Recently Mashable published Facebook CEO: “We’ve Made a Bunch of Mistakes” and as much as I hope Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg means that those new things include revamping the privacy policy, I would have to wonder how much would they compromise in changing it.
There ARE people still washing their hands of Facebook… so this kind of makes me believe that there either was enough account deletions for Facebook to care, or perhaps a light of common sense finally shined. I like to use Facebook. I will keep using it unless there is something extremely wrong ethically with their system that I cannot agree with.
Despite the fact Facebook is one of the largest websites, it is like when Yahoo! used to be top dog over ten years ago – you do something to piss off people that were loyal users, and you lose it. For those who want to jump the ship, fine, but for those who are not as rash – wait a bit.
This little tidbit of hope for redefining a user’s experience might actually happen. However, is it too late? I mean, hey, Facebook found the time to put in Leet Speak and English Pirate in their language options. I mean, if it was really important to focus on that rather than important user policies, I am not sure what kind of direction Facebook wants to go.
What are your thoughts?
I think we need to realize that Facebook is offering a free service and since there are 400 million members I think most agree it is a pretty powerful and useful site, so one should expect them to be able to be compensated somehow. If there is something you don't want to be found by people on the internet then don't post it to any website. You have to assume anything you put on the web is going to be found somehow someway. I think you Facebook will lose some members because of there policy but I think most people will exchange the privacy issues for what Facebook has to offer.
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Despite the fact that the service is free, when a company opens its doors to the community, it also lets on people who are knowledgeable enough in development and legalities to know that a service is not providing the most ethical route. Has Yahoo! done this when Clubs and their chat were the talk of the time? No- because they knew people would blow a big stink.
There are ways to only share certain information with acquaintances versus family and friends. However, all of this information is stored and can be used if FB wishes to, and even sold. It is enough to unsettle even the most loyal of loyal, including myself…. and my account is pretty much an open book.
Its good if anything positive change is going on in Facebook. I do not jump to delete my Facebook account yet till as you said, there is not anything to which I can’t agree.
Thanks for this light post.
I have no problem with my facebook actually. Since it's the only way i get connected with my friends, i like the applications also. For a big social networking like Facebook, with millions of online users, no wonder it needs to upgrade. What's worry really is the security of the user's informations. Since it is rapidly growing, there could be tendency to hack or even take privately details, even pictures. It's good thing that the management take a positive steps into it.
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I hope for their sake they will do a total re-vamp on their privacy settings. They are already losing alot of "loyal" fans from the past few weeks of debauchery. But on the same not its just a bunch of people wanting to point the finger at ANYbody else but themselves for putting their personal info out there in the 1st place…
lol.. probably. Some of the people airing their dirty laundry Facebook can be funny, and som are appalling, but after this and hearing those same people pitch a fit, I find it a lesson learned. They will finally have some care on what they say online.
What is always bothering me is Facebook can use or even sale our stuffs when we up load it to Facebook. I hope Facebook like to explain about this.
99% of debates and discussions I have read in Facebook itself, blogs, Twitter, mainstream media goes only as far as privacy and revenue are concerned. But, we need to take a step back really question ourselves. Are privacy and revenue really that big an issue?
I once asked, should I open a dirty can of FB worms? I don't have a problem with privacy since I can grant place people in groups and grant access accordingly. Neither do I have a problem with a business wanting to make revenue because nobody starts a company not wanting to make money. However, I do have a big problem with companies that adopt the bait-and-switch tactic to build their startups. Sure, they can promise the world everything but that's not going to stop them from changing their stance along the way. Even with a supposed new rival in the form of Diaspora that promised the opposite of what FB had done, it brings us back to the same old question, what is there to stop Diaspora from switching their privacy terms and practices 3 years from now? Who can guarantee it? Well, nobody and nothing. Because we're merely reacting to it, not facing the root of the problem.
The real problem is ETHICS & REGULATIONS. It would make more sense to have proper regulations that requires these sites to have their privacy practices vetted and approved before they can execute it. As long as one day this is not done, every other web startup can claim whatever they want, tweak whatever they want, at the expense of users who aided them in their growth. This is even more crucial given Mark Zuckerberg's track record in school and the controversy behind the founding of Facebook. One of it, was almost criminal.
But it's also true that some folks are putting information online that should have never been. Much of these problems could have been avoided. But then again, if nobody puts up anything worthy, why do we still need social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook anyway? If everybody puts rubbish in there, will Facebook still enjoy such a high valuation? Chances are, these networking sites will be close to being worthless without these information they are collecting. Chicken and egg question but that's pretty much reality.
You know I cannot disagree with this. It is about ethics and regulation, but who will step in. What governing body can? And how will that be enforced even though FB is located in the U.S., but serves people around the world?
You are absolutely spot on. Some US marketers have shared with me that up to 70% of Facebook's users consist of non-Americans outside US. The other big question now is; how are non-Americans protected?
It's tricky when different countries have different legal legislatives concerning privacy and ethics. The Google Street View saga in Germany exposed precisely that. Nobody is stepping up to the plate. But since these US companies are so keen to dominate the world, I think it's up to them to show how their other users are protected. You can almost say, what incentives are there for foreign countries to adopt US technologies? It's their onus to prove to the world.