Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience yesterday that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private as it was for years until the company changed dramatically in December.
In a six-minute interview on stage with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Zuckerberg spent 60 seconds talking about Facebook's privacy policies. His statements were of major importance for the world's largest social network - and his arguments in favor of an about-face on privacy deserve close scrutiny.
Zuckerberg offered roughly 8 sentences in response to Arrington's question about where privacy was going on Facebook and around the web. The question was referencing the changes Facebook underwent last month. Your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, Friends List, and all the pages you subscribe to are now publicly available information on Facebook. This means everyone on the web can see it; it is searchable. I'll post Zuckerberg's sentences on their own first, then follow up with the questions they raise in my mind. You can also watch the video below, the privacy part we transcribe is from 3:00 to 4:00.
See also: Why Facebook is Wrong: Privacy is Still Important
Zuckerberg:
"When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was 'why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?'"And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.
"We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.
"A lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they've built, doing a privacy change - doing a privacy change for 350 million users is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies would do. But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner's mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it."
That's Not a Believable Explanation
This is a radical change from the way that Zuckerberg pounded on the importance of user privacy for years. That your information would only be visible to the people you accept as friends was fundamental to the DNA of the social network that hundreds of millions of people have joined over these past few years. Privacy control, he told me less than 2 years ago, is "the vector around which Facebook operates."
I don't buy Zuckerberg's argument that Facebook is now only reflecting the changes that society is undergoing. I think Facebook itself is a major agent of social change and by acting otherwise Zuckerberg is being arrogant and condescending.
Perhaps the new privacy controls will prove sufficient. Perhaps Facebook's pushing our culture away from privacy will end up being a good thing. The way the company is going about it makes me very uncomfortable, though, and some of the changes are clearly bad. It is clearly bad to no longer allow people to keep the pages they subscribe to private on Facebook.
This major reversal, backed-up by superficial explanations, makes me wonder if Facebook's changing philosophies about privacy are just convenient stories to tell while the company shifts its strategy to exert control over the future of the web.
Facebook's Different Stories
First the company kept user data siloed inside its site alone, saying that a high degree of user privacy would make users comfortable enough to share more information with a smaller number of trusted people.
Now that it has 350 million people signed up and connected to their friends and family in a way they never have been before - now Facebook decides that the initial, privacy-centric, contract with users is out of date. That users actually want to share openly, with the world at large, and incidentally (as Facebook's Director of Public Policy Barry Schnitt told us in December) that it's time for increased pageviews and advertising revenue, too.
The Flimsy Evidence
What makes Facebook think the world is becoming more public and less private? Zuckerberg cites the rise of blogging "and all these different services that have people sharing all this information." That last part must mean Twitter, right? But blogging is tiny compared to Facebook! It's made a big impact on the world, but only because it perhaps doubled or tripled the small percentage of people online who publish long-form text content. Not very many people write blogs, almost everyone is on Facebook.
Facebook's Barry Schnitt told us last month that he too believes the world is becoming more open and his evidence is Twitter, MySpace, comments posted to newspaper websites and the rise of Reality TV.
But Facebook is bigger and is growing much faster than all of those other things. Do they really expect us to believe that the popularity of reality TV is evidence that users want their Facebook friends lists and fan pages made permanently public? Why cite those kinds phenomena as evidence that the red hot social network needs to change its ways?
The company's justifications of the claim that they are reflecting broader social trends just aren't credible. A much more believable explanation is that Facebook wants user information to be made public and so they "just went for it," to use Zuckerberg's words from yesterday.
(Why didn't Arrington press Zuckerberg on stage about this? The rise of blogging is evidence that Facebook needs to change its fundamental stance on privacy?)
This is Very Important
Facebook allows everyday people to share the minutiae of their daily lives with trusted friends and family, to easily distribute photos and videos - if you use it regularly you know how it has made a very real impact on families and social groups that used to communicate very infrequently. Accessible social networking technology changes communication between people in a way similar to if not as intensely as the introduction of the telephone and the printing press. It changes the fabric of peoples' lives together. 350 million people signed up for Facebook under the belief their information could be shared just between trusted friends. Now the company says that's old news, that people are changing. I don't believe it.
