People Blog! There’s No Need for Privacy, Y’see!

11 Jan
2010

I am going to do my best and not get all CAPS HAPPY when writing about the following article. Must. Control. Rage.

<Deep breath.> Ok.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.com, recently told a live audience that the age of privacy is now over and if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would be publicly available rather than private, as it has been for years.

And what is his reasoning, you might ask? Why would users be perfectly fine with anyone accessing their private information? Why, because WE ALL BLOG, OF COURSE!

(Oops, sorry, the caps slipped out.)

Yes. Society is one big giant blogger and it’s Facebook’s duty to follow suit. Don’t believe me? Words from the wonder kid himself:

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.

OK, Facebook, listen up! You’re missing three very key important points here:

ONE. Yes, blogging is big. Pretty big, in fact. But Facebook-worthy big? Hells to the no. As Marshall Kirkpatrick writes, “Not very many people write blogs, almost everyone is on Facebook.”

And he’s right. I can think of numerous friends (Facebook friends, fancy that!) that do not blog, nor have any interest in blogging. Ironically, I can even think of privacy-zealot friends, who rightfully freaked out about the Facebook privacy changes this past December, who blog.

TWO. Which brings me to my second point: The difference between blogging and Facebook’s outlook on privacy is that with blogging we 100% control the information. I’ll say it again for emphasis: I ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CONTROL the information I put on any blog I own. Whereas, where it looks like Facebook is headed, they could completely take away that control. They could give my personal information to whomever they like, whenever they like, however they like and not tell me. And some things, like my profile picture, I can’t do anything to stop them from sharing that with the world. Does that make me feel comfortable? All warm and fuzzy on the inside? Absolutely not.

THREE. My last point: I expected better from the world’s largest social networking site. Facebook, really? Do you hear the tone of disappointment in my voice? Because it’s there. It’s really, really there.

You are not a follower. You shouldn’t be a follower. You didn’t get to where you were by following trends but by breaking through with something different and new. So don’t go trying to conform to “social norms” (which I would still argue, as who the h-e-double hockey sticks would find giving away their privacy, no problem, “normal”?)

What you could have done (what you should have done) was become a LEADER in privacy. Show the rest of those silly social networks how IT IS DONE. Boom goes the dynamite, done. Give your users somewhere they can feel safe, where they can interact with their friends and not have to worry about who is seeing what. And who is selling what.

TO WRAP UP. I think there’s any opportunity here, for some young whippersnapper, to seize. If a respectable Facebook competitor would emerge, built on a platform of trust and privacy, I could really see many people, including my lovable privacy-zealot friends, switching over immediately and completely purging their Facebook accounts.

The problem right now is there is no real competitor to Facebook, and this results in users having very little choice and say in what happens with their accounts, as we’ve seen over and over with the Facebook redesigns and policy changes in the last couple of years (seriously, how do they manage to NOT LISTEN AT ALL?!).

So, young whippersnappers: hop to! Give Facebook a run for its money! And leave our information to us. We know what to do with it. Trust us.

(I think I did maybe a B+ on the “Avoiding Caps” scale. I’ll work harder next time. Maybe.)
  • I love that you clarified who Mark Zuckerberg is :)
  • My prejudices aside, I think the best way to deal with this is not to use it. Everyone kind of went off on Google's Schmidt when he said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." but he really is right; digitally as well as in reality.

    It's kinda like sex tapes? Meaning okay, you made one but you don't want anyone to ever see it so you hide it. But just the fact that it exists puts it in danger of being seen eventually, right? So while I adore my privacy and think Zuckerberg is a huge dickhole, I think maybe we need to start treating the internet as a street rather than a room, where what you do/say/etc may be seen by passers-by, no matter how secret you think it is, and act appropriately.

    Our privacy is only as strong as we make it, and if you give control of your privacy to someone else, no matter who they are or what you're giving them, they won't care for it as well as you would yourself.
  • Mike
    Agreed.

    In my case, I'm training to be a doctor. With real-life clients/patients. For me, it is a bad thing if potential or actual clients could access my Facebook. I, for example, like to have my profile set to me in various years' Halloween costumes. That's great for my friends to see, but could come off as less-than-professional to anyone who I'd be treating.

    Alternatively, people can now see a list of all the pages that you belong to - no way to make that private. I used to belong to pages that endorsed political issues and social causes. What if someone I'm treating searches for me and disagrees with my politics? With my beliefs in causes, such as gay rights? Such a client may be less inclined to trust my professional opinions, as unrelated as they may be from my personal interests. Ergo, my ability to do my job is compromised. (Now, by the way, I no longer subscribe to ANY pages.)

    I guess what I'm saying is that for people in my situation, the lack of privacy on Facebook makes it impossible to have a distinct personal life separate from my professional life. Unless, of course, I give a big screw you to Zuckerberg & Co. and drop Facebook. Which is fast becoming my only realistic option.
  • Wait, what? What about free blogs on Wordpress.com or Blogspot? Sure, I pay for domain and hosting, but behind that is just free a Wordpress CMS. If I wanted to host this blog on emmabrooks.wordpress.com, I could, no money required.

    And I've paid for YEARS with LiveJournal.com to keep my private journal *private*, with filters, etc. I have absolutely NO PROBLEM paying to keep what is mine, mine, while using a free platform to host it.
  • Eh it doesn't bother me so much. You one hundred percent own the content you put on your blog because you pay for your hosting & domain. Facebook is free because they can sell your information to advertisers. Maybe they should offer you an option to pay and keep the rights to your information?
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