With the ongoing debate about Facebook privacy both within the company and in the media, perhaps it’s important that we ask a fundamental question: does Facebook privacy even matter? During a dinner the other night, someone asked me this exact question. The point of the person was that if we’re honest, there really isn’t that much stuff you share on Facebook that puts you at risk.
Do you really like morning sex? So does 125,000 other people. Do those individuals care if their boss knows about their interest in morning sex? Who knows! Perhaps 30 years ago your boss would have found a public statement about the matter to be revolting, but at this point hasn’t the shock value of such things become diminished?
While the media realizes that people are concerned about their safety (it’s toward the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), getting a click on an article has nothing to do with the fact that most users still don’t change their privacy settings (although at least tens of thousands have opted out of Facebook’s new “Instant Personalization”). So let’s examine the issue further.
Facebook & Mark Zuckerberg’s Position
Mark Zuckerberg believes in a concept called “radical transparency”. It’s a concept that was examined in depth in David Kirkpatrick’s new book, “The Facebook Effect“. As Kirkpatrick describes, radical transparency is essentially “a radical social premise—that an inevitable enveloping transparency will overtake modern life.” In other words the world is becoming more transparent and Facebook will lean toward having their users being more transparent as this shift takes place.
The greater issue facing Facebook right now is whether or not this increased transparency can be forced upon people. “Instant Personalization” and the new “Connections” feature, which associate previously private interests and put them in a public forum, have forced users to be more transparent. Not surprisingly, users and especially the media, have lashed out against the company. But what do users really want when all is said and done with the latest Facebook privacy fiasco?
What Users Want
If you were to ask me what users fundamentally want when it comes to privacy, I’d tell you they want the following:
- To not have drunken (or generally damaging) photos or videos of themselves show up to friends and especially co-workers,
- The ability to control whether or not their content shows up in search engines (and other directories),
- The ability to protect personally identifiable information (email address, phone number, etc) to avoid identity theft, and
- The ability to control who their information is shared with
Controlling Who Shares What
Facebook provides controls for most of these features except for the last component to a certain extent. In the new “Instant Personalization” program, Facebook has chosen which partners can access certain information about you, the moment you visit that partner’s website. In other words, Facebook has made a decision on behalf of users, who they can trust. They’ve stripped the users of a control they previously had.
Despite most of these partners being trustworthy companies, users (and privacy advocates) have fought back, saying that Facebook users should be the one to make the decision, not Facebook.
While users can “opt out” of the program, the users are essentially forced into the program. Regardless of what’s right when it comes to this individual program (which many users are rapidly opting out from), users also want to control what their friends can share. While there is a tool for controlling what personal information your friends can share about you (found here), there’s no way to prevent your friend from uploading a damaging photo of you.
While Facebook could choose to prevent users from tagging you in photos without your permission, that doesn’t appear to be something Facebook will cave on anytime soon, most likely due to its viral nature (it gets more people to engage with the site). So some things are simply out of Facebook’s control.
Choosing How To Behave
In this increasingly transparent world, the only way to truly protect yourself from damaging photos, videos, or otherwise, is to choose to behave a certain way. Don’t want drunk photos of yourself? Don’t get drunk (at least not around people with cameras). Don’t want to get caught playing hooky from work or school? Don’t play hooky!
The true fact of the matter, despite the questions of how privacy settings should function, is that we are increasingly responsible for our behavior because the “public domain” has expanded dramatically. Facebook has been an enabler of this process, however they aren’t the only ones responsible for it. If you believe that users shouldn’t post photos of themselves at a party, don’t hire them! If you don’t mind, then align yourself with people that hold the same values.
While Facebook does not have a right to force users to share information with partners, as far as I’m concerned, a more important conversations surrounds what you putting at risk by posting specific information on Facebook?
Important Data
Let’s be honest. Do you really care if Facebook shares your gender, age, or location with a partner? Probably not. Do you think they should be able to choose who gets access to that information? I would hope not. However step back for a minute and think about the bigger issue here: putting critical data about yourself (your social security number, home address, phone number, etc) online, increases your risk of something bad happening.
By avoiding placing this information all together, you are truly protecting yourself. It won’t matter what Facebook does with their privacy settings, if you control your offline behavior, you can control your online behavior and safety as well.
What are your thoughts? Does Facebook’s privacy policy have a significant bearing on your decision to use the service? Do you think people should be more responsible for their behavior (and information which gets put online) or should users have absolutely total control over their info (something which is technically impossible for the most part)?
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I posted about this yesterday, I couldn't agree more with your thoughts!
http://spiritualcombustion.muddycreektech.com/?p=...
Comment by Bryan Pollard — May 19, 2010 @ 11:33 am
I don't know why this seems to be hard for you and Bryan Pollard to grasp.
It's pretty simple really:
Facebook has radically changed its privacy practices several times since I signed up. This is crap. I've made hundreds of posts based on an understanding that FB just dramatically changed.
Why should 300 million (or so) people have to reexamine everything they've used the site for every six months or so because FB has found some new way to make a buck?