I think Facebook is just saying that because that's what it wants to be true.
Whether less privacy is good or bad is another matter, the change of the contract with users based on feigned concern for users' desires is offensive and makes any further moves by Facebook suspect.
See also: Why Facebook is Wrong: Privacy is Still Important
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Did I read that right? Did I read a comparison of the web as a whole to reality television?
It appears that they haven't learned from the old-school MySpace debacle. It's only a matter of time before this social empire they've created crumbles now.
Um, can we say dramatic?
Critical thinking is key...to all things in life. All this privacy hoopla is all sensationalism and to blame sites and services is a load of crock. Users have options, meaning they are free to opt in and out. Simply, the options are there, learn it. Remember back in the 90s when we learned all the telephone options? i.e. *67 blocks your number, you can unlist yourself from white/yellow pages, etc., etc.,? The way I see it, is, ff you don't educate yourselves, then too bad.
Besides, our education system is garbage so we might as well learn from the Internet.
Great post.
What else would you expect from somebody his age who has investors who have thrown a ton of money at Facebook breathing down his neck?
I predict (again) that the age of Facebook will be over within a few years. Scoble called me an idiot when I said this a year ago. We'll see.
RWW itself has an option to sign in using social networks such as FB and Twitter. It's the sign of the times and you are as much a party to it as FB is. I used to think that I would just friend people I knew. Family, friends, and co workers. Now I have people I have met in passing, people I have never met at all, and people I wish I could meet. How private is my life now? Zuckerberg is right. The times they are a changin.
My theory is that the change is coming and Barry is wrong.
The next social revolution is about choosing more properly to whom and what kind of information you are willing to share. Personally I belive that oversharing is only the first step of social networking and the next , more intelligent step is at hand. Millions will limit strongly the information they are ready to give to strangers for free.
I don`t believe that FB-users werw ready to share everything with everybody in the first place, but they didn`t understand that will be the case.
Pauli Aalto-Setälä
Stupid move. Privacy is a right in many countries.
Great news for those with what they hope are Facebook-killers, just add Privacy and you could be on a winner.
Facebook only want less Privacy so they can sell your data, it's become one big spam machine.
Good article.
I am very much interested to see where Facebook takes us this year because I believe they are just a few steps away from losing it all despite their numbers. We have tons of alternatives Foursquare, Myspace, Teitter, they better be watching their steps.
Cole
Facebook has become arrogant - arrogance comes before a fall.
on the positive side - just opening up opportunities for others.
Interesting quote by Mark Zuckerberg: "We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are."
Now contrast that with a quote by George Orwell on the notion of privacy and social norms (I know this quote well because I used it in my senior dissertation - more than 20 years ago):
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment… It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug into your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinized (Orwell, 1984, 6-7)"
Just because something is a "social norm", doesn't mean we should accept it. Doesn't mean it is good, or just.
Powerful companies such as Facebook and Google can be agents of change. Will they use their power to continue to increase power (and profit) or to serve their users and strive toward a better society?
People are not as dumb as Facebook thinks they are. Facebook selling our data? Maybe the days of Facebook are over.
If they start dictating the users what they think is right (for their pockets) they better prepare for a massive user-base loss. It might take sometime but it'll happen.
It's time for another social giant to appear to end the Facebook monopoly, so they might come to their senses.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience yesterday that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private as it was for years until the company changed dramatically in December.
Did you watch the video? That isn't what he says.
Reality usually is a combination of both ideologies.
I think privacy options will become more complex. Specific content can go to specific groups of your friends, family and public. We will choose where and how it's delivered.
The default information that will be openly shared in the public will be similar to the info in these things we used to have called phone books. They have names, addresses, and phone numbers.
