Facebook: A privacy round-up
Image via CrunchBase
Privacy-themed stories about Facebook have been swirling around and around in the news cycle in the last few weeks:
Regular readers of the Not-So Private Parts might be starting to think I’m a little Facebook-obsessed. (“Sigh. Another post devoted to Facebook?”) I admit that I am a little obsessed, but with good reason.
Almost everyone I know uses the site — some more than others. The site has over 200 million users. Facebook holds the future of digital socializing in its hands, chimes in the Seattle Times:
[A]dmirers say Mark Zuckerberg’s five-year-old startup is poised to fulfill hype as the next big thing — that it will power online social interaction the way Google drives online search. Facebook is aggressively moving beyond the home page to pursue its mission to become a “social utility” that helps people “connect and share.”
To typical users, Facebook may seem a stand-alone Web site — a vehicle for people to renew and revitalize personal relationships, to post comments and photos and perhaps play games. But more than 10,000 Web sites now recognize a service called Facebook Connect, which enables users to use their Facebook ID and password to move fluidly among sites where registration is required.
Many of us live and breathe Facebook, the virtual translation of our offline lives. It’s where we store our photos and videos, confirm new friendships, reconnect with old friends and create invitations to events. If you’re not on Facebook, it’s easy to fall off the radar for friends’ events.
Facebook is trying to harness this power, compete with other sites, and also keep its users happy. This new privacy settings roll-out is the latest example. One of the changes is that you will be able to more easily differentiate between different levels of friends. That’s one of the biggest drawbacks on the site currently. Sometimes you want a colleague to see a status update (E.g., “Check out this cool article on True/Slant.”) and sometimes you don’t (E.g., “So hung over.”) Enter Publisher Privacy Control.
Have I convinced you that Facebook is BIG? And worthy of N-SPP’s obsession? If not, maybe Hollywood will. Facebook will be starring in a feature film soon:
Columbia Pictures is in advanced talks with David Fincher to direct “The Social Network,” the Aaron Sorkin-scripted film for Columbia Pictures about the formation of Facebook.
The film will focus on the evolution of Facebook from its 2004 creation on the Harvard campus by sophomore Mark Zuckerberg to a juggernaut with more than 200 million members.
via Fincher circles Facebook movie – Entertainment News, Film News, Media – Variety.
When it comes to the film, Facebook has its settings on uber-private. According to Inside Facebook, the company has instructed its employees not to comment about the movie.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
[...] mentioned Monday, I am Facebook-obsessed. But I’m far from the only one. So is the publishing industry, and so [...]
[...] isn’t free either. Not only does Facebook want to share your private conversations, pictures, and videos, but there is also the issue of opportunity cost. Unless your time is [...]
[...] You won’t even miss out on what used to be reserved for the most intimate of friendship circles. A while back, Liz and I put on our detective hats after spotting an unusually shiny ring on a far-away college classmate’s left hand in a Facebook photo album. Within minutes, we knew that she was engaged, where she had been proposed to and what dress she had been wearing when it happened. As for the fellow, he wasn’t in either of our personal networks but through his fiancée’s photos and profile, we could discern that he was a law student, had an annoying tendency to write sappy comments and liked double-stuffed Oreos. That’s good market profiling, right there. (But it also begs the question: what will happen to privacy, and what we deem private? Especially after Facebook has decided to go public, see this New York Times article “The Day Facebook Changed.” Kashmir Hill, another T/S contributor writes about these kinds of things quite a lot in The Not-So Private Parts, for instance, check out: “Facebook: A Privacy Round-up.”) [...]
[...] You won’t even miss out on what used to be reserved for the most intimate of friendship circles. A while back, Liz and I put on our detective hats after spotting an unusually shiny ring on a far-away college classmate’s left hand in a Facebook photo album. Within minutes, we knew that she was engaged, where she had been proposed to and what dress she had been wearing when it happened. As for the fellow, he wasn’t in either of our personal networks but through his fiancée’s photos and profile, we could discern that he was a law student, had an annoying tendency to write sappy comments and liked double-stuffed Oreos. That’s good market profiling, right there. (But it also begs the question: what will happen to privacy, and what we deem private? Especially after Facebook has decided to go public, see this New York Times article “The Day Facebook Changed.” Kashmir Hill, another T/S contributor writes about these kinds of things quite a lot in The Not-So Private Parts, for instance, check out: “Facebook: A Privacy Round-up.”) [...]