Either Mark Zuckerberg got a whole lot less private or Facebook’s CEO doesn’t understand the company’s new privacy settings.
When Facebook’s new privacy settings were rolled out yesterday, many privacy gurus complained that the default setting was for “Everyone” to have access to your Facebook profile, meaning users had to be proactive about limiting access to their accounts. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the “new ‘privacy’ changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg either missed that article or doesn’t care. Back in October, I checked the Facebook profiles of the Facebook executive team, and found their privacy settings to be quite high. I wrote of Zuckerberg’s profile at that time:
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO – You can see his photo, his networks (Facebook and Harvard alum), and a list of his 889 friends, but that’s it. You can’t add him as a friend, but you can send him a message.
Well, that’s changed. His profile is now on uber-public settings. I can see his wall, his photo albums, and his events calendar. Zuckerberg recently became a fan of Taylor Swift, uploaded graphic photos of “The Great Goat Roast of 2009″ three months ago, and plans to attend the Facebook holiday party on Friday night. I can even tell you where it’s going to be held.
You can check out his profile here. Here are some screen grabs:
Zuckerberg’s profile to a non-friend. It looks like most of his activity is public:
Here’s Zuckerberg’s event calendar. He’s RSVPed yes for the Facebook holiday party, Cirque Fantastique, at the SF Design Center Galleria in San Francisco Friday night:
And Zuckerberg’s photo albums. I was able to access them all, as I assume you will be able to if he leaves his privacy settings as is. Did he really intend for the world to see him eating goat in someone’s backyard?
Is Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction to privacy complaints to lead by example and let 350 million Facebook users peruse his Facebook activity? Or is the company’s own CEO confused by the changes, and exposing more to the world than he intended?
Hat tip: To a friend I won’t identify for fear of his being subjected to the wrath of Facebook. Thanks, n!
P.S. I have a rule against publishing Facebook photos… but Gawker doesn’t. Ryan Tate gives you his favorite picks from Zuckerberg’s gallery here. Or you can just browse yourself. Zuck’s gallery is still public as of 10 a.m. EST on December 11.
UPDATE: Mark Zuckerberg claims he did this on purpose. His profile remains public, but only to “friends of friends.”
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Pro tip: you can see “Blaise DiPersia” in your mutual friends
I’m guessing he’s the hat tip recipient.
No, he’s definitely not. He works for Facebook.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Klargörande: Självklart kan man fortfarande själv bestämma om man vill att ens bilder eller statusuppdateringar ska vara publika. Men nu krävs det att man själv är aktiv. Och för många som inte orkar sätta sig in i frågan så ändras förutsättningarna. Frågan är om Facebook-grundaren Mark Zuckerberg själv förstått sekretessförändringarna? [...]
[...] assumes, of course, that this was Zuckerberg’s intent. But it’s now 12 hours since True/Slant’s Kashmir Hill noted that his profile was open to the public, which has prompted a series of stories just like [...]
[...] from sharing very little of his personal Facebook content with the public to sharing a whole lot, True/Slant’s Kashmir Hill has noticed. Where the public could see just one photo of the Facebook co-founder in October, strangers now [...]
[...] assumes, of course, that this was Zuckerberg’s intent. But it’s now 12 hours since True/Slant’s Kashmir Hill noted that his profile was open to the public, which has prompted a series of stories just like [...]
[...] 350 million people to personalize the audience for each piece of content they share.”However, one blog noticed that rather than ‘control’ what information he was sharing, Zuckerberg has [...]
I stand corrected! Thanks for the reply
Great find, Kashmir. I’m hoping this is leading by example. It does seem odd to share his calendar, though. I could see over zealous fans showing up to try and engage with him. It could even be a stalking issue.
I think he’s got different settings for “friends of friends” and that you’re able to see this stuff b/c of your connection through this Blaise character. I’m not able to see his photos tab or the photos/videos links underneath his profile picture, presumably b/c all of my friends are plebes who are at least 3+ degrees of separation away from Mark. This is definitely interesting, though. I can’t imagine he actually wants to be sharing his photos with non-friends or even friends of friends, but he’d also have to be kind of an idiot to have screwed up his own privacy settings in the days after FB changed their privacy architecture.
