On the value of privacy
Over the past few weeks my RSS feed has been clogged with articles bemoaning Facebook’s changing privacy policy.
To summarize the situation for those who may not have been following it: since its launch in 2004 as a closed college network, Facebook’s settings have increasingly favored making knowledge public rather than private. The definition of “public” has also changed (information that used to be available only to one’s social network can now be accessed by anyone). Facebook has also made a series of questionable design decisions that make it more difficult to change one’s settings. For a good summary of the privacy changes, check out this visualization.
There’s absolutely no doubt that information on Facebook is increasingly public. But what I find interesting is the almost universal uproar that these changes have caused. The word “privacy” has become a sacred cow - it is equated with “good”, and the word “public” has become equated with “bad”. I think this is a simplistic view.
Everyone deserves to be in control of their personal information, and Facebook has done a particularly poor job of empowering people to take this control (danah boyd outlines several aspects of the problems with Facebook’s privacy settings in this article). However, I’m not sure that universal privacy is the answer here.
Sharing information - both about our surroundings and about each other - is one of the most critical and useful parts of being human. We routinely applaud the social media revolution for requiring companies and celebrities to be more honest, transparent, and responsive. Why wouldn’t the same apply to individuals?
Facebook certainly deserves to be chastised for their lack of transparency in making the changes to their platform. But I am routinely inspired by the ways in which society, commerce, and communication are enhanced by open communications. To me and my social circle, Facebook is an important part of that inspiration.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Links of the Week
- As the end of December approaches, it seems like every media outlet in the world is summing up it’s top ten for the year, and – since it is 2009 – for the decade. Here’s some the best lists in the world of digital:
- Business Insider lists 21 things (mostly tech) that became obsolete this decade.
- eConsultancy’s innovation awards highlights the top digital achievements of 2009.
- ReadWriteWeb has a really excellent series of lists of examples for the trends they’ve identified. The areas include:
- Adweek’s best of the 2000s
- I’m working on my list of the top digital and advertising trends for 2010 (which, I’m sure, will be heavily influenced by the lists above) – I’ll be sharing that next week!
- Super-cool multitouch gestural interface from MIT. Physical computing interfaces are definitely on my prediction list for 2010.
- The big buzz this week was around Facebook’s changes to their privacy policy. Previously you couldn’t see another person’s status updates, photos, and contact info unless you “friended” them - now the profiles are public by default. I’m not sure it’s a big deal, it seems like the whole world is moving in that direction (more data available, freely). Read more about it here and here.
Crackbook
Crackbook — Excellent spoof on Facebook
From the site: “Crackbook is an addictive social utility that makes you feel that you’re connecting with people when actually you’re just not.”
Via House of Naked
I’m increasingly convinced that the only thing Facebook really has is critical mass.
I’m increasingly convinced that the only thing Facebook really has is critical mass.