With the web addresses aren't just the physical world ones. It's the virtual ones too. Names will include online nicknames as well as real. They will be tied together with SEO variables. Phone numbers cross with addresses as email, text, voice and video merge on the web but remain as separate channels to communicate through. Profile pics are the new edition to the 'phone book' to help with identification. I am sure if printing the paper ones wasn't soo expensive we all could have had our picture in there too.
The things they list as public I see no problem in sharing online. What I want shared back is the statistics that facebook, Google and Microsoft collect on monitoring our activity. I would love analytics on myself and friends. That is what this post should be about. Fighting for the democratization of information. We share, they share!
The only reason face-book gained traction was the promise of privacy. They only allowed people with valid college email addreses to sign up when they first started, and because of that they beat out the entrenched competitor friendster...my how quickly we forget our past.
I've recently been working on an email privacy tool that lets you get messages in your inbox without giving out your personal email to questionable websites. I call it Disposable Email.
There's always going to be a need, and want for privacy. And where there's a will there's a way.
The point is, Facebook convinced users that their personal info is private under their website. Now after millions of signups, they suddenly would say it's better if user accounts would be made public.
It is very obvious Facebook is now hooked in advertising (read: revenue). As they say: "it's NOT about the money, it's ALL about the money."
Anyway, all big-time sites are monsters. Microsoft, FaceBook, Google, etc. They want it all. Google is not a search engine company, it's an advertising company. FaceBook is not a social networking site, it's an advertising company.
Nice post.
Facebook changes their direction on sharing user information on the web and almost every article I read inevitably seems to turn into a reactionary piece condemning not only the company's direction, but also Zuckerberg personally ("arrogant" and "condescending").
I agree that his description is essentially a brush-off. I agree that making some parts of a user's profile unalterably public is brazen and extremely troubling. I won't grant you that people don't assert control over their privacy settings, and I won't grant you that Facebook must stay forever locked into the model that has existed as it has built it's application.
Instead of fiddling judgements, I'd like to participate in a conscientious discussion of the negative implications of public information - not just the small difficulties that sharing your pages will cause or the phonebook analogy, but the larger implications of abuse that scare me the most, implications that harken back to the way the industrial revolution treated their own technological progression.
Ultimately, like it or not there is a community-reinforced push that people publish content on their web using a valid identity. This very comment conveys substantial information about my personal opinions on this topic, and no doubt the fact that I'm publishing it as anonymously as I can (after providing the required email, of course) will reflect negatively in the mind of most of it's readers.
Just my gut reaction.
Facebook is indeed more of an advertising company than it is a social networking company - couldn't agree more. And the links between Zuckerberg's take and Orwell's position are interesting. For a long time, I've been waiting for the crunch. Looks like it's here...
Killer post!
@scientaestubique
You're spot on, privacy is a right in many European countries. In France, even if president Sarkozy is about to make it mandatory to install a gov. powered spyware on every computer to report on netizens' every move (Hadopi law), Facebook will still face legal trouble for this...
You probably heard about Sarkozy's Google tax. Blaming Google for everything, from press failure to lack of digital sales in the music industry, led to mass media bashing it and gov. taxing it (kinda hard to believe but we have a Rep. administration and a socialist regime, weird). Well my guess is that Facebook is next. Facebook is showcased on national TV (gov. controls TV and mass media here, the Italian/Russian way) as a way for kids to buy illicit drugs and to meet pedophiles, and I'm pretty sure this privacy move will have them loose some vital support among the tech crowd here. Very bad move, at least when it comes to facing politicians in France.
On a business and API/social graph/web square point of view, I dont really think they have any choice, this is a vital move for them if they don't want to become a fad within a year or two... but that's another story...
Yawn. If you are still worrying about your privacy on the web and you're on Facebook, just give up now...you lost a long time ago....
It is my belief that Facebook will further define ever more and more of members' info as "publicly available information".