Thanks for pointing this out, Dave. Friends of friends can see his photos, and non-friends can’t. But we can all see his event calendar, which is not as embarrassing/intimate as his photos, but is definitely a bigger security risk.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Want to see his latest status updates? Now you can. The media has been obsessed with it all day, some of which have even suggested that Mark Zuckerberg must not understand the new privacy settings. They would [...]
[...] As a result of it, Mark Zuckerberg has gone from sharing very little of his personal Facebook content with the public to sharing a whole lot, True/Slant’s Kashmir Hill has noticed. [...]
[...] from sharing very little of his personal Facebook content with the public to sharing a whole lot, True/Slant’s Kashmir Hill has noticed. Where the public could see just one photo of the Facebook co-founder in October, strangers now [...]
Daveheal may be onto something. Mark and I share a common friend, so that might be why I can see his profile.
Unrelatedly, I just signed up for a comment account and was wondering if there’s a way for me to modify my displayed username in these threads so it looks more like a real name. You know, capitalized first letters and space in between my first and last name and whatnot. Or is this a privilege reserved for contributors? I wasn’t able to do this when I signed up but figured I could change it in my account settings. Maybe I’m too dense to figure it out on my own.
In response to another comment. See in context »Also, he’d have to be pretty dim to change it by accident. When I got onto facebook a couple days ago with the new changes it asked me to review all the privacy settings, and basically had them all the same as before. To make it open I would have had to make changes, since it wasn’t open before.
The new settings might be pushing people to more access, but only if they were sharing everything with a lot of networks already.
[...] Before Zuckerberg and the Facebook team could revert the profile to its private status, blogger Kashmir Hill grabbed screenshots of the account. The gossip hounds at Valleywag picked up on the story soon [...]
[...] As a result of it, Mark Zuckerberg has gone from sharing very little of his personal Facebook content with the public to sharing a whole lot, True/Slant’s Kashmir Hill has noticed. [...]
[...] what on their profiles. In an ironic turn of events, Mark Zuckerberg’s personal photo albums became easily accessible after the privacy switch. It’s likely Zuckerberg had set his albums to [...]
[...] Kashmir Hill catches Facebook CEO’s Mark Zuckerberg not quite grokking his own brainchild’s privacy policies.: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg either missed that article or doesn’t care. Back in October, I [...]
Mark Zuckerberg just addressed this very point in a Facebook status update: “For those wondering, I set most of my content to be open so people could see it. I set some of my content to be more private, but I didn’t see a need to limit visibility of pics with my friends, family or my teddy bear
”
That teddy bear pic gets bonus PR points.
[...] Zuckerberg has opened up his profile so that anyone can see his wall, photos and events. While their report speculates that perhaps Zuckerberg doesn’t understand the new settings, it’s far more likely [...]
[...] a post from gossip blog Gawker, after Kashmir Hill at True/Slant discovered and reported that Zuckerberg was sharing photos with a wide circle — friends of friends — and his event calendar [...]
[...] going to guess that it was B, because since the articles on True Slant and ValleyWag have run, Zuckerberg’s profile is a lot more [...]
[...] going to guess that it was B, because since the articles on True Slant and ValleyWag have run, Zuckerberg’s profile is a lot more [...]
[...] Either Mark Zuckerberg got a whole lot less private or Facebook’s CEO doesn’t understand…, True/Slant [...]
[...] Zuckerberg has opened up his profile so that anyone can see his wall, photos and events. While their report speculates that perhaps Zuckerberg doesn’t understand the new settings, it’s far more likely [...]
[...] Zuckerberg has opened up his profile so that anyone can see his wall, photos and events. While their report speculates that perhaps Zuckerberg doesn’t understand the new settings, it’s far more likely [...]
