Facebook's New Events Publisher Demonstrates How Wrong the Site's New Privacy Strategy Is
"Dear Grandma, would you like to come out to the bar with my friends and I for a drink tonight?"
Your grandmother is on Facebook now and Facebook introduced today a new way to invite all your "friends" on the site to an event. The way the tool works is the best example yet of how Facebook is moving in exactly the wrong direction with its new privacy settings. Facebook continues to implement features in a way that presumes all our contacts are in one big bucket, instead of recognizing that we want to communicate different things to different groups of people.
The company announced today that Events will now be publishable through the same Publisher tool that all your status messages are posted in. Unfortunately, that Publisher tool does not include the ability to limit access to event invitations (you have to go through the separate Events menu to do that) and the site's new emphasis on pushing all updates out to everyone never looked so shortsighted.
Last week Facebook acknowledged in a call with press that it really does want more people to be sharing more content outside their immediate friends and family with the whole of Facebook users. Prior to that acknowledgment we wrote about how a more accurate understanding of privacy on the web would respect peoples' desire to limit access to messages to the appropriate people in appropriate circumstances. In real life we talk about different things with different people, we don't default to a public broadcast of everything we have to say. That would be the best approach for a social network that says it prioritizes user control over privacy. Facebook is taking the opposite approach - making context-specific communication a "custom option" that few people are likely to take the time to find.
Default options in social software have consequences for human behavior and social interaction. Inch by inch a new texture of privacy is being created on Facebook; soon the path of least resistence will be for all of our content to flow out to everyone. Many users believe that's what Twitter is for - but Facebook is for communicating with known friends and family.
There's no better example of how inappropriate that can be than giving people an easy way to offer event invitations without making it easy to target those invitations only to the people you really want to invite. Today's announcement is just the latest indication that Facebook, big on talk about privacy, is actually moving in a direction that its privacy-minded users are unlikely to appreciate.
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Talk about an axe to grind. Seems really simple: they have most all their defaults set to "public" or "share with everyone". Big woop. Why don't you start your own facebook and set the defaults all to "private" and "don't share" and see how well it grows. Oh, hey--did this message just go to the PUBLIC!??? no one told me! I just clicked submit.
Marshall:
Even before these changes, I've been saying that Facebook is disrupting our traditional walls of communication between different groups (workmates, family, high school buddies, church group members, etc.). It's all blending together, and because we're in the middle of it, it's hard to know whether that's a positive or negative cultural development.
But I agree with you that having the *option* to siphon off my updates/events to different groups within FB would be ideal. Keep up the excellent coverage here on RWW; I hope it will make a difference.
Bryan | @BryanPerson
LiveWorld
Philip, see Byran's comment. Also, Facebook has been able to grow just fine without pushing people to be more and more public. Ask just about any Facebook user and most will tell you that they share the concerns articulated here. All public all the time to everybody in the same way is the paradigm that Twitter has been given by its users - at Facebook it's just the opposite.
The tool is set up for events that are open and public. That's obvious and it states that.
Why would you want to use a tool designed for open and public events for purposely private?
Just go create an event, make it by invitation only, and invite the people you want to attend.
You're right- they rushed this one but they do that with everything. I think it's a step in the right direction for a feature I've wanted for years.
I just graduated from college and every time I created an event I usually wanted to invite everyone I know (i.e. for fundraisers or charity events). My grandmother wants to know I'm doing that sort of stuff.
But when my roommates and I were planning keggers, you're right- I don't want to invite my grandmother. What would be ideal (and I think this will be implemented soon), is to invite all except for this friend list and that friend list or just to a certain friend list.
The old way of inviting 50 people at a time was tedious. Give Facebook a month or two to get all of their events changes made and I think more people will be happy than disgruntled. They've been around for 5 years now and you act like them releasing something like this is new news. It happens all the time with them!
L.Miller - the ease of use of the publisher, pushing updates to the newsfeed of friends, is one of the key innovations in facilitating sharing online. It's a conversational interface. In real life, most people communicate with and invite to events particular people in particular circumstances - but that's the opposite direction Facebook is moving in. In the unusual case where you want to push an event invite out to every person you know, why would that not be the situation where you have to leave the conversational interface and follow a special protocol?
The default settings of social software have an impact on how we use it and what our behaviors are. The choice of what to make default and what to require customization for is a choice with social engineering consequences.
There are tons of levels of public. Having lunch with your friends isn't really a private event. It's just not all that relevant to most of your friends, except as a note that you had lunch. The difference is "who" invitations are sent to, versus "who" gets notice.
Personally, if I'm posting a luncheon, even if I say its public, because I want friends to invite their friends or co-workers. I wouldn't want to automatically invite my family, or people who don't live in the same city, etc. Public notice that I'm having lunch with a group of friends is fine, great even. Invitations to all my friends, when I just wanted to invite 10, isn't.
Even organizationally, we do a number of events. They are all open to the public. But we send targeted invitations—I've put a fair amount of effort into creating lists just for that purpose.
The fact of the matter is that it's highly more likely, that as an individual, you'll want to target things more specifically, than most groups would. I can create a webinar and save it as public, without too much concern on who's getting it. Similarly, the same for group meetings, etc. I prefer to target, but I don't have to.
But I wouldn't invite all my friends to my house for Saturday dinner, even though that's the type of event I'd more likely use the quick event method to create.