Aside from the fact that this is a betrayal of trust and an example of the perpetually changing contracts that have contributed to the economic meltdown, Facebook will become a breeding ground for IDENTITY THIEVES because of the sensitive nature of info that it has encouraged people to share on its network.
Let the class action lawsuits begin.
As a person who is being stalked for being an innocent bystander in a child custody case, I can tell you that losing my choices over what is searchable or not is huge. I have nothing to hide nor be ashamed of but the loss of choice for my privacy has hit home in a poignant manner.
Dursisima this note, I believe that privacy is the most important thing we can not afford to lose, it's like God came down and took away the free will
We're entrusting our life's information to a guy that hasn't even lived. So sad.
A social norm to share publicly your name? your political views? your religion? your jokes? what you were doing last Saturday night? photos of your kids? their names? and on and on. No way.
The bottom line is Facebook is a collection of indivudals and each one deserved the right to control what happens with their information.
Facebook is pushing people to reveal more and more and playing on their misunderstanding of how their information is being handled. They're designing their pages and structuring their forms to encourage people to reveal everything. They're now allowing people to opt-out where they previous allowed them to opt-in.
Most people don't get it. Put once data is online, it's there forever.
Watch Facebook take all this information people thought was private and make it public.
No one has even mentioned the third party apps -- they're pulling everyons information directly out of facebook, processing it, storing it and in many cases publishing it! Yeah, that's against the terms of service, but most developers don't care.
People really need to wake up.
This may be the point from where Facebook downfall will start. Because the privacy is important for everyone and nobody wants to compromise it.
Everything is logged, mined and naked in the web world.
In the pattern of private to shared to public, users may enjoy the free ride. For privacy need users may have to pay for services. Depends on the context which personal info it reveals, if all data combined target people are in physical danger. Not all countries have same security, may be few of them are in trouble. Laws are 10 years backward.
Making money on others brain asset is a billion$ biz pattern. Once you reach millions of users. its nature to speak arrogantly. Trust is the one which strongly binds user with online services.
Do you really think the (ahem) founder of Facebook would let his private pics be seen on his own platform ? Please......PR ploy to get Zuckerberg looking almost human before he slams users with another privacy push ? or maybe just images designed to show the "soft" side of Mark........instead of an Intellectual Property bandit.
Moron. Does he has cameras in a home toilet?
This is a mistake on Facebook's part. It's a reactionary change in philosophy.
As others have suggested, presumably the catalyst for this change is twitter. I think that's a bad model for facebook. facebook's differentiator from twitter was privacy, and in particular, trust. My friends on facebook really are my friends. My "friends" on twitter are mostly people I don't know, or worse, spam bots and "marketers".
Facebook must not dilute the incredible store of trust that they have built over the years. That is what their value is; that is what their competitive advantage is.
What did Google's CEO say?
"If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place."
Thank you for the continued updates on Facebook's changing approach to privacy.
It is exactly the lack of privacy and the inability to configure Facebook to reflect the circles of friends and acquaintances of my "physical" life that kept me for the longest time from using it. When I first signed up with Facebook several years ago, I envisioned it as a tool allowing me to stay in close touch with family and close friends in other countries (face it, sharing frequent, small day-to-day events in life paints a much fuller picture of your life than writing letters or making phone calls directed to one person). Actually, I have to laugh at comments from people about why anyone would need Facebook or Twitter, if you could just pick up the phone or write a letter. Comments like that clearly identify the speaker as someone whose friends and family are within close geographical vicinity or at least within the same time zone. Not to mention that with a 12-hour workday my days would have to be at least 36 hours long to have sufficient time for writing personal letters and making phone calls on a regular basis! But, aside from the above, at the same time I also wanted to use Facebook as a networking platform to help me stay in touch with former coworkers and other acquaintances, in other words, with people I don't want to indulge in intimate details about my life, but simply stay in touch. In my disappointment with Facebook, I turned to LinkedIn for the latter and didn't use Facebook at all until years later when some former and current coworkers found my name and requested to be my friends. Since then I have started using Facebook, but only to practice "light conversation" by talking about mostly inconsequential events and chit chat. In other words, Facebook did not replace email or phone calls. I had to conform to Facebook, rather than Facebook letting me use it as a tool the manner I intended to.
