If your kids comment on a friend’s public status update, that information becomes public, even if your children keep all their Facebook privacy settings limited to visibility among friends only.
Recently, the son of a woman who is a social media professional commented on his mother’s public Facebook post, and the influence measuring website Klout created a profile for him without his permission (I’ve withheld these people’s names to prevent even more exposure).
Technically, Klout can use this public comment to find you, connect you to the poster, and pull in your profile photo.
Also, at this time, there is no way to opt out of a Klout profile.
Granted, not everybody wants to remain completely anonymous, but if you do, or you want your children to, let them know not to comment on public posts.
Facebook’s Marian Heath clarified for us:
Thanks for raising this issue -– I help manage family safety at Facebook and wanted to take a moment to address it. To be clear, what you describe is not a bug, this the way public comments have always worked on Facebook. We think it’s important for adults and minors alike to be aware that comments made in public spaces –- on Facebook, elsewhere on the Internet, or indeed anywhere in the offline world – are, in fact, public. In particular, we spend a lot of time educating teens about how they represent themselves online and ensuring that they understand how to use our tools to control what they share. Separately, we’re investigating the company mentioned here to be sure that they are in compliance with our terms of service.
Brian Carter is the author of The Like Economy and co-author of the best-selling Facebook Marketing.
You know the really sad thing about this? That the openness and connections that social media was meant to foster are being train-wrecked by crud like this. *Sigh*.
Comment by Danny Brown — October 27, 2011 @ 3:29 pm
Logging in with Twitter erased my comment. I don't feel like trying to recreate the whole thing… but the issue isn't Facebook – it's allowing apps to access your Facebook account with overreaching permissions like accessing your friends and accessing your account when you aren't using the app.
Comment by @LucretiaPruitt — October 27, 2011 @ 4:05 pm
Bah. Klout revised its algorithm yesterday, and now its scorned lovers are reaching for new ways to criticize it.
Klout is more-or-less and opinion/review of people's public activity. To expect to opt out of someone having an opinion of you is pretty silly. Then again, the complaint did come from "a social media professional," so silliness is to be expected.
Comment by bauserdotcom — October 27, 2011 @ 4:14 pm
Thanks for raising this issue – I help manage family safety at Facebook and wanted to take a moment to address it. To be clear, what you describe is not a bug, this the way public comments have always worked on Facebook. We think it’s important for adults and minors alike to be aware that comments made in public spaces – on Facebook, elsewhere on the Internet, or indeed anywhere in the offline world – are, in fact, public. In particular, we spend a lot of time educating teens about how they represent themselves online and ensuring that they understand how to use our tools to control what they share. Separately, we’re investigating the company mentioned here to be sure that they are in compliance with our Terms of Service.
Comment by Marian Heath — October 27, 2011 @ 4:34 pm
Oh, a "social media professional" is the last thing I am – just ask the author of this piece.
There's more to it than "being scorned" (for the record, I don't give a crap about Klout). Companies are using it to hire; college professors are using it to partially grade papers (which then affects employment prospects), and now this crap with privacy and minors.
So, yeah, there are some complaining about their "value" being dissipated, but this isn't just about that – there's a much bigger story all round.
Cheers!
The Silly Not-Social Media Professional.
Comment by Danny Brown — October 27, 2011 @ 4:44 pm
I think her problem was that they created a public account, for her minor son, without permission, and linked said account to his private Facebook page. That's a bit much and any company who has paid attention to, well, anything online should know better.
Comment by Jen Zingsheim — October 27, 2011 @ 5:14 pm
Thanks for raising this issue – I help manage family safety at Facebook and wanted to take a moment to address it. To be clear, what you describe is not a bug, this the way public comments have always worked on Facebook. We think it’s important for adults and minors alike to be aware that comments made in public spaces – on Facebook, elsewhere on the Internet, or indeed anywhere in the offline world – are, in fact, public. In particular, we spend a lot of time educating teens about how they represent themselves online and ensuring that they understand how to use our tools to control what they share. Separately, we’re investigating the company mentioned here to be sure that they are in compliance with our Terms of Service.