Just another step on the plank toward irrelevance for Facebook.
Lucky for them, Facebook connect is popular. That's probably all we will see from them in five years.
Great post, Marshall.
The thing that made Facebook valuable was that it wasn't MySpace's party-personal or LinkedIn's sterile-professional. Because it had the Limited profile and then later the groups, Facebook was a great place to have all your social spheres on one social network without having to share everything to every one.
While the new invites are cool, the lack of privacy is a back step for Facebook. They've been pushing groups. Why not have a list of your groups with check boxes in front of them so that you could easily check off the groups to whom you wanted to send the invite?
Chris
"experiment in social engineering"? The pattern here seems to be "oh, look there's a different setting or default on facebook--it's bad because a, b, c". An alternative would be suggesting how they should be doing things (which you are sort of doing)... or better yet just get involved in their betas or their organization.
But, I think what you have here is a fact: facebook is going in a deliberate direction and you don't agree with it. You may be right in the end or not. Also, while you don't like the defaults--it's pure speculation what the result will be.
Finally, I think what you're suggesting here is more than just "change the default"... you want more features (in this case, more granularity for how to set events). That's more work and perhaps something they're working on or something they considered (and decided against).
But... show me exactly where a default has caused some kind of "social engineering consequences" that were bad or even just unintended?
P.S. I didn't see the answer whether when I click "submit" if this message becomes public to EVERYONE!
I wonder if Facebook ever tests its updates on its typical users? Most events that I, and people I know on Facebook create need to filter out people. This was already difficult enough (scanning through over 600 people to find those that you want at your party is not fun and a guaranteed way to miss important people). Making filtering even less available on the default means of sending events is just plain stupid.
Yes, as the other comments say it is "possible" to do access control but the fact is that most people are only used to doing things in one way and will stop at the first means of accomplishing the task that they discover and will thus never discover the more advanced ways of creating events.
If they integrate this with Friends lists it may be useful.
Oh dear. I think this will lead to more parties getting crashed by people from facebook. A few cases made it to the news even with tighter privacy settings. A quicky google search for "facebook party crash" brings up quite a few cases.
People just don't think about the consequences of sharing their location publicly. I cringe every time someone I follow on twitter say "I'm at [where ever], come and meet me for coffee".
I am under the impression that facebook is seeing Google Wave as a very strong competitor and implementing these publishing options. Google wave will be great of sharing photos, discussing things with your friends etc, the things you currently do with facebook
Can't you select which of your friends group you want to view this?
I think you can, in that case I don't see anything wrong with this.
The right people at the right circumstance nails it on the head. There should be a stronger focus on source organization/priority organization of friends that would better mimic our real life experiences.
Can't choose it, you want more features (in this case, more granularity for how to set events). That's more work and perhaps something they're working on or something they considered
I usually wanted to invite everyone I know (i.e. for fundraisers or charity events). My grandmother wants to know I'm doing that sort of stuff.
So if I'm having a party and sent an invite to 'Everyone' (thinking all my friends) I'll get my name in the paper?
Storm in a teacup much?
I think it's a good idea to be able to add events into the feed. At the moment Events are like a weird side-addition to Facebook in that they effectively act as an independent application. It's just good common sense to streamline all that content into one easily-managed lump.
It seems like many sites are trying to find stories to enflame users about Facebook these days, like as though there needs to be something to be outraged about. In reality many of the recent changes are not earth shattering. Privacy settings is the latest donkey to beat in the wake of supposed issues with the main page layout changes having amounted to little if anything of significance.
Something useful that would be worth drawing their attention to, while we're on the subject, is the poor integration available for Events to external calendars like Google, Exchange or iCal. That's properly annoying and something that should have been fixed a year ago. Currently all there is is manual exporting or a bunch of third party apps that never seem to work well for long.
Good piece to question Facebook. Also some well-considered responses here. If we accept any part of the recent Wired piece “Great Wall of Facebook” [http://bit.ly/19URKy], then I go along with the assertion that this implementation may reflect some company values. It may be true, as Max (5) says that this was just rushed out. But even if not conscious, it may be true that a bias guided a decision, telling the developer(s) that it was okay to have Everyone as the default audience.
I think Facebook wants the interactions and experience to be like our physical world, and to augment it through their applications. I thought Marshall (6) was heading this way, but pulled up just short of asking who starts off in the real world by inviting everybody?
As Yak (15) says, groups can be set up, but as Andre (11) points out, do users even know to go there. I’d add, do people want to develop Facebook expertise? When it gets to that point, it’s no longer reflecting the user’s world, but the user having to adjust to Facebook. I can see users having to adjust for complex applications, but not this.
Another comment the resonated with me was Max’s (5) keggers refernce: we change over time. What was okay in college with that set of friends, may not be okay later with a different group. There’s also the sense of multiple versions of ourselves (business, friends, family, etc), and we need ways to easily manage what can and cannot be seen for each. Flickr has the beginnings of it with its three levels. An example of managing it is the LinkedIn-Facebook versions of the same person.
Finally, I see what Tadhg(20) is getting by saying the response may be disproportionate to the implementation being criticized. At the same time, I can see Marshall’s sensitivity because this isn’t just about Events, but how this plays out in what is shared on the Wall, Photos, and elsewhere.
Again, good stuff all around.