Then, about six months ago Facebook implemented very granular privacy controls that allowed me exactly to specify who can see my profile information and the content I post. The granularity of these privacy controls was such that I could apply them to individuals, lists created by me or one of the default circles (Everyone, Friends of Friends or Friends Only). I could even lock information down completely to be seen only by me (but then, why would I enter it at all on Facebook?) I now have control over the third-party apps and what information of mine they can pull. This change in the privacy settings was exactly what I had been waiting for for years. I now use Facebook to stay in touch with people in my life on my own terms. Having lived in a few different countries over time and worked in different jobs, my Facebook friends are from different phases of my life and different places and I don't really want to connect all of them to each other. I now have that ability in Facebook. While this approach requires a bit of paying attention and extra work, and, as stated elsewhere, mobile clients do not support these options (yet), I finally have the freedom to choose what to post and control who can read it. There is, of course, the excellent point Connie Reece raises in your June 29, 2009 post: What happens to information if the recipient does not have their privacy set to the same degree you have. I have not tested this, but would certainly hope that the author's privacy settings take control.
As you can probably guess, Mark Zuckerberg's statement about the future direction of privacy sets off a million of alarm bells in my head and I think he is completely wrong with saying that 'The Age of Privacy is Over'. To the contrary, people value their privacy even more today and only by allowing and providing for the need of privacy, will those who to date still refuse to use the Internet out of fear of lack of privacy come on board and start using these great tools. And that is what the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs are: tools to be used by us, the users. They should not the ones controlling us. And anyone, who says differently, should be looked at very critically as to his or her intentions.
Personally, I hope that there are no plans for Facebook to remove what has already been implemented. I can live with newly created accounts being set up for public display - although I completely disagree with this approach - as new users can, and simply will have to, be taught that as part of creating an account, they will have to choose the level of privacy they desire.
Mark Z. does not know about Rebecca Schaeffer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Schaeffer ). Before she was murdered by a stalker, "no one" cared about the privacy issues around California selling driver license information to anyone.
Before identity theft became a huge problem, "no one" cared that every tom-dick-and-harry business was using social security numbers as account numbers.
Before 9/11, "no one" cared about terrorism at the deeply personal level.
The fundamental danger is that Mark Z. is completely unprepared for the reality that societies acceptance of what is o.k. can and does shift. Sometimes slowly, some times in one day.
Arrogance and indifference is blinding.
I won't predicate the demise of Facebook. But if I was a facebook investor, this would be a little worrying. I sense a bit of an echo machine within Facebook.
As for me, I have learned to never write down something I don't want the entire world to see.
Mark Z. does not know about Rebecca Schaeffer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Schaeffer ). Before she was murdered by a stalker, "no one" cared about the privacy issues around California selling driver license information to anyone.
Before identity theft became a huge problem, "no one" cared that every tom-dick-and-harry business was using social security numbers as account numbers.
Before 9/11, "no one" cared about terrorism at the deeply personal level.
The fundamental danger is that Mark Z. is completely unprepared for the reality that societies acceptance of what is o.k. can and does shift. Sometimes slowly, some times in one day.
Arrogance and indifference is blinding.
I won't predicate the demise of Facebook. But if I was a facebook investor, this would be a little worrying. I sense a bit of an echo machine within Facebook.
If government law changes to demand privacy will facebook be able to respond?
Thank you for the continued updates on Facebook's changing approach to privacy.