[...] TrueSlant’s report suggests that Zuckerberg doesn’t understand the new settings, which is highly unlikely. It’s more plausible that he’s trying to show everyone else that there’s no harm in opening up. He would certainly look hypocritical if he kept his profile limited to his friends. So opening up his profile was a smart, premeditated move — he’s leading by example. But it’s not likely to sway Facebook users who are skeptical that openness is in their best interests. [...]
[...] going to guess that it was B, because since the articles on True Slant and ValleyWag have run, Zuckerberg’s profile is a lot more [...]
[...] Kashmir Hill noted that Mr. Zuckerberg previously limited what people he wasn’t connected to could s Read Full [...]
[...] going to guess that it was B, because since the articles on True Slant and ValleyWag have run, Zuckerberg’s profile is a lot more [...]
[...] like its fast-growing frenemy Twitter. In what seemed like a savvy PR move, CEO Mark Zuckerberg opened his own photos to the public last night. But after we ran some of the more interesting shots, he appears to have partially yanked them [...]
[...] Zuckerberg has opened up his profile so that anyone can see his wall, photos and events. While their report speculates that perhaps Zuckerberg doesn’t understand the new settings, it’s far more [...]
[...] from sharing very little of his personal Facebook content with the public to sharing a whole lot, True/Slant’s Kashmir Hill has noticed. Where the public could see just one photo of the Facebook co-founder in October, strangers now [...]
[...] from sharing very little of his personal Facebook content with the public to sharing a whole lot, True/Slant’s Kashmir Hill has noticed. Where the public could see just one photo of the Facebook co-founder in October, strangers now [...]
[...] like its fast-growing frenemy Twitter. In what seemed like a savvy PR move, CEO Mark Zuckerberg opened his own photos to the public last night. But after we ran some of the more interesting shots, he appears to have partially yanked them [...]
[...] Want to see his latest status updates? Now you can. The media has been obsessed with it all day, some of which have even suggested… Want to see photos that Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of [...]
[...] Before Zuckerberg and the Facebook team could revert the profile to its private status, blogger Kashmir Hill grabbed screenshots of the account. The gossip hounds at Valleywag picked up on the story soon [...]
[...] (and entirely justified) hub-bub over Facebook’s new “privacy” settings (which even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t understand) prompt me to write it down here. We need an open, distributed technical protocol for [...]
[...] going to guess that it was B, because since the articles on True Slant and ValleyWag have run, Zuckerberg’s profile is a lot more [...]
[...] going to guess that it was B, because since the articles on True Slant and ValleyWag have run, Zuckerberg’s profile is a lot more [...]
[...] a post from gossip blog Gawker, after Kashmir Hill at True/Slant discovered and reported that Zuckerberg was sharing photos with a wide circle — friends of friends — and his event calendar with everyone. His profile is now on [...]
[...] Zuckerberg has opened up his profile so that anyone can see his wall, photos and events. While their report speculates that perhaps Zuckerberg doesn’t understand the new settings, it’s far more likely [...]
[...] reports on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s glitch with his social network’s new privacy [...]
[...] Either Mark Zuckerberg got a whole lot less private or Facebook’s CEO doesn’t understand…, True/Slant [...]
[...] Either Mark Zuckerberg got a whole lot less private or Facebook’s CEO doesn’t understand the com… [...]
[...] from sharing very little of his personal Facebook content with the public to sharing a whole lot, True/Slant’s Kashmir Hill has noticed. Where the public could see just one photo of the Facebook co-founder in October, strangers now [...]
[...] what on their profiles. In an ironic turn of events, Mark Zuckerberg’s personal photo albums became easily accessible after the privacy switch. It’s likely Zuckerberg had set his albums to [...]
[...] however, that Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg is eating this new Facebook openness dog food by making most of his profile wide open. This is a massive change from before, when he was extremely private with his Facebook profile. [...]
[...] Kashmir Hill noted that Mr. Zuckerberg previously limited what people he wasn’t connected to could see — [...]
[...] he wants us to forget about privacy and open up our Facebook accounts. Ironically, in the end, he closed down his profile again. The result: You become recognized if you want it or not, and each day in more places around the [...]