Facebook Calls All Hands Meeting On Privacy
allfacebook.com
allfacebook.com
Forget Google, these guys are the new Microsoft.
On the other hand, Facebook's recent privacy changes have (presumably) come from the top. So if they call an all-hands meeting, it seems like it can only be to either say "we've changed our minds", or "the public are wrong, and we won't change our minds". I can't see much of an actionable outcome for FB staff, unlike after the MS meeting.
> Forget Google, these guys are the new Microsoft.
I wrote something about this recently. I think the reason why Google and Facebook are acting very differently can be explained in good part by the kind of incentives that they face (they're very different):
http://michaelgr.com/2010/02/15/why-google-is-not-like-micro...
'whoops we're getting bad publicity, how do we deal with this bad publicity yet still cream all these profits by compromising our userbase's privacy, we need some innovative marketing strategies here people'
how likely is the following scenario? :
'well, actually, we have been kind of assholes on the whole privacy issue. Let's respect people a little more. Sure, we might not cream as much profit from it, but the world might actually be a better place as a result'
My two cents: FB is set out to collect as much social info about as many people as possible. Probably they have much more data about the folks than we know and that can seen through FB site or API. Their problem is that they cannot openly sell/share that data with partners. So they need to get to the point where they can argue legally (guessing this will end up in court at least here in Europe) that the members have permitted them to collect all that info.
One lesson I learned from the internal response: Many Facebook engineers read HN. Your opinions are being heard.
That's not to say that Facebook's current privacy attitude is "healthy" for its users (and it's not to say that it's unhealthy, either); it's simply that Facebook has to consider their userbase as a society with interactions, which can't be swayed by the aggregate opinion of self-interested individuals who aren't thinking about how what they want will affect others.
It's really interesting looking at Facebook in Spanish, their localization with these roll-outs is pretty slipshod. "Mark as read" showed up in English for over a month after the big PHP-compiling to C++ shift, which otherwise was pretty good.
Likewise, though my profile is written in English, Facebook took it upon itself to guess what everything meant, and translate it into actual books and such. The result was actually remarkably effective, but still imperfect, and plain text is simply a better data model for what should be a simple "here's who I am."
I disagree. Plain text is ambiguous. Links to pages aren't. The links also create a graph of people and their interests, which could have useful applications.
The changes that Facebook has made will make it more useful. Other than Instant Personalization, the privacy implications of the changes have been clearly communicated, and it's easy to choose what you do or don't want to share. The parts of the profile that can't be made private weren't very private in the first place.
Even if it were only ambiguous to machines, there are probably useful things that can be done by machines with the data that will now be disambiguated, which sounds like a plus to me.
I'm quite sure he speaks the truth in an absolute sense. Maybe 50,000 or 100,000 people have canceled, maybe even only 10,000. But that was how every other social network that preceded facebook died off, by the first relatively large group of users that said 'enough'. What goes up quickly can go down just as fast, if any social network that is perceived as 'more secure' and 'less evil' in combination with 'nice to the users' gains traction with those leaving now then this could very well follow the exact same graph that caused FB to grow so fast.
This is not a 'sure thing' by any means, though probably the effect will be limited. Once it starts feeding back on itself or if facebook has one or two more security booboos all bets are off.
Just pointing out here that citations are not a means to an end. You still have to trust the citation - since apparently you don't believe the guy claiming to be from facebook, who would you believe?
When I first went through the initial flow of you guys making all of these linked connections. It took me at least 20 minutes trying to get these TV Shows and Bands deleted.
A handful of days later, I was revisiting all of my privacy settings because I don't trust you. Low and behold there are all the TV Shows and Movies that I thought I had deleted still present on my profile.
It turns out I can't remove these connections at all.
I think a lot more people might have gotten rid of their data if they could, if they knew how, or if they knew that: "These settings only control the information people can see on your profile. This information, such as your Pages and list of friends, is still public, so it could appear elsewhere on the site and be accessed by applications you and your friends use."
But I guess duping people with obfuscated engineering and design, coupled with bad (or no) communication with users is just the rule nowadays for you all.
The worst part is--I resisted joining Facebook for so long, didn't join until well after the Beacon fiasco, because I didn't trust the company one bit. It is sad that I was right about this and should have stuck to my guns.
Side note: While typing this I decided to pop over and re-audit my settings for pry the 4-5 time in the past couple weeks. What do you know some values were not the same as what I had made them previously. Seems like the only time I ever have problems with Facebook from an application point of view is when I am trying to delete or change settings.
I don't know what you're talking about in your side note -- if you haven't seen big dialogs popup or messages on the front page, your settings shouldn't change magically. I know we don't always do a great job of communicating exactly what has changed, but we certainly don't change things behind your back, and certainly not maliciously.
As for the side note, no clue what happened exactly. It was the settings for my email field. It should have been friends only, but it was friends of friends instead.
It could be a user error, maybe I inadvertently switched it one of the handful of times I have been checking everything lately. Or some error on your side, I just don't know.
It may have came off conspiratorial, but a few friends and I have both commented on how the only times we run into issues with the Fbook application is when we are trying to delete data or modify settings.(Aside of the chat early in its history) And I was attempting (badly) to convey that observation
Something everybody at Facebook needs to note though: viewing intent as malicious or not is pretty relative to the person and where you are standing. Something a strictly opt -in model can address quite well.
ex: A legitimate business acquires an email list, let's say it is even targeted to people who might want/need their product. They blast out an sales email. To them the intent is not malicious--they are just trying to provide a potential customer with a product or service that might address a need/problem/want in their life.
From a recipients perspective, let's say me, this is a violation of my inbox, my privacy, even my values. Now, regardless of the senders intent or whether the product is good, not only do I not trust them--but I question intent and motives.
I left Facebook a long time ago, and because I didn't trust you (correctly as it turned out) to delete the account, I shoved bad data in there instead. You have no way to know what proportion of other users have done the same.
One potential rival service has been all over the geek news sites for the past day or two after raising a significant level of funding via donations very quickly. No doubt there are dozens more experiments out there that might turn out to be the next big social network instead...
Vice President for Public Policy.
What does "Public" mean? If I hide him from my friends, is he then invisible to my friends but still "public" and accessible by facebook's partners and affiliates?
I'm so confused.
"Our extensive efforts to provide users greater control over what and how they share appear to be too confusing for some of our more than 400 million users."
- Elliot Schrage, VP public policy @ Facebook
What an asshole.
Zuckerberg's is a good link. Schrage's is not found.
Bad link, or item three for tomorrow's meeting?
Edit: typo.
Wait, what? What plugins operate when I'm not logged in? What did I miss?
I deactivated my profile last Monday. Out of habit, today I went to Facebook from another computer that still had a session cookie. It reactivated my account, no questions asked.
Being about money, the Facebook executive suite takes notice when people start putting significant (aggregate) coin towards their replacement. (My statement's a bit facetious, but the level of participation -- and contributions -- doubtless has contributed in finally convincing them this all is more than just "some d-mned users b-tching".)
The thing is, we've had long enough, and enough distinct events and changes, to see their true stripe. I hope people won't be lulled back into complacency by any diversionary actions they may take nor by any placating language they may issue. If they temporarily retreat, just remember Beacon.