Mark Zuckerberg's Privacy Settings (Inc. fail) | Hacker News Reader

Mark Zuckerberg's Privacy Settings (Inc. fail)

inc.com

61 pointsjfi22 comments

Too bad they were looking at his page: http://www.facebook.com/markzuckerberg

Not his profile: http://www.facebook.com/zuck

The article is flawed, but his profile still doesn't seem to play by the rules. When I go to facebook.com/zuck there is no option for me to request adding him as a friend. In normal privacy settings you can specific that either everyone can add you as a friend or only friends of friends. I have two mutual friends with Mark Zuckerberg.

So either his profile has some additional privacy setting (i.e., to only send out, not receive, friend requests) or something else is at play (like he has hit the friend limit -- I'm not sure what that looks like, to be honest).

"In normal privacy settings you can specific that either everyone can add you as a friend or only friends of friends."

There was a big privacy setting change last October that you could opt out of. So it is theoretically possible that he did. (I wish I had. I didn't understand the ramifications at the time.)

Obviously, if this is in fact the case, it is still a case of Zuckerberg not playing by the rules he is setting for everyone else.

Mark Zuckerberg
Does anyone else think it's weird that the sky is red at 2am?

Yesterday at 1:53am

Looks "open" enough to me.

Not weird at all. In Purgatory, the sky is red all the time...

Then again, the update before that was on April 24. Lots of likes though. I guess he doesn't like sharing in free-form text all that much.

Or all he's other updates have been friends only. It wouldn't surprise me if he has now recently opened his own account up more in a sign of support for the new settings.

Maybe that should be the standard privacy setting. Everyone on facebook should set their privacy setting to match Mark's.

It's interesting to see this trend of breathless articles where people who don't grasp the intended design of Facebook assume some malign purpose behind anything that confuses them on the site. Not so much because of the dim view of Facebook's intent, but because of how it underscores the pre-existing problematic aspects of Facebook's design.

What's a "page"? How is it different from a "profile"? Why can people see my posts on some parts of Facebook even though I said only my "friends" should see my posts?

These are questions that were already valid, but because Facebook had enough goodwill in the bank they were previously able to skate by without addressing them.

These blogs will continue beating facebook as long as that gets them a flood of page views from confused/concerned users. FB has a PR problem. If it fails to communicate the intent and vision people will run around seeking the story from elsewhere.

I used to think usability was about making your product easy for your users. Now I see that poor usability can accidentally lead to bad branding!

I'm quite familiar with all sorts of websites, but haven't ever used Facebook. Last night, I was trying to use the site to configure a profile, test an app and share the profile with my partner - I have to say the site confuses the hell out of me. I can't believe so many people are using something with such an awful design.

That's not his profile, it's his Facebook 'page'.

His profile is here: http://www.facebook.com/zuck

It's pretty open ... he's got his birthday on there for example. And his last posting was yesterday at 9.53am.

This is the second bunk Facebook privacy article today. They aren't helping :(

I believe the noun is "failure".

Very silly and naive article.

I'm glad you guys did some digging on this one.

Do as I say not as I do? That doesn't work on 2 year olds so why should it work on adults. Shame on you Zuck.

I especially like the point: "can you imagine the CEO of Pepsi going a month without drinking a Pepsi? Can you imagine the CEO of Nike being caught dead in a pair of Reeboks?"

Honestly the investigation is a bit bogus.

Also he is a public figure and a CEO you cannot expect the CEO to start ranting on random crap which could potentially poorly reflect on his company. Could be that his PR person told him not to.

Would you really expect a CEO of a billion-dollar company do put up pictures of himself getting totally wasted and drinking beer off the tits of some stripper they hired at a million dollar party? What about him posting his thoughts on Apple and his hatred of the iPad? That in itself could lead to bad blood between companies or investors, every word he writes publically must be cared for.

The only thing is... People should keep THAT in mind. Don't write everything as public. When you post it online, assume no amount of privacy settings will protect it. Hell assume that even your weird alias can be tracked down. Don't post it online if you don't want anyone you don't know or don't like to read it.

> Also he is a public figure and a CEO you cannot expect the CEO to start ranting on random crap which could potentially poorly reflect on his company.

Ie, don't say anything on Facebook, ever, that you wouldn't mind your bosses, clients, competitors, suppliers, mom, local newspaper or local law enforcement all knowing about. Probably a good rule to follow for all of us.

I think people are slowly realizing that social networks are going to be open and WILL use your data for whatever their business model needs in order to make money. Its still going to take some time though for that to fully sink in.

I think the vocal people who feel burned fit into the early adopter category. I was on Facebook when it was only in a handful of schools and it was an amazing tool. At that time, it was well understood that your info was locked down to people outside your network.

Now these Facebook dinosaurs (who overlap a lot with the tech crowd) feel lied to because things changed. That beautiful network where you could share personal moments with friends is gone. Expectations were set and then dashed. This pissed me off, and, while even though it is only a vocal minority now, a lot of other people too.

Even though it sucks, I'm only on Linkedin now. I knew when I joined it was an open platform and anything I put up there would be viewed by current and future employers, which I'm okay with because that was my expectation. Facebook is trying to share people's data in an open way, akin to Linkedin, its just that the data people put up there was meant only to be shared with people that they knew, not for instance, the HR department of the company you are interviewing with.

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