It’s interesting to see it laid out like that. Am I the only one who thinks as Facebook got more and more user information they took liberty with it knowing full well that 80% their users have no clue what’s going on.

I don’t know where he got those stats for 2005, because photos and wall posts were visible to everyone in your college network. There was no privacy setting to block people in your network. From what I remember. - Now I read that those stats are from what HE remembers also.

The key word is “default.” You have to make an effort to protect your privacy, if you want to.

Outstanding visualization - well done, Matt.

Amazing visualization!
And quite scary I should add.
Basically, if I keep the Privacy settings as Facebook default, my entire personal information (excluding pictures and posts) is available to everyone. It’s like 1984 all over again…

I agree, this a great way to visualize it.

Totally Agreed !!

Nice visualization.awesome!

Great

true…good job

nice analysis , and today i found that people i was blocking i am able to see their posts
i don’t know if it’s part of the privacy “everyone sees everything” or it’s just a bug!

Love infographics!! Thanks so much for sharing!

This could be an interesting way to present this information, but the changing scale in each diagram is misleading. Why do the widths of the rings change? The way it is, it’s not an accurate visualization of data; it makes it smell more like propaganda.

These infographics are great.

> should make you wonder why Facebook is making profiles
> increasingly open.

There’s really no wondering, here; follow the money.

Facebook wants to own & sell (or rent) any information you give it to anyone who will pay for it. The more private a piece of data, the lower its value to Facebook–because you’ve told them not to share it. As users tighten their grip on their own data, FB “revises” their “privacy settings” over and over again so that they can default to more and more openness, and keep themselves attractive to advertisers, spammers, etc.

That you’ve blocked them doesn’t mean they’ve blocked you back :).

It’s misleading for the “network” radius to be rendered smaller in the first chart than in the other charts. Also, IMHO, a standard radar chart is more appropriate for this data. Your radial-bar chart has an exponential effect on the enclosed volume as the data points are further from the origin. This appears as overstating the facts; the facts are strong enough to not need overstating.

Wow. Everybody hurry up and delete your photos and wall posts before they make that public too.

The idea is great, I like the representation. One thing makes it sub-perfect though - some scrolling is involved, so I can’t see it all at once, as a function of time.

“Why do the widths of the rings change? The way it is, it’s not an accurate visualization of data; it makes it smell more like propaganda.”

Could be that, being a circle, the farther out you go the wider the slices of the pie are out of necessity.

Plus, with each successive step outward from the center, there are more people involved. Makes since that “you” being only one person would be the smallest. Next is “friends,” containing a greater number of people than “you” but fewer than your “network.” It would make sense then to have “friends” make up a larger area than “you” but smaller than “network” and so on.

I have to admit this way of presenting information is amazing ! Thank you so much !

this is like watching a little parasite grow! O_O

This should be the control panel for facebook privacy. Darken the areas you wish to have made public.

@Stephen
The only difference between the first and second graphic is that Photos are now shared with your network, but the second graphic shows a much larger blue area than the first. Unless there is some data associated with the change in scale, it’s very misleading.

These graphs are not the updated ones. For that you need to visit his site. I pointed out to him that in 2005 photos were shared with everyone in your college network, but 2006 is when it changed to allowing the high schools, businesses, then public access, so that’s probably why the graph is bigger.

Nice graph? the circle of ‘the entire internet’ gets smaller after 2007… making the stat of november 2009 look much worse… so BAD VISUALISATION!
though good information =D

I’ve noticed a huge increase in spam with my Facebook assigned email. Thank God it’s a spam email.

roxanne likes this.

There’s a reason I don’t post information about my current employer, my schooling, my political and religious beliefs or the like. They’re nobody’s business but my own. Any interests in the main part of the profile I have are now gone along with the Instant Personalization opted out from and the three apps (Docs.com, Yelp.com, and Pandora.com) blocked and those sites boycotted.

The only thing I have left I can’t block are those sites I have “liked” within Facebook. My likings are public knowledge, and there is no way to make them private without “unliking” them. As such, I have to choose what I “like” very carefully.

While there are those who will close their accounts, I feel comfortable enough understanding Facebook’s deliberate gaping privacy leaks and how to plug them or at least deal with them to the point where I feel I can keep the account open. However, there will come a time where I have to tell Zuckerberg where to shove it, hoping that the congressional inquiry into his shenanigans comes sooner rather than later. And any such treatment he gets should not be a slap on the wrist. It needs to be at the very least the equivalent of a pillorying and at most, the equivalent of a beheading.

This is creepy, but I imagined this would happen soon. Mainly as more companies & brands start doing business here, and publishing social ads, it’s inevitable that facebook would become an underground market for brands so they can have free access to millions of potencial customers.
I have been a freak on privacy settings, so I guess we have to learn not to publish every single aspect of our private lifes, if you want them to stay “secret” well you obviously must not publish them, not only on facebook, but on any social network that exists out there.

just distroyed my FB account

This should be the FB control panel for their privacy settings. Just replace ‘network’ with ‘friends of friends’ and make each segment an on/off button.

The segment titles around the edge would take you directly to the corresponding section, where you could apply granular settings as needed (e.g. blocking your mother’s access to your wall posts, but preserving her access to photos of her grandkids.)