Who wants to continue to do business with jerks like that?
That's why people are upset. We like the connections to our friends and colleagues and are willing to have ads tossed at us to pay for it.
But we want a reasonable level of comfort with the folks running the service, and a whole lot of us no longer have that.
Comment by me — May 19, 2010 @ 11:49 am
Brilliant post, Nick.
Comment by Dave Kerpen — May 19, 2010 @ 12:10 pm
My position is that most FB users are ignorant and don't really know the dangers of giving up privacy. They also don't know what FB does because it doesn't tell them.
I removed my personal account today because I just can't do business with a company that I don't like. Zuck rubs me the wrong way.
Comment by Nathan Hangen - Digi — May 19, 2010 @ 12:13 pm
Wow! Some food for thought here, that's for sure! I believe that we are all responsible for our own actions online and have to take the ownership of those actions. We also have to learn how to use online tools, know our options and choose wisely. Facebook, and all other companies out there have the responsibility to their users to be transparent as well and teach us-the users in many more words as to what will happen with new changes and how it may effect the way we are using Facebook with these new implementations and changes. Facebook has not done a very good job there-educating the user and being transparent.
Great post Nick!
Comment by Karmen Reed — May 19, 2010 @ 2:46 pm
People asking if "FB privacy matter" are generally narcissist and exhibitionism.
Comment by Antoine — May 20, 2010 @ 1:46 am
People asking if "FB privacy matter" are generally narcissist and exhibitionist.
Comment by Antoine — May 20, 2010 @ 1:47 am
"I don’t know why this seems to be hard for you and Bryan Pollard to grasp.
It’s pretty simple really:
Facebook has radically changed its privacy practices several times since I signed up. This is crap."
Exactly.
My position is that they have screwed me over enough times that there is simply no way in hell that they will be able to regain my trust, ever.
The other matter at hand is that people can damage their employment possibilities by being associated with postings far less obviously damaging than drunken frat party photos.
One would have to be rather insulated to believe that religious, political, and even aesthetic views do not affect potential employers, and one would have to be a bit too idealistic to believe such employers can be avoided for the entire duration of one's career.
Moreover, whether legitimately or not, some employers have had so much trouble with staff being distracted by Facebook that their hiring managers now check Facebook for accounts and hire preferentially as a result….
Facebook is such a well-known time sink that just having an account is a potential liability.
Comment by Moris — May 20, 2010 @ 2:27 am
I'll have to take your word for it, as far as Mark Zuckerberg's Great Social Plan is concerned… but "me" (above) has a point, also expressed eloquently by Wendy Grossman recently: if you have people sign up to a service under one set of assumptions about privacy, and then fundamentally change the rules to reflect a different set of assumptions (which profit you and potentially compromise the user), that's a "bait and switch". In other words, a con.
What you don't say about user attitudes is how they feel about the following proposition: "Is it OK for Facebook and its commercial partners to profit from the information you disclose via Facebook, even if they don't tell you that's what they are doing, don't tell you which pieces of information are ending up where, and don't give you the tools with which to control that flow of information?".
Or: "If you thought you were disclosing something to a known and limited set of acquaintances, and then found that you were actually publishing it to the entire web… would you still make the same disclosure?"
As long as your analysis of user preferences ignores factors like that, I am not sure it is a reliable guide to how Facebook and other sites ought to address user privacy.
Comment by Robin Wilton — May 20, 2010 @ 3:04 am
I just uncheck the boxes and expect facebook to behave like a commercial organisation. We are not their customers, we are their product.
Comment by Duncan Beasley — May 20, 2010 @ 4:51 am
**Your safety & privacy is in your OWN hands.**
While some of my info may be there, it is only viewable by certain people. And I periodically check to make sure it stays that way.
Plus, I don't hit that "Connect with Facebook" button everywhere I go.
Comment by Christina — May 20, 2010 @ 8:12 am
Does privacy on Facebook matter? YES. Why?
Because until the world enters a stage where everyone can accept that others live a different way and be OK with that then sharing everything about your life poses professional, personal, and and even livelihood risks.
Just think of some of the monotheistic approaches for some religions – their goal is to change other people, and often that turns into violence.
The world is not yet ready to embrace that much diversity, and examples of it are in the news every day.
Comment by Matt — May 20, 2010 @ 9:33 am
@'me' – because there have been several paradigm shifts in the functionality of the site since its inception. how could every other feature & flow change without corresponding changes to the privacy model? you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Comment by you — May 20, 2010 @ 11:10 am
There's something decidedly simple-minded about the 'if you don't want to get caught don't do it' line of thinking; it's a kind of folksy over-simplification like Sarah Palin likes to use. How about this: if you don't want creepers putting pictures of you having sex taken through your window, don't have sex near a window, or just don't have sex. Or if you don't want the world to know you're feeling don't tell anyone you're feeling down. Is it really all or nothing,l black and white, 1 or 0, Nick?
Moreover I find the made up 'what users want' list and he 'probably not' self-served answer to the question about what I want lacking in anything but opinion pulled out of thin air.
