The author's proposed solution is to give users the illusion of control, by adding a set of radio buttons to the settings dialog which claim to limit how "other people" can use a post. But the very strictest option is today's default, which people are protesting for being too permissive!<p>What people are actually asking for is a way to forbid <i>Facebook itself</i> from using or copying a post, which any technically- or legally-minded reader would interpret as forbidding Facebook from storing posts at all. Obviously most users don't actually want their account and posts to be deleted, but they're asking for just that, and become angry when Facebook does not comply.<p>If you are truly upset that a company somewhere is making money by hosting a service that you post your private life to, there are a couple simple solutions:<p>1) Find some registered non-profit with blog hosting (does this even exist?), and only post there.<p>2) Host your own site, set a password so only your friends can see it, and only post there.<p>3) Stop posting your private life online.
tl;dr: Any illusion of privacy on Facebook is just that: an illusion. Everyone needs to realize that in the privacy convo.<p>Four-ish years ago Facebook made all private profile pictures public. No warnings, no options. My girlfriend at the time (soon to be wife) and I weren't publicizing our relationship then because of serious cultural and religious issues that we knew we'd face when we told our parents. We didn't get to make that decision, because a picture of the two of us was her profile picture... one day it was private and the other it wasn't. This had a profound impact on my life in a very real way and has come to represent everything I expect of privacy on FB.<p>Anything you do on Facebook is owned by Facebook. It says so in ther TOS. If they wanted to make a Billboard out of an embarrassing conversation you had on the site they could. Any illusion of privacy is just that: an illusion. Zuckerberg an FB have been very open about the fact that they see privacy as a dead concept, and that everything should be share by default.<p>The sooner everyone realizes that there is no such thing as private data on FB the sooner we can approach the service on realistic terms.
I don't understand why anyone is surprised by this. Facebook is a commercial service that aims to make money from advertising to its users. That is the goal. Keeping the info (that you willingly put up!) private is only important insofar as it doesn't upset users enough for them to leave. Experience has shown so far that the majority of users don't care enough about privacy to stop using their service. Furthermore I can't even think of any other commercial service providers that allow users to vote on their policies. Actions speak louder than words; if you want facebook to change its course, vote with your $ and your feet.
FB's mistake was to even propose this voting scheme...I would think of all entities, they would be the first to know firsthand the worthlessness of quantity. How many users in the last week posted that stupid legal notice asserting rights over their content?<p>The real truth is that users in general have little concept of what they're giving over to Facebook. And even if FB made it dead easy to understand their TOS, the majority of FB users would still be clueless.<p>IIRC, one of the biggest controversies in FB's history was when it implemented the newsfeed. Apparently, users thought that if something was easier to find (i.e. not having to visit each person's page to see their latest activity), a sacrosanct privacy line had been crossed. And this was back when FB was mostly college students who, you know, are supposed to be in a state of constant learning and reading.<p>The news feed was FB's killer feature back then (compared to MySpace) and if it had been put to a vote, users would have undoubtedly quashed it. Is it any wonder why FB will never take users' concerns seriously?<p>To go back to the sham-legal-status-update thing that was being posted...it's just kind of sad that at this stage of the Information Age, the average person is still too lazy/too entitled/too dumb to look things up and think for themselves. FB may not be the "good guy" but to rehash the old Batman cliche, it seems to be the social network we deserve.
When people mock the Facebook share price and question their long-term sustainability, remember that they're in a position that no company has ever been in before. They are trying to monetize personal data that has been provided willingly. They'll always be walking a fine line of giving their users what they'd like and giving their customers what they'd like.<p>This is just Facebook trying something that is entirely consistent with their philosophy and historical trend.
It's ironic, that in the comments section of the article it says: <i>Comment using... Facebook</i>. Some other obscure options aren't helpful either. Why can't one comment using Mozilla Persona or OpenID? If someone is criticizing Facebook (very reasonably), but at the same time requires Facebook to comment, it sounds hypocritical in the least.<p>More on the subj itself - I'm not sure really what the author expected from FB. They don't care about users' privacy - period. I.e. they don't respect their users. If you don't appreciate it - quit using Facebook and use privacy respecting social networks.
What are the alternatives, effectively?<p>All I want is:<p>- a profile page where I can post something personal<p>- comments to the posts so that my friends can share what they felt<p>- sort of a like button or flag to let friends mark posts they like<p>And maybe these are pretty useful as well:<p>- ability to post links and images<p>- ability to create topic specific groups and invite friends there to discuss things<p>- ability to create events and invite people there for rsvp<p>And last, the must-have feature:<p>- my friends are there, also the non-technical ones<p>While the first items are technically easy (Google+ could do it!), Facebook is winning on the last entry. I don't particularly like Facebook but keeping in touch with friends using email just doesn't work either anymore. Some people don't even have email. Personally, I either make a phonecall or text if it's a close friend, or write nice comments on Facebook if it's a not so close friend.<p>To free ourselves from the shackles of vendor lock-in, a generic social media protocol similar to email should emerge at some point. It shouldn't matter if I'm on Google+ and you're on the Facebook: if we're connected we're connected and the protocol translates the news between the two implementations.
This seems like an overreaction. Facebook has a billion users, so trying to do things like encourage voting is a nice sentiment, but practically useless in my opinion.<p>It's better for the company to just do what they want, and if they overstep their bounds and if people don't like it, they'll leave, just like they did with MySpace and Friendster. And if people stay, then it means they don't care. People are allowed to have the right to not care what people do with their personal data. I personally care, so I would close my account, but I'm sure there are swathes of people that simply don't care.
I don't understand the proposed solution. Hundreds of thousands ask for the default behavior, so the solution is to add a control so they can pick something other than the default behavior? A line of text on the privacy page, and maybe on the signup page, maybe with a little graphic to help it digest, seems a lot simpler to me.