Since Facebook’s big developer conference, F8, in April the Internet has been swarmed with people talking about how Facebook is completely ignoring users’ right to privacy, and automatically “opting-in” users to insecure privacy settings. These allegations have some truth to them; and depending on what your stance on privacy is, they may not be completely unfounded concerns.
Here’s the deal. Yes, Facebook is opting users in to less restrictive privacy settings for new features (Instant Personalization, for example). However, is the information that Facebook is making available really “sensitive” information? The answer is, absolutely not.
Lets step back a minute, and think about what Facebook is; a social network. It’s core feature is sharing information! You put personal information in to Facebook willingly. You tell them what you like, and who your friends are, you upload photos of yourself, and friends. You update your status, and tell all 130 of your friends that you are so glad it’s finally Friday and that you’re going to the beach this weekend!
Why is this perceived to be so private? Lets take that same status update to the pub around the corner during happy hour. Suddenly, you’re in a public crowded place, surrounded by people you don’t know. You tell your best friend that you’re going to the beach, awesome! Do you think it is at all possible that people could have overheard your awesome news? Probably. Who cares, though? So, some random stranger knows you’re going to the beach this weekend. Who cares? Maybe they have a sweet mansion on the beach, and they are having a house party this weekend…double score. You’d never have known that, if they didn’t happen to come across your beach trip.
These scenarios are pretty much exactly alike, aside from the “real life” factor. You don’t have a privacy filter, or a cone of silence (ala “Get Smart”) that you can put up any time you want to have a conversation that you’d rather other people not hear. What do you do in real life? You go to a more private place, or more generally: take the conversation to a more appropriate forum.
This brings me to my next point. The Internet is a public place by nature, and Facebook is a tool for sharing information by design. In what world could these two tools possibly be put together and produce a product with an expectation of complete privacy? So, why is it that one would expect increased privacy from an application that is designed to share information, which is leveraging technology that was designed to distribute information freely and easily to billions of people?
Privacy on the Internet is non-existent. Sure there are sites where you expect information to be safe, and never shared (Online banking comes to mind). But even then, there is (or, at least, there should be) an accepted level of risk associated with using these tools, however small it may be. Anything you put on the Internet is public information, and sites like your bank take extreme precautions and set up lots of security that would make it really difficult for someone to gain access to your public, but private, information.
Conclusion
Facebook is ultimately not required to provide you with a warm fuzzy feeling of privacy regarding the information you willingly share with them. They willingly provide tools that allow you to put up some fences around things you’d rather certain groups of people not have access to. Is their system perfect? Of course not, but they offer more than they have to. Keeping this in mind, I’ll provide a very simple piece of advice to you about how to make sure all your information on Facebook is private. You actually have a choice, believe it or not. The first choice is to delete your account. If you find this unacceptable, and you wish to continue to use Facebook; then allow me to provide an alternative course of action. If there is anything you do not want to be public knowledge, don’t post it on the Internet.
