Enraged by Facebook

Posted on Wed, 2008-02-27 00:33 by sarahfelicity
Categories: facebook | privacy

I have to say that the so-called "privacy" situation over at Facebook has me utterly enraged right now.

I have noted in the past – and even warned other people – that Facebook takes a really backwards approach to it all. Basically, they assume that you want to share, and the onus is on you to tell them when you don't. Fair enough, I suppose. When I signed up, I went through and set everything so that "only my friends" could see things. Much as I love you, fellow network members, I don't want to share my life with you.

In the time since I first did that, Facebook has added a lot of features. Many of these come with their own set of privacy options. And (I suppose I shouldn't be surprised), Facebook assumed with each of them that I would want to share with the world (they were wrong). So every few months, I would check my privacy settings, be surprised by a few things, and fix them.

But today took the cake. Today I received a comment on a posted item from a person who is not in my friends list, and it tipped me off that something must be funky over in privacy setting land again.

To my horror and irritation, Facebook has re-vamped that whole page... and re-set all my privacy options back to so that I'm sharing my Facebook life with "All my networks and all my friends".

What.

The.

Fuck.

I fixed them all *again*... but I'm actually pissed off enough to consider bailing altogether. This, combined with the realization that choosing to live much of my digital life within this "walled garden" means that I am forgoing the opportunity to ever access that content for reference later (shared links, etc) has left me feeling like Facebook kinda sucks. And by kinda, I mean... maybe a lot.

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darn facebook

Wed, 2008-02-27 01:13 — Patricia (not verified)

Unfortunately facebook is serpentine at the best of times. Notably if you join a new network you will need to go in and reset your privacy settings. The photo share option & commenting feature is a real culprit though, you have to pick through the photo/privacy settings to turn it off then you won't have the problem that you just mentioned (oh, and move it out of the mini-feed as well, did I mention the settings were serpentine?). I check and pick through my privacy settings periodically because sometimes the new features added also have privacy settings that need to be adjusted... ARGH!

One of the best things I did was to change the search settings so that only the people on my friends list can find me. I can find other people (real friends) and invite them in, or send them an email invite directly. And turning off the search function does work, because my relatives complain that they can't find me! he he..

Hey, you're web of change booth at NV was great. You've done such a good job on your projects!

Best wishes,

Patricia

Ah ha... So perhaps the

Wed, 2008-02-27 11:06 — sarahfelicity

Ah ha...
So perhaps the "re-set" happened when I joined the Vancouver network. That seems so ridiculous.... as though my feelings about that would change when I moved from Toronto to Vancouver?

It also seems so ridiculous that we're collectively so enamoured with Facebook that we're prepared to put up with stuff like this. Ugh.

---
In nicer words...
Thanks for your kind thoughts! It was fun to be at Northern Voice. :)

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similar thing

Wed, 2008-02-27 13:09 — Karen (not verified)

I had similar thoughts when I received an invitation to an event by someone I had never heard of. Probably a group admin, but it was still unnerving, especially since even events I say 'no' to stick in my events view, as seldomly as I check it (though this feature may have changed recently).

Anyway, agreement.

I left it a while ago

Thu, 2008-02-28 09:44 — Ivan Storck (not verified)

Concerns like yours and albumoftheday.com have led me to delete my facebook account. I would go back to myspace, but their password reset function won't email my gmail account for some reason, so I'm locked out of there now. I don't really care. It's better and easier to manage my online presence via my blog, twitter, ma.gnolia, and flickr which respect my privacy settings.

The only thing that might get me back is participating in thier developer networks - but you can be sure I'll be releasing information on a "need to know" basis and signing up as a company, instead of a person.

Facebook is not trustworthy

Tue, 2008-03-04 10:25 — Anonymous (not verified)

When they started sharing my Blockbuster account information without my permission I bailed. I don't care if people know what movies I rent but I do care if Facebook shares that information without my permission. I like the theory of Facebook. I am a college professor and it was great for keeping up with former students but I can't use a site I can't trust because it is so ethically clueless.

only suckers use real names on Facebook

Tue, 2008-03-04 12:04 — Anonymous (not verified)

Great post, but you're just figuring out that Facebook is evil? Only suckers would give up real info to those people.

Zuck gets rich exploiting your data. I hope at least he sends you flowers.

Facebook recognizes that

Tue, 2008-03-04 21:45 — Not Facebook (not verified)

Facebook recognizes that they're going to lose X% of their total accounts for each marginal decrease in privacy protection. They also surmise that this percentage will progressively diminish as a percentage of their account base. I suspect that they're correct.

Accounts with restrictive privacy rules are not valuable to them. So if you're going to make a fuss about having your pictures shared without restriction, they don't want you as an account. It's not a charity, it's not a lifestyle, it's a website that sells advertising and marketing products.

The problem is that Facebook promotes platitudes about maintaining a 'privacy ethic' while at the same time knowing that they will continue to reduce privacy protections. This is deceptive and frustrates people like the author who haven't caught on yet despite seeing the same thing happen over and over again.

indeed

Wed, 2008-03-05 01:55 — sarahfelicity

I certainly should (and do) know better.

The saddest part is that I feel sort of unable to quit. I mean, obviously I *could* quit. I wouldn't die. I wouldn't even suffer that much. But so many of my friends (truly) use it, and when I de-activate for a while, I find I miss out on a) events that people only post on Facebook to advertise, b) connecting with certain friends who I don't have an email relationship with, and c) the particular flavour of connection that Facebook seems to foster.

So until a good chunk of my friends stop using it, I'll likely stick around. Sigh.

breaking up is hard to do

Wed, 2008-03-12 14:27 — *magda (not verified)

last night i decided that my relationship with facebook was over. i found myself tired of it's constant nagging, neediness and lack of understanding. today we talked a bit, but there was no stopping the inevitable. i said my goodbyes and changed my status one final time. i know it would have me back in an instant, no questions asked - perhaps the most telling sign of it's unhealthy devotion to me.

maybe because i've still got a few toes sunk in another time, when my days were filled with blue skies and playgrounds. not a computer in sight...just me, my friends and a couple swings.

swinging back for a while....until i'm called away again.

Seems strange, although

Fri, 2008-08-29 06:14 — Brian Taylor (not verified)

Seems strange, although maybe I shouldn't be surprised, that the only comments seem to be negative. But then people tend not to write about postive experiences, just our way maybe?

But I've been on FaceBook for about 18 months now, I have none of the privacy settings set - everyone can see everything. The only thing I did do, was set my contact e-mail address to a 'disposable' one that I could easily change. All the details on there are real, but I don't include phone numbers or addresses, basically nothing that couldn't be found elsewhere (albeit, it is all in one place).

I can see why people would not want lots of information about them being published, but then why have an account in the first place? If it is just to keep up with friends, there is a phone/sms/e-mail/instant messaging. Surely the whole idea of these web 2.0 sites is to share aspects of your life with the wider world? And I shall continue to do so until someone comes up with a good reason not to.

Completely related to this

Mon, 2008-11-17 17:34 — Anonymous (not verified)

Completely related to this article, just wish I'd found it before having to experience such violation. In the meantime Facebook sucks.

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Enraged by Facebook

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