Privacy In The Internet Era
Social websites, such as Facebook or Twitter, have become the core of what many people consider to be the current incarnation of the Internet, and as more mainstream institutions, such as CNN.com, adopt the crowdsourced networking functionality, privacy becomes an important issue. A salient point, however, has gotten lost in the fray: social networking privacy is an issue because users choose to give up their data, not because someone takes it from them.
Facebook changed their privacy rules recently, and once again set off a worldwide user roar. Essentially, the problem revolves around removing granular privacy controls for user data segments in favor of allowing large swaths of user data to be public and sharable by others – for a service that was once known for its unbeatable tools for regulating privacy, this could be a worrisome change of tone.
The reality, however, is that Facebook, like its brethren, are corporations, and they’re constantly looking to increase either their userbase or the activity of their users, all in the name of greater ad revenue. The more pageviews attained, the greater the profit, and the more targeted interactions between advertisers and users are, the more valuable, and costly, it is to the advertisers. This is exactly why Facebook continues to push in this direction, no matter what Zuckerberg espouses on “opening the social graph”.
Facebook may be a fun distraction or an interesting tool, depending on perspective, but it’s easy to argue that sharing any and everything about oneself on it is not of any true value, and getting upset when this sort of oversharing becomes even more public seems ludicrous. Interestingly, many of the same people within the early adopter crowd upset with this decision are the same ones who use Twitter to post the minute details of their life and share their geolocation – something of a self-contradiction in terms of privacy concerns, it appears.
If a web service has become too public, scary, or overly interested in a user’s data, there’s a simple solution: stop using the service. Since this is Facebook, however, this seems unlikely to happen in mass quantities, no matter how much people protest. In a few months this will all have been forgotten and the world will move on, just like every other move by Facebook to connect people and publicize data throughout their short history as a company.
Complaining and protesting has its place, but doing so while willfully using a non-essential service is entirely invalid, not to mention deeply perplexing. Users don’t want to pay for these kinds of services, which would alleviate many of these privacy concerns, and yet they don’t want their privacy to be violated in any way – cake cannot be both had and eaten.
Kyle can be found on his blog, on Facebook, via email, or on Twitter.
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It’s not that perplexing, really. I’m a fully valid complaining, protesting, willful user of non-essential FB. In fact I’ve written a few things right here on T/S complaining loud and long about what FB is doing to us. And the reason that the complaints are valid is that digital natives such as yourself just don’t get it yet about privacy. But you will, and then it may be too late; you won’t get it you’ve got lots more life under your belt.
So, as someone who fancies himself an assimilated digital immigrant I feel a responsibility to complain, protest, and otherwise kvetch about what you are giving away without a moments hesitation.
I do “get it” about privacy – I’m not one of those oversharers, because I realize the stupidity, and privacy implications, of it. I do alot with the ‘net, yes, but I keep it in check with reality. Alot of my generation don’t really understand why these things are important, but they’re also not the ones complaining about it while participating in other activities that make their complaining self-contradictory.
I’m not arguing that Facebook is doing anything proper here, because they’re known for their epic privacy mishandling, but rather that it’s hard to complain about “losing privacy” when you give it away for free, without a thought.
–Kyle
In response to another comment. See in context »“I’m not one of those oversharers, because I realize the stupidity, and privacy implications, of it.”
Excuse me? Just what is it that you are trying to assert? Explain yourself please. Try using coherent sentences..
In response to another comment. See in context »“it’s hard to complain about “losing privacy” when you give it away for free, without a thought.”
Well said!! I agree completely. And about this people need to be warned, both the technologically inept who might not know what it is they are giving away and the technologically fluent who might not yet care about what they will later regret having given away.
Reminds me a bit of viruses “back in the day,” back before aol even provided Internet access. Lots of people did not even know they needed protection and companies (symantec?) jumped in to provide virus protection. I wonder if some company is working on a FB Privacy Protection Package—if not someone should be, they’d make a fortune (can you write code, wanna start a business????).
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m glad we agree more than it originally appeared, although I’m pretty sure any thwarting of advertising/privacy on Facebook will violate their TOS, so that’s probably not an option.
This, to be honest, was an issue prior to the recent Facebook changes in privacy handling – Facebook isn’t open, or clear, enough about what exactly others can see, who can see it, and what it’s used for. The flipside is that alot of us on the inside of the tech circle innately understand and forget to explain to the others.
I’m betting this fixes itself in the next year or two as people start to claw back their data when they get very creepy and intrusive ads/emails/USPS packages/etc.
–Kyle
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s funny seeing young people try to “clean up” their online act as they realize their history is being captured in cyberspace. That awful haircut, or drunken keg party or irreverent rant can live in infamy! Your high school yearbook is now being published globally. From those of us from the bell bottom generation….wow, good luck
In response to another comment. See in context »I was intrigued by whether there are people tyring to fill the protect-me-from-FB niche and I’ve found a couple that are starting to protecting FB users from FB exploitation:
http://apps.facebook.com/thegreensafe/index.php
http://givememydata.com/
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
In response to another comment. See in context »For some reason, I can’t reply to your other comment, but my 6th sense tells me that those applications you found have a limited shelflife with Facebook…
–Kyle
In response to another comment. See in context »I am glad that you point out the foolishness of putting every move and thought out here in cyberland. I stand with Doc Todd Essig above that privacy is important, once you loose it, they aren’t going to give it back, they may offer to sell it back to you, but don’t believe it ha!
I don’t use FB because of the lack of privacy AND because FB seems to not respect their user’s privacy. They claim that people WANT to share more information. But, FB is chipping away at privacy within their site for their own benefit.
I understand why some people remain with FB, even though the privacy issue is increasing. They see that there are still “opt out” options that THEY are content with. They also see that many people, and now lawmakers, are speaking up against FB. Thus, they remain with FB, thinking that either 1) things won’t get worse; 2) FB might eventually relent. As I said, I still prefer to stay away from FB. But, I can understand the tension that people face when they’re socially dedicated to a network – while also “hoping” that things get better (or don’t get worse). It’s a level of toleration and risk that I’m not wiling to take.
I wish that FB would permit a “lock down ” feature that was similar to what Myspace provides. In short, that you can essentially block everything from strangers in such as way that 99% of your profile is blocked. That’s the way Myspace used to be. I don’t know if that’s still an option or not. Maybe Myspace has gone downhill with privacy too.