I've had a Facebook for six years. Colby College was one of the first schools added after the original Ivy Leagues. That's right, for those of you who don't remember, Facebook used to only be for college students, and select college students at that. I remember getting excited as more and more schools were added because that meant more people I knew could have a Facebook and I could have more friends. It was great.
And then they added high schools. I didn't like that so much. I liked that Facebook was "exclusive". But I got over it.
Then they opened it up to businesses. Then to EVERYONE.
"Ugh, Facebook is just like MySpace now" everyone said.
Just as Facebook has opened up it's site to more and more people over the years until eventually everyone could have a facebook, it has changed its privacy policies.
Eileen linked to this article on her Facebook page which then linked to this very interesting article on the evolution of the Facebook privacy policy. If it weren't true, it would be hilarious.
Currently, there is NO WAY to not show your birthday, pages you "like", bio and favorite quotes to everyone who has Facebook, unless you simply erase that information from your profile.
I'm not sure why I'm so concerned about privacy. I mean, I have a blog where I blab about my life so obviously I'm not against sharing some information about myself to strangers on the internet. I don't think enough information is available to steal my identity. I have really strong passwords to all important websites. I don't worry about stalkers because I never publish my address or phone number. I've never had any email or cyber stalkers (knock on wood).
I think it comes down to me wanting to be IN CONTROL of what information is out there. I don't want someone who is idly stalking Facebook to click on my profile and see anything about me besides my name. I used to have my picture hidden too, but now that's impossible as well. I want people to have to friend me to be able to see that information. Because if everyone can see it, what is really the point of being Facebook friends? It's as if by implementing these policies (including setting the default for a lot of information to "Everybody" those tricky bastards), Facebook is making being "friends" with someone obsolete!
I don't think I'm to the point where I'm going to eliminate my Facebook. I unfortunately rely on it too much to keep in touch with people. But these changes make me mad.
I encourage everyone who reads this to review their privacy settings on their account. As I mentioned, by default a lot of things are set to "Everyone." Check out this NYTimes article on how to do this.
6 comments:
I know. Facebook infuriates me...yet I can´t live without it ha ha! And those damn facebook creators know it! They know that they can get away with anything they want because people are now so addicted and so dependent on facebook it´s rediculous. I use facebook as a cell phone since I have no phone here in Canada and without it, I would not be able to get intouch with my friends throughout the day since almost everyone I know has facebook and it´s just such an easy communiation tool.
I think it´s completely unfair that they have ultimate control over some very private information. Grr...but what can we do? Until somebody invents some new type of facebook site that can compete with facebook, we´re stuck with it.
Hey, here´s a tip. I don´t know if you´ve heard of this yet facebook changed their privacy setting called ¨instant personalization¨ that shares data with non-facebook websites and it is automatically set to ¨allow¨. So you actively have to go change this setting so that facebook can´t do this. Go to Account, Privacy Settings, Applications and Websites, Instant Personalization, and uncheck ¨Allow¨.
The fact that they automatically check the ¨allow¨ because they know most people won´t even notice just pisses me off. Damn you facebook!!! I swear one of these days I´m going to delete it!!!
I share your thoughts exactly! That's a great tip at the end. I already did it, and I think the article I linked to talks about it, but thanks for highlighting it, because it's really important!!
Thanks for posting this. Now when I get home I can check my settings for the 454th time to make sure that everything is still on lockdown as it was before. Can't have my students see me liking things like "Mexican Word of the Day" now can I!?!
I know for me (like you, sounds like) the issue is not so much that people are going to get info I don't want them to get, so much as I should have control over who sees what. If I have a housesitter and they have a guest over without asking me, even if they don't touch my stuff or take anything, I feel invaded. My fb friends are housesitters. And all those other people are my housesitter's friends. I don't want them there.
FAIL! (ooh, I haven't said that all day). And yet, I still remain on FB.
PS, my captcha is reyabby. King Abby! I'd have called you a queen, but hey, royalty is royalty!
greetings.... visiting you from Annje.
I've been tearing my hair out over this dilemma too, for all the same reasons as you. I'm *this* close to deleting my Facebook account - in the last week I've deleted 90% of my photos and info. With sites out there like spokeo.com absorbing all the bits of pieces of peoples' lives (especially from Facebook), there is just too much personal info out there for my comfort level.
Check out spokeo, type your name or your phone number in it - it's spooky.
Great post, btw.
Heather: Haha, Mexican word of the day. If that's all my students could find out, I'd be home free.
Eileen: Good analogy with the house sitters. That's exactly how I feel. King Abby! I like the sound of that. Haha.
Mosey: Thanks for stopping by! Yes, I found out about spokeo through facebook, actually. I deleted my entry. It was super creepy.
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