The idea that if something (having total control over what you post online) isn't technically 100% possible today, then people should change their behavior and suck it up is a surrender to the current limits of the technology. Why have medicine if people are going to die anyway right?
Sorry to pick on you here Nick, but this post is rife with apology for face book's bad behaviour and very short on anything but opinions that aree pretty easy to poke holes in. Does privacy matter? Hell yes, more than ever in the networked age, not less because it's hard to do or because it doesn't serve advertising.
Comment by Todd Sieling — May 21, 2010 @ 5:59 am
Whew, I typed that comment hastily on an iPad, sorry for the numerous typos. "Or if you don’t want the world to know you’re feeling don’t tell anyone you’re feeling down" should have been "Or if you don’t want the world to know you’re depressed, don’t tell anyone you’re feeling down", the point being that we shouldn't be afraid of confidences given to someone else through an online tool.
Comment by Todd Sieling — May 21, 2010 @ 6:03 am
@you: since I joined the site (3 years ago) there has been no functionality change (for me as a user) that required the dramatic loosening of how data is used.
Comment by me — May 21, 2010 @ 9:11 am
Apart from privacy issue concerns, I see the need to connect and proclaim a presence among others to be the fundamental carrot stick that attracts potential Facebook users, and makes it difficult for them to 'permanently' deactivate their accounts, even when they empathesized with Betty White when she said, on her SNL stint, "It's a waste of time".
For me–and I safely presume for others–logging onto Facebook is akin to walking into an empty room, devoid of people, but full of muted words emanating from the walls and corners. You're in your best suit or dress, with a marvelous presentation to share with your 5,000 friends, but not one of your 5,000 friends are there to share it with you. So the best alternative given to you is to project it onto your wall, and hope that one of those so-called 5,000 friends will bother to look at it. After checking to see if anyone has responded to your prior offerings and missives, you leave as dejected and when you entered; only to once again log on to Facebook, hoping that one of your legions of friends had paid a visit to you, which really confirms the old adage that a friend is someone who makes time to be with you. I ask myself that if this old adage is, indeed, true, why am I choosing this method of 'socializing' to find friends. Is it because I don't have to make the time to go outside my house to look for them, and facebook gives me the convenience of sitting in front of my PC, in my boxers, with 2 days growth of beard, in search of someone to connect with? If so, I am as guilty as the so-called 5,000 'friends', some of whose muted words are heard behind my wall. I say to myself that the Facebook experience is the most unfriendly means to find joy in life, particularly when you don't have to be physically present to engage in it; which, incidentally, is the fundamental way to connect with real, flesh and blood friends. So I concluded that Facebook is anti-joy, anti-human, anti-friend, whose only purpose is to itself, which it's founders aren't really certain of what it is, save for its dubious commercial potential; which will be a certain, finite joy for them, but not for me. Goodbye Facebook and my 5,000 so-called 'friends' who could care less whether I get up in the morning or not.
Comment by Zaidi Ademeit — May 21, 2010 @ 2:01 pm
I am so, so conflicted on this. Facebook is such a huge thing for my generation, and has been such a great way to connect with friends over the past few years. Things though have been getting scary recently, with people friending me that I'm afraid of (bad histories), weird emails from strangers being sent to me about my FB profile popping up during their google search for my apartment complex, and other creepy things. I think it's time to say goodbye to Facebook for me, there just has to be a line somewhere. I guess this it for me.. .http://thesmogger.com/2010/05/19/why-i-want-to-quit-facebook/
Comment by MK — May 21, 2010 @ 5:36 pm
I don't really know what the big deal about privacy is? Why would you be afraid of drunken photos? If thats the way you behave then thats just who you are and probably why your friends like you. Photos tell the truth and unless you feel ashamed of the truth why would you care who sees it? If you don't want people to know how you feel then why would you post it to everyone on facebook, then complain about who sees it. Getting weird emails from strangers, not much different from spam just delete it. Just don't put your address on it and you should be ok.
Comment by Brian — August 27, 2010 @ 1:19 am
“Do you really like morning sex? So does 125,000 other people. Do those individuals care if their boss knows about their interest in morning sex? Who knows! Perhaps 30 years ago your boss would have found a public statement about the matter to be revolting [sic], but at this point hasn’t the shock value of such things become diminished?”
Nick, with all due respect, you are showing the idiocy of liberal stupidity and ignorance, with glaring clarity. The point is, in the REAL world, that if your job and your boss are worth anything, of course he cares about his employee’s conduct and discretion, which are signs of self-respect, which is reflective of whether one is complete imbecile, vs. a gentleman or woman of intelligence and strength. I hate to say it but you’re showing tremendous slack, to say the least. Wake up and learn it’s your ideals that will destroy our, or any, country or civilization. If you feel that you could run a business without regard for your employee’s discretionary boundaries or moral compass, and succeed, you have another thing coming. Same goes for society. Those who do not know their history are destined to repeat it.
Comment by Miami Mike — January 25, 2011 @ 9:13 pm