It is exactly the lack of privacy and the inability to configure Facebook to reflect the circles of friends and acquaintances of my "physical" life that kept me for the longest time from using it. When I first signed up with Facebook several years ago, I envisioned it as a tool allowing me to stay in close touch with family and close friends in other countries (face it, sharing frequent, small day-to-day events in life paints a much fuller picture of your life than writing letters or making phone calls directed to one person). Actually, I have to laugh at comments from people about why anyone would need Facebook or Twitter, if you could just pick up the phone or write a letter. Comments like that clearly identify the speaker as someone whose friends and family are within close geographical vicinity or at least within the same time zone. Not to mention that with a 12-hour workday my days would have to be at least 36 hours long to have sufficient time for writing personal letters and making phone calls on a regular basis! But, aside from the above, at the same time I also wanted to use Facebook as a networking platform to help me stay in touch with former coworkers and other acquaintances, in other words, with people I don't want to indulge in intimate details about my life, but simply stay in touch. In my disappointment with Facebook, I turned to LinkedIn for the latter and didn't use Facebook at all until years later when some former and current coworkers found my name and requested to be my friends. Since then I have started using Facebook, but only to practice "light conversation" by talking about mostly inconsequential events and chit chat. In other words, Facebook did not replace email or phone calls. I had to conform to Facebook, rather than Facebook letting me use it as a tool the manner I intended to.
Then, about six months ago Facebook implemented very granular privacy controls that allowed me exactly to specify who can see my profile information and the content I post. The granularity of these privacy controls was such that I could apply them to individuals, lists created by me or one of the default circles (Everyone, Friends of Friends or Friends Only). I could even lock information down completely to be seen only by me (but then, why would I enter it at all on Facebook?) I now have control over the third-party apps and what information of mine they can pull. This change in the privacy settings was exactly what I had been waiting for for years. I now use Facebook to stay in touch with people in my life on my own terms. Having lived in a few different countries over time and worked in different jobs, my Facebook friends are from different phases of my life and different places and I don't really want to connect all of them to each other. I now have that ability in Facebook. While this approach requires a bit of paying attention and extra work, and, as stated elsewhere, mobile clients do not support these options (yet), I finally have the freedom to choose what to post and control who can read it. There is, of course, the excellent point Connie Reece raises in your June 29, 2009 post: What happens to information if the recipient does not have their privacy set to the same degree you have. I have not tested this, but would certainly hope that the author's privacy settings take control.
As you can probably guess, Mark Zuckerberg's statement about the future direction of privacy sets off a million of alarm bells in my head and I think he is completely wrong with saying that 'The Age of Privacy is Over'. To the contrary, people value their privacy even more today and only by allowing and providing for the need of privacy, will those who to date still refuse to use the Internet out of fear of lack of privacy come on board and start using these great tools. And that is what the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs are: tools to be used by us, the users. They should not the ones controlling us. And anyone, who says differently, should be looked at very critically as to his or her intentions.
Personally, I hope that there are no plans for Facebook to remove what has already been implemented. I can live with newly created accounts being set up for public display - although I completely disagree with this approach - as new users can, and simply will have to, be taught that as part of creating an account, they will have to choose the level of privacy they desire.
Thank you for your information my friend.
I don't think this is good regarding the privacy issue at facebookdotcom and most of the user of facbook do not like to shared your private issue at facebook.
He is completely arrogant, my personal details are my own, and if and when I choose they will become public, but I doubt it very much.
He really needs a reality check if he thinks the majority of Facebook users would allow most of their personal details to be out their for one and all.
Stupid move. Privacy is a right in many countries.
Great news for those with what they hope are Facebook-killers, just add Privacy and you could be on a winner.
Facebook only want less Privacy so they can sell your data, it's become one big spam machine.
I read about people complaining about privacy issues on Facebook all the time and yet, no one is willing to do the sensible thing and simply cancel his account.
I know Facebook gets a lot of flack, but you've got to have a lot of respect for Zuckerberg in the way he's willing to redefine the culture of privacy that's continuing to evolve on the web.
Facebook has seen changes over time in how people operate within social networks, and they're adapting to the shifting of societal norms.
