Recently Microsoft formed a 3 year advertising contract with Facebook.com.com
Perhaps Facebook, fresh from deal with Microsoft, became full of themselves; they decided to implement a new feature called “News Feeds” which displays every action you take on the site to your friends. Facebook thought this would be something the community of users wanted, but just the reverse happened, and most people felt their privacy was invaded.
Background: Facebook implemented a new feature called “News Feeds” that displays every action you take on the site to your friends. You see who added who, who commented where, who removed their relationship status, who joined what group, etc. This is on your front page when you login to Facebook. This upset many Facebook members who responded with outrage. Groups emerged out of protest. Students Against Facebook News Feeds is the largest with over 700,000 members. Facebook issued various press statements that nothing was going to change. On September 5, Mark Zuckerberg (the founder) told everyone to calm down. They didn’t. On September 8, he apologized and offered privacy options as an olive branch. Zuckerberg invited everyone to join him live on the Free Flow of Information on the Internet group where hundreds of messages wizzed by in the hour making it hard to follow any thread; the goal was for Facebook to explain its decision. In short, they explained that this is to help people keep tabs on their friends but only their friends and all of this information is public anyhow.
…However, on Facebook, people were wandering around accepting others as friends, commenting on others’ pages, etc. If you’re a stalker or an anthropologist, you probably noticed that Bob accepted Sally’s friendship after Justine’s. You may have noticed that Ann wrote on Heather’s page but not on Katherine’s and you might have wondered why. You may also have caught that QuarterbackTed quietly accepted NerdGilbert’s friend request. But even you might not have realized that your officemate joined the “If this group reaches 100,000 my girlfriend will have a threesome” group.
….Have you ever been screaming to be heard in a loud environment when suddenly the music stops and everyone hears the end of your sentence? And then they turn to stare? I’m guessing you turned beet red. (And if you didn’t, exposure is not one of your problems.)
The mistake Facebook made was to make information about what people did on Facebook.com more clear and open yet it also left people feeling more vulnerable.
Links: danah boyd’s paper
