Facebook has developed what they believe to be a sufficient solution to the dashboard privacy flaw that we’ve covered over the past few weeks: an application activity privacy setting. With the new layout, Facebook users can visit their applications privacy settings and change a new setting that lets you “Control who can see your activity in the Friends’ Recent Activity, Friends’ Applications and Friends’ Games sections” of the application and games dashboards (pictured below).
This Isn’t A Transparent Shift
When we listed out the options that Facebook had to resolve the issue, one of the hypothetical use cases was Facebook providing users with the ability to opt-out of these stories. As we wrote then, “The only problem with this is that many users may not be aware that their activity is being published by default.”
Our position is that when Facebook surfaces new information about users, which wasn’t previously visible, they have a duty to inform the users about the new shift. While users would be justified in arguing that this new setting should be opt-in, we believe Facebook should simply inform the users that this information is now visible rather than simply sneaking in a new privacy setting.
At this point, only those users reading sites that cover Facebook will know that this new privacy setting is available. Not even on the new homepage site tour (found here) does Facebook provide information about these new settings. The result is that users have information being made available to their friends without their knowledge.
Facebook has a responsibility to resolve this issue and we trust that they will at a minimum: educate users about the new settings. Do you think by adding this new privacy setting Facebook has resolve the issue, or do they need to take things one step further and educate users about the new settings?
Update
As one commenter has mentioned, Facebook briefly mentioned the new privacy setting on their blog post the other day:
If you would rather not have your recent application activity visible in the dashboards to your friends, you can change this through your Privacy settings . We’re also working on a more granular set of controls for specific applications, so that you can turn off activity for certain applications while leaving it on for others. We’ll have more information to share on this soon.
To not educate users is to violate their right to privacy and I believe this is a VERY serious issue.
Comment by Sasha — February 9, 2010 @ 6:31 am
This is why I subscribed to AllFacebook.com. You tell us the things that Facebook SHOULD be telling everyone.
Comment by Kelly Shane Pickell — February 9, 2010 @ 7:56 am
Nick, it was briefly mentioned in their announcement on their blog (http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=287459122130). Second paragraph from the bottom.
Comment by Chris — February 9, 2010 @ 8:06 am
How do I access it via Privacy Settings? I can't find anything that resembles the screen capture you've provided.
Comment by Mike P — February 9, 2010 @ 9:30 am
@Mike: I found it on "Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites"
Comment by Rick — February 9, 2010 @ 1:08 pm
@Mike P: go to Account (upper right corner)–>Privacy Settings–>Application Settings. That gets you to the location of the scree shot.
What I still don't like is that you can only choose the usual suspects, Friends, Friends of Friends, Everyone, or Custom. If you want to just say "No One" there is no way to do that without typing in every contact's name. Hopefully the more granular settings that they promise will do the trick.
Thanks for keeping us in the know All FaceBook!
Comment by Beth — February 9, 2010 @ 2:16 pm
@Beth: If you select "Custom" you will have the option to choose "Only Me" in the "Make this visible to" drop box.
Comment by Facebook User — February 9, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
I agree with the first two comments. I think whenever new information is made available it should be set to the strictest privacy level (i.e. 'only me' visibility) and users should then be able to lower their privacy setting if desired. Facebook is so widely used that it could mean the difference between someone losing their job or someone keeping their job. Or someone remaining in college or being expelled from college. Or someone gaining an opportunity or losing an opportunity. Even something simple that doesn't immediately seem incriminating, such as your application activity, could be blown out of proportion. Or that information could be used by malicious people (i.e. jealous co-workers, classmates, family members, enemies from your past, people who you think are friends but actually aren't etc) to gain access to further information and set you up for failure. There are really some elaborate social engineering schemes out there…
Comment by Facebook User — February 9, 2010 @ 5:41 pm
Why can't you block all gaming and/or quiz application stories from your news feed? Every time I push "hide this" for anything, it only hides it for that session, and sometimes doesn't work at all.
Comment by IMHO — February 9, 2010 @ 7:18 pm
Thanks, all — it wasn't there a few days ago! Got it now.
Comment by Mike P — February 15, 2010 @ 12:23 pm
how can i hide the photos and videos that i "Like" and the comments that i make in photos, videos and status of my friends..how can i get more control over what gets posted to newsfeed..I really don't need to know when one of my friends comments on another person's status and vice versa because It's filling up in the newsfeeds….facebook website did not fix on this thing, their Edit options doesn't seem to edit much
Comment by maui — March 16, 2010 @ 11:45 pm
Some of my facebook friends have long and boring newsfeeds every day that i do not want to see.
I don't want to insult anyone by "un-friending" them, but is there a way that I can filter out these unwanted newsfeeds so they don't appear automatically on my home page?
Thanks.
Comment by Jeff Comeaux — August 9, 2010 @ 7:42 pm
HOW DO I OPT OUT OF FARMVILLE, FRONTIERVILLE, ETC.
I HATE THE WAY I AM INTERRUPTED PLOWING, SEEDING AND HARVESTING, ESPECIALLY WHEN I AM IN FULL SCREEN. THE LAST STRAW WAS WHEN THE DAMN POPUP TO ACCEPT FUEL CAME WHEN I WAS PLOWING AND I CLICKED ON CANCEL WHEN I WAS TRYING TO PLOW A PLOT.
Comment by Philip — January 29, 2011 @ 8:30 pm