy, we should also be conversing about how the changes are being received by users as they are using them. Perhaps an open conversation about the private features could prevent a mass user revolt as @Brandon suggests.
Sara @ iGoMogul
Marshall, thanks for the follow-up on the new Facebook changes. What I'm still struggling with is this: Say I send a status update just to a particular friend list I've created. Those people can comment on it. What if they have their defaults set to public? Will that then expose the whole conversation thread to a wider audience than I originally targeted?
Interesting post. Where's the "everyone" option in the dialog?
I think most of these options are far more complicated than the typical Facebook user can understand and effectively utilize. So, the likelyhood is information they expect to be private, won't be. That is going to create issues for many people considering what is already been put into FB with privacy in mind.
I think there should be two levels of users. The basic being totally private for the typical consumer user and another with more complex options for those who want more control and are typically a commercial user.
I think it would be responsible of you to post an edit or addendum to your original NYtimes article if possible because people are really whipped up into a frenzy over this right now and it's based on your false misinterpretation of that developer's blog post.
Tom, we did publish a big update on that story.
http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/06/24/24readwriteweb-the-day-facebook-changed-messages-to-become-18772.html?em
I'm talking about that article at that link. It hasn't been updated. The title says "The Day Facebook Changed: Messages to Become Public by Default" which is completely wrong and misleading. Shouldn't their be a note at the top of that article saying that new info has come to light and link ppl to your new article here?
I'm not a huge fan of facebook, but don't you think as a journalist that you have a responsibility to correct obviously wrong info that's been published?
I also think if the integrity of the users arent protected, users for the first time may actually get out of facebook completely ( although there is no alternative and any active social member will find it impossible to create an equivalent base in any other platform).
Regards,
Matt
softlaser ORG.
Second Tom's comment above. I've received three links to the NY Times version of the article in past two days (well past its publication date); the rumor that Facebook is completely junking privacy seems to be on the brink of going viral. I read the original version here, complete with the clarifying updates, so I really didn't pay much attention, thinking that people were just being dumb and not reading beyond the hyperventilating "The Day Facebook Changed" headline - but the NY Times version of the article is the original version, and therefore VERY confusing, borderline misleading.
Having that link stay out there is bad news, IMO. I don't know if that's on ReadWriteWeb or on the Times, but it's gotta get fixed.
Tom and Chuck, we are working on it. Thanks.
"We think most other reports on the news missed a key point, too, though. Everyone focused on the new option for shared messages to be publicly visible outside the constraints of a Facebook user's friends network - people called it a shot at the wide open paradigm of Twitter. In fact, the biggest change may be that sharing options are becoming much more granular - more human."
Posted by: Eric Johnson
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June 30, 2009 10:44 AM
I don't understand what the big fuss is all about. Why would you use a social networking site if you didn't want the information to be known about you? Or, why would make information available you didn't want someone to see? To me, there is a larger societal issue of insecurity and dishonesty that underlies the needs of this "granular" privacy solutions. There's nothing that says that the internet or any technology that uses has to be representative of "the world we evolved to live in". If you're so worried about that world, rid yourself of the internet, then.
I would hope that the free distribution of information should make people think twice about some of their actions. Again, I think that's something our society needs. We need to be able to receive opinions from various sources. There are many bits of information that I share which are considerably controversial, but that doesn't stop me. Sometimes I'm met with disapproval, but that's the price you pay for the right to freedom of speech/press. I've got nothing to hide. Why do you?
As the old addage goes:
"Becareful what thy preaches"
I agree with Chuck and Tom. You need to change that link to have the update. It's circulating fast on Facebook. I found this article only because I followed the link to Facebook's version and then read into the comments for a while.
I was on Facebook last night watching over a few private profiles and there was a brief period when peoples photos, a couple of apps down the left side, all the groups they were in (which is not a good look judging by the titles of some of these groups, let's face it) and the pages they were a fan of were indeed suddenly visible. Everything seems to be back to normal now though. Facebooks up th something?? We may not be out of the woods yet.
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This sort of confuses me. Just what like Connie Reece mentioned, what if my friends(who I sent messages to - in private) have a public account? Do their facebook friends get to see it too? What's the use of the privacy setting then, if it is flawed anyway?
Great New Social network..
dear European friends, you might like this post about Facebook and privacy http://bit.ly/QB7Ik. also, good morning. [from http://twitter.com/marshallk/statuses/2400954671]
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick
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July 16, 2009 9:45 AM
Ugh, between Facebook's random changes to their privacy policy and the misreporting and misrepresentation of them, I feel like I need an instructor to tutor me on the latest and greatest nuances of my favorite social networking site.
we should also be conversing about how the changes are being received by users as they are using them. Perhaps an open conversation about the private features could prevent a mass user revolt.
Send Flowers to Bangalore
This is an interesting article and I think that not only should facebook be clear about its privacy options but it could also make editing settings & other stuff on facebook more user friendly. It can take a while to work out how to turn something off or on and there is a minimum of info to guide people. facebook obviously know what they are doing but the truth is they are serving a very large public & they may need to remember that. Thanks for the post! Pemo Theodore, AstraMatch Blog
I got first wind of this subject in an ACLU newsletter. I'm thoroughly confused.
I don't use my F/B account very much, since I would rather just stay in touch with my friends via (gasp) a phone (hard line or cell) and emails which so far as I can tell, remain very private.
I made sure I left all my settings on the "old way", which I hope to god means PRIVATE, but am not sure if that's the case. Nothing I've read here has done anything at all to alleviate my befuddlement in the least. No one, as of yet, has taken us by the hand, so to speak, and walked us through the best way to maintain our account as private as we want it to be...NO ONE. And I certainly don't expect Facebook to do so. I'm sure they want to obfuscate the whole situation as much as they can for as long as they can get away with it.
So, in the end, I just may dump Facebook altogether, I don't need it. I don't really "get it" anyway; not that I'm a luddite by any stretch of the imagination, I'm just not too comfortable with losing so much more of my privacy which seems is mostly lost anyway. I guess this is an out of date kind of thinking but nonetheless important to me.
I have nothing to say to the entire virtual community and I don't give a rat's ass to know everything about each and every person in that community either. I have a life away from this machine and intend to be active in it. I'd much rather trail ride my horse alone and in peace out in nature than sit here breathing recirculated air all damn day, any day of the week.
The new Facebook publishing feature lets users share things with just a particular list of their friends. (Or with the public at large if they so choose.) The contexts are un-collapsed. Communication is human again. That's a very big deal and is the kind of change that could make far more people comfortable sharing far more information about their lives on Facebook. It's also a feature that no major competitor (namely Twitter) offers.
Just to clarify a fact about the point being made here: LiveJournal, and the social networking sites that have sprung from it--including, most notably, Dreamwidth, which has streamlined and reworked LiveJournal's basic code structure to create a great open-source utility--have had this kind of contextual communication between users for years. Facebook's structure still lags far behind these sites in many areas; the ability to choose one's readership on a given post is only one of them.