The sharing of information has become dynamic and we leave footprints of our words and actions wherever we are. Facebook is adjusting their policy to the needs of its users, and they'll continue to do so while helping define how humans and technology meld.
I agree with scientaestubique, Walter Pike and Richard Schneeman.
Privacy is a basic human right. The only reason Facebook gained its massive money spinning audience was the promise of privacy. Zuckerberg has become arrogant and over rates his thought leadership.
What really angers me is how condescending they are about it. As if we're all just stupid and are simply going to agree with whatever nonsense they put forth. The rise of reality TV? That's hilarious considering it's been around in the UK for almost a decade. Just because 1 household of fame-hungry narcissists will stop at nothing to win some cash, doesn't mean we're all dead keen to install web cams in our bedrooms and bathrooms.
I find it very interesting that TechCrunch have been bleating about about privacy being dead for quite a while now, the latest article here:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/30/we-all-live-in-public/
And before that at Le Web, citing products like Blippy. Imagine my surprise when Facebook win the Best Startup or Product of 2009 and the only two major voices on the internet both banging on about privacy being dead are TechCrunch and Facebook. I smell a rat.
yeah, reminds me of http://thetracebook.blogspot.com. that's when ur privacy is really publicly visible
"Facebook is just saying that because that's what it wants to be true." So very well said. Great job taking a page from Fox News, Mr. Zuckerberg.
p2p social virtual private network (p2pvpn) like social vpn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_VPN) is the future. check this shit out http://www.socialvpn.org if u know wut "apt-get" means.
I definitely would agree that facebook is one of the major drivers of the trend of people increasingly putting more and more of their stuff on the internet.
Agreed with many before that Facebook is trying to play its hand as far as its users will let it. In the end we shall see whether or not the users approve of his move, and I've got a feeling that it will take some time for an angry minority to gain enough ground on this issue.
Zuckerberg seems to think so, I'm skeptical, and I'm keeping my personal data off Facebook for now (which should apply to any web data for now I believe).
Is Facebook's privacy settings leading us into a new era of social openness or are they arrogantly deciding for us that we need no privacy? I do not like Facebook's cavalier and drastic approach in changing their privacy policy, but the real question is whether their privacy policy is reflecting social norms and as a society should we be going there.
Privacy is so closely tied to freedom. If someone wants to control you and knows everything about you, they can control you and take your freedom away. If someone wants to control you and they have no information about you, it is difficult for them to control you.
In the decades before the internet, Americans had a lot of privacy. I would say that this was not always the norm. When the U.S. was first founded, your neighbor's usually knew everything about you. If you committed adultery, you received a Scarlet Letter. Everyone knew it. It was not until our society started become more mobile that we began to have a high degree of privacy.
Now with information becoming so mobile, we are losing our privacy again. How can we enjoy all this rich, real-time information, and not lose our freedoms?
If Facebook wants to be as successful as before in Europe they need to think about the european culture of privacy. What Zuckerberg says is a No Way for most people, esp. those people Facebook is targeting for advertisement. I would think about paid accounts with complete privacy as an alternative. Otherwise FB will get the attention as Google gets in these days. Mr Zuckerberg should read e.g. Spiegel Online "Google will die Weltherrschaft".
As a facebook user, I agree with this new term.
"...This major reversal, backed-up by superficial explanations, makes me wonder if Facebook's changing philosophies about privacy are just convenient stories to tell while the company shifts its strategy to exert control over the future of the web."
I have a much more cynical view - "follow the money".
For every day the IPO gets closer, privacy degrades. That says to me that pre-IPO negotiations with potential large investors ( who are assigned priority to buy big blocks of stock during the first few minutes of the IPO ) center around reselling user data ( be it email address, activity, etc. ) to third parties in order to make quarterly revenue goals.
Anytime we put ourselves on someone else's servers we run the risk of them using our data in a way that we don't like at some point in the future. Like others, I accepted that a long time ago.
Some do it for fun, some for profit, some for prestige, most for a longing of some sort.
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