Comment by Marian Heath — October 27, 2011 @ 5:49 pm
Glad you are looking into this, as I think many who are active in social media from a professional angle are aware of the commenting on public statuses issue–for me, it is the automatic creation of another account (a very public one) that is the bigger problem here. People might be okay with a single comment being public, but to have another company take that as tacit acceptance to have an automatic presence and account on *their* network is just wrong.
Comment by Jen Zingsheim — October 28, 2011 @ 7:17 am
I have been online for a total of well over 24 of the last 48 hours trying to learn how to get OFF of Klout… as the parent of minor children and the aunt and secondary caregiver of other minor children in my family I'm trying to figure out what I can do to keep Klout from basically pimping out the children in my family. What Jen says here hits the nail on the head. It's that icky sticky creation of a very public profile on Klout connected to a private facebook profile (in many cases of MINORS) – and also the fact that a lot of "experts" are saying Klout is violating California law by using names and likenesses to pretty much promote their brand or brands that are "influenced by" the users of these private profiles. I've got no problem with companies gathering data on what I do but when they start using my picture and my accounts on social media to basically tout themselves and how fabulous they are and sell products (Oh! Look! "Lady with a great Klout Score" likes Secret Deodorant! I should go buy some!) when I didn't give them my express permission to do that… uh-uh, Klout. I want OUT!
Comment by iwantout — October 28, 2011 @ 1:22 pm
you said it Danny!
Comment by @jacobvar — October 28, 2011 @ 1:24 pm
When I view my Klout profile my 13 year-old son shows up as a person I influence, complete with his Facebook profile photo (private). Unlike the person mentioned in this post whose Facebook profile is set to public, neither my profile nor my son's are set to public, so this is not just limited to public profiles. Yesterday when I clicked on his picture (in Klout) it showed not only his name but also linked to his Facebook profile. Today Klout seems to have changed it so clicking on the photo doesn't reveal his name and instead just opens up a Facebook Klout request.
Comment by @maggielmcg — October 28, 2011 @ 4:00 pm
It's no different than Facebook marking people as spammers because of activity models and not because of actual activity.
Comment by Ari Herzog — October 30, 2011 @ 8:38 pm
But there is a way to opt out of the PeerIndex crawler. If we record your information through our efforts, all you need to do is log-in, and then remove your profile in the system settings.
Comment by Sanford Dickert — October 31, 2011 @ 9:08 pm
Klout is about empowering individuals and showcasing their influence. We value our users first and your privacy is very important to us. We have recently strengthened our privacy controls and want to share what options we have available.
Specifically:
*Registered users can choose to opt-out of Klout at any time from our profile settings page
*We use public data to score users (similar to a search engine), but if at any time a user wishes to opt-out of being scored they can do so from our privacy page
*We do not have Klout profiles for unregistered Facebook users
I want to let you know we take feedback like this very seriously and have worked to address it.
Thanks for your time,
Megan Berry
Marketing Manager, Klout
Klout.com
Comment by @meganberry — November 2, 2011 @ 9:39 pm
False Premise. Facebook doesn't consider user names and profile photos "private." See the first paragraph after the "Authorization" heading on this page: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api...
It actually takes pretty extreme circumstances for U.S. law to consider a person's name or likeness "private." If minors' names were automatically "private," it would, for example, severely impact the constitutional freedom of the press.
Comment by bauserdotcom — November 5, 2011 @ 1:48 pm
Dude, your biography on your own blog says "Danny Brown is partner at Bonsai Interactive Marketing, a full service agency offering integrated, social media and mobile marketing solutions."
Seriously, you want to pretend you're NOT a professional? What? Your entire blog is about convincing people you're an expert!
Comment by bauserdotcom — November 5, 2011 @ 1:56 pm