Facebook and the downfall of privacy

The recent subsequent changes or better reductions of privacy at facebook drove me to delete my account there after 2,5 years of membership. For me it´s like leaving the Titanic, not knowing if it crashes into the icebergs or not, but deeply convinced, that the course is faulty.

I´m appalled by the blatant narrowing of the user´s capability and power to manage the perceptibility of their private informations.
Here are two links to a summary of the steps of decreasing the privacy-protection over the years.

Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline | Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

For me it is highly unacceptable to have my friends listed at google. It is unacceptable to have my personal and political interests listed publicly, regardless of the viewer´s status (being a friend or not).
We have to face severe outcomes of this new facebook-policy - just an example: an employer will be able to check the interests and aspects of a job candidate and will be able to "judge" or "assess" his/her "aptitude" for the company while using informations, which are completely none of his business.
This is just one of all thinkable worst-case-scenarios.

A friend told me about the most recent experience: if you choose to hide your connections, they will remain hidden for your friends too. Either open your personal profile for the public or hide it completely!

It seems like a long-term strategy: intrigue your users by a safe and adjustable privacy-settlement, thus fulfilling the sense and the charisma of a social network, then wait and when your user-base and the habituation is large enough, open up personal informations for data-miners and affiliates.

Mark Zuckerberg´s claim "The age of privacy is over" for me is absurd. It´s a clumsy distortion of the underlying motivation.

What do you think?

 

i think people should be allowed privacy on facebook, i do not want anyone from my school years getting in contact with me.

for me, everything is set to friends only, i dont like strangers knowing about me, and i already get enough pervs adding me just cause they think my profile pic is hot.......and a lot of these men are as old as my dad!

one thing i noticed a few months ago, is that facebook changed privacy settings so that the people who had set it so nobody could friends request them or even click on their name, had their whole profile opened up for everyone to see when this was changed, without them knowing about it. i think this is wrong, and should at least set to friends only for everything by default.

another thing that annoyed me about the changes in facebook is how at one point, whenever i went on the info bit on my profile it kept asking me to add all these fan pages which i listed as interests, but i didnt want to add.

and the stupidity of some facebook members, joining the stupid scam groups that promise cheats for games if you invite all your friends, then do a survey, enter all your personal details or go to a website containing viruses.......just to get nothing at the end of it.....

 

I have a suspicious notion that Facebook's gravy train suddenly started to dry out again as people began to wise up to these scams, thus the need to make a clean break on its privacy 'promise'.

 

I've always treated facebook like a public site where whatever I say is public, and never assumed it would be otherwise.

 

exactly
the bottom line is this.
don't post anything on the internet that you wouldn't want your mother, teacher or boss reading.

 

Yes, very well put. I Google my own name once in a while just to see what the results are. I avoid using Myspace, Facebook, twitter, and any other social sites. It's too much personal info that someone can easily access in a matter of seconds.

 

I rarely post anything on my facebook account - and I mean rarely. My youtube account and my facebook accounts are linked. So that when I post a video on youtube, its also posted to my facebook account,,,,, and that is about it.

The privacy concerns are a big issue for me. When I joined facebook (around 3 years ago), the whole system was confusing. It was so confusing, that I rarely used it.

Here it is, 3 years later, and its still very confusing, and getting worse. I do not understand "why" facebook is as popular as it is.

Just like myspace, I look for facebooks popularity to take a nose dive within the next year.

 

At least they're not ignoring the situation: FT.com / UK - Facebook to launch privacy overhaul

 

Hi Nick!

Any chance for a quick copy/paste so we don't have to join to see that article?

 

Hm, that's weird. I was able to read it without registering. Now when I click the link, it makes me. I found a way around it, but in case you can't, here's the text:

 

Thanks Nick, I only tried once.

It would be better and simpler for everyone (except facebook) if the default was opt out.

I've no idea why people share personal data online, on 3rd party websites.

 

You don't have to add any personal info
I don't use myspace much, rarely actually, but I do use most the other major networks to build my brand.
I just checked my stats last night on my forum, 80% of my referral traffic last month came for social media sites. No way I'm going to ignore that traffic

I have no idea what people blog and start forums </sarcasm>

 

Oh, I have some social sites linking to my website. Strictly non-containing personal info though. Social networking sites are just another great way to get your link out there. Your figure is a very good example of that fact! Guess now I know where to go for ideas on accelerating my traffic. :lol:

 

Lol, facebook privacy is a joke.

You can easily see friends of friends pictures and profiles (not that I do lol ). But unless you change your security settings which are a bitch to get used to, most people are unaware of actually how much knowledge is leaked out.

It is quite scary when you think about it. Before the new settings came into play, if it was private, nobody could view it full stop.

 

Facebook is expanding the social web. Everything around the web is community built now-a-days. They are grabbing cookies out of the jar, its just the jar may break and fall sometimes.

Personally I see no issue with privacy yet. Nothing has really jumped out at me as invading privacy. No one said you have to use Facebook anyway.