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Following the backlash surrounding Facebook’s misleading mini-feed stories, Facebook has decided to change the message when removing mini-feed items. The previous message on the mini-feed was “Hiding will remove the story from your mini-feed and prevent anyone from seeing it” (as I described earlier this week).
Many thought this was misleading. Well, it looks like Facebook has caved and updated but my question is if this was a large enough step? Ultimately I want to control what stories my friends can and cannot see. That’s basic privacy rights. The concept that once you login to Facebook absolutely everything is public will not benefit the expansion of the Facebook platform. This happened the other day when I was asked to see if I’d like to take a “favorite sex positions quiz” that one of my friends had taken.
Do you really think they wanted me to know that? The developers of that application clearly felt that it was acceptable to share that information with me. Had I been the individual taking that quiz, I most definitely would have wanted to be alerted to the fact that my friends would be notified about this. Currently, Facebook has no effective way currently of preventing sensitive information leaving applications and notifying an individual’s friends.
This will have to change. I’m guessing that this was a quick fix and will eventually be resolved. Would you like to be able to filter news items being broadcasted to your friends about you?
It’s interesting the people are in the habit of leaving all those boxes checked when adding an application, effectively granting it access to act on their behalf.
I like to try out interesting applications, but my default is always to check just two boxes: the first ‘Access my information’ (because it’s required - this is another pet peeve) and the third ‘add to my left-hand links’.
With profile boxes and newsfeed stories, an application can shape people’s impressions of you. Why grant that up front before you’ve even given an application a test spin?
Nick, most activities on Facebook can be prevented from turning up on news feed and mini feed by adjusting the privacy settings. Click on Privacy in top right corner, then Profile, then News Feed & Mini Feed and uncheck boxes.
It’s interesting the people are in the habit of leaving all those boxes checked when adding an application, effectively granting it access to act on their behalf.
I like to try out interesting applications, but my default is always to check just two boxes: the first ‘Access my information’ (because it’s required - this is another pet peeve) and the third ‘add to my left-hand links’.
With profile boxes and newsfeed stories, an application can shape people’s impressions of you. Why grant that up front before you’ve even given an application a test spin?
When the News Feed first launched to much controversy, I remember people saying, “just click the little ‘x’ in the mini feed” to keep things out of the News Feed. Now that we know the ‘x’ only keeps things from showing up in the Mini Feed, that makes anything fair game for the News Feed. What’s more, we’ll never know if it shows up or not, and who sees it.
That makes me MUCH less likely to do things inside of Facebook.
Nick, most activities on Facebook can be prevented from turning up on news feed and mini feed by adjusting the privacy settings. Click on Privacy in top right corner, then Profile, then News Feed & Mini Feed and uncheck boxes.
When the News Feed first launched to much controversy, I remember people saying, “just click the little ‘x’ in the mini feed” to keep things out of the News Feed. Now that we know the ‘x’ only keeps things from showing up in the Mini Feed, that makes anything fair game for the News Feed. What’s more, we’ll never know if it shows up or not, and who sees it.
That makes me MUCH less likely to do things inside of Facebook.
I think this marks the end of facebook.
It was a devastating realization for me, and I haven’t used the site in a week.
I think this marks the end of facebook.
It was a devastating realization for me, and I haven’t used the site in a week.