The 8 Ways Big Brother Facebook’s New Changes Alienate Its Users
By Michael van der Galien
Facebook is supposed to be one of the most innovative social networking websites on the Net. It is, at the very least, the biggest — by far.
But for how long will Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard project remain number one? It’s a fair question to ask now that the changes Facebook announced Thursday at its f8 conference are being criticized by virtually everybody — except for Zuckerberg himself, that is.
When Google+, the new social network of Google, was launched, many were critical. The criticism disappeared at the very moment people starting using it, however: all its new users fell in love with it immediately. This wasn’t just a “social network,” it was truly a new home on the Internet, especially for those who had grown tired of Facebook’s clutter and arrogance.
Facebook knew it had to strike back. First came video chat, which is a partnership with Skype. Then, this week, other innovations were rolled out: the biggest changes were a new news stream and the possibility to subscribe to users’ public posts. Then, Thursday, other changes were introduced that, Zuckerberg announced, would truly revolutionize your Internet experience.
But are these changes in the best interest of Facebook’s 800 million users? No. Not even almost.
Three books to read and compare with Facebook
Gulag Archipelago – All 3 volumes.
Now compare these volumes with Facebook and wonder what Stalin could have done with Facebook
I did. You’re exactly correct. And not a single thing in this article has tempted me to change my mind and actually join Facebook. Or Linkin. Or any other social networking site.
“Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.” -Ben Franklin
I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Once you give information to an entity like Facebook it becomes their information, not just yours. If you want to keep control over it, don’t give it out. Facebook is never going to get my phone number from me. If it comes down to giving my number or leaving Facebook I’ll simply walk away. The only entity that should be under legal compulsion to maintain privacy is the government, and that’s only because they can legally compel me to give them my information.
I signed up for Facebook because I wanted to see my friend’s vacation pictures. I thought it was cute at first, you list your favorite books and movies. But what the hell is it good for? “Janice likes Kindy’s sister’s wedding pictures!” is top news on my News Feed. The format does not allow anyone to post anything longer than one paragraph, the return key posts the message, and people mostly talk in monosyllables and grunts. I suppose Facebook is aimed at teenage girls and rather dumb ones at that.
I saw that movie about Zuckerberg. He’s the sort of nerdy genius/moron who insults girls and betrays friends. He didn’t even invent Facebook, he took an existing program, the Campus Facebook, and souped up the code to work on the Internet. Compared to Steve Jobs he’s a flea on the head of a midget.
The news stream is absolutely horrendous. Again: it makes you wonder what the goal is, exactly. Make it more fun and more useful for its users or..?
it’s like On Star tracking our movements – even when we unsubscribe…now that’s scary..infact more scary than face book.
It’s all passing me by. Want to save yourself a lot of time and effort? Don’t go on Facebook or any other social network website at all. If people want to e-mail me, fine. But, other than that, why do people have to be informed of every movement I make? Bad enough my wife has to look at me, why does the rest of the world have to have that same “pleasure” on a daily basis? And everything you put down can be thrown right back at you at a later date. Save yourself a lot of grief. Just stay off of them and, better yet, if you want to talk to somebody, how about giving them a call? That would be nice for a change.
Sometimes, I yearn for the days of the fountain pen. I’m oh so 20th century.
This facebook phenomenon creeps me out and I refuse to participate in it. It screams Me, Me, Me and that’s a large part of what I think is wrong with us in general. And even if I wanted to participate, my life is too mundane and uninteresting to inflict it on others. Consider that as my gift to mankind.
Recently, Mark Zuckerberg had Obama make an appearance at a major event. Now this. I swear, everything Obama even gets near turns to dung. The Mierdas touch. (I forget who coined that excellent phrase. PJM article.)
No, Marc, you know how I feel about Obama (I think), but we can’t blame this on him.
Zuckerberg is simply doing more of what he’s always done.
I believe he’s honestly baffled that people want privacy, and want to control their own lives and information. I rather think he’s a bit on the autistic side – he simply does not grok normal people.
But whatever his motivations might be, there’s a simple solution.
Don’t Facebook. Period.
He’s not baffled that people want privacy, because he himself is reasonably private, despite his own publicity/interviews.
He’s just one of many people who love to imagine that everyone SHOULD be one big polymorphous amoeba cos then everything will be tickety-boo.
In his case it’s good for him financially.
in the case of the Marxists, it’s just easier to manipulate crowds.
I do not Facebook. Never have.
I do not trust Free service. There is no Free service.
Notice how “Free Service” destroys Freedom?
Pecos is right. The fact that FB is free should be the first red flag. How do you think Zuckerburg became a BILLIONAIRE! He SELLS access to every aspect of your life that is posted on his FREE site. We are being pimped out to all comers (no pun intended) with a marketing budget. They haven’t even invented all the ways to pimp us yet. Be careful, be very careful!!!
Calpatriot: the thing is… if something is free, chances are you aren’t the customer, but the product. People often don’t understand that, but it’s true.
Often true, but there’s lots of free software whose makers don’t care who you are or what you do. I use the Open Office suite rather than shell out big bucks for MS Office. My antivirus and firewall programs are free, and so are the TrueCrypt, KeyScrambler, Eraser and CCleaner utilities.
The points are valid and the changes are obviously unpopular with users, but I am equally concerned with Google. It is not due to the Google+ design, but the fact that Google seems to have an insatiable appetite to own everything. I think it puts all of us in a bad position to have any one company running just about every main service there is, especially when that company is highly political. Talk about Big Brother.
It’s interesting that one of Facebook’s founders is closely associated with the Obama camp. Even works for them.
See here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/technology/07hughes.html?pagewanted=all
Bingo.
Google is AT LEAST as bad as Zuckerberg, but with more PR savvy. They keep their real aims a bit more under the radar, not because they are nicer, but because they are more sophisticated.
They KNOW they are up to no good.
I think Zuckerberg is just clueless.
I don’t use Facebook so I’m not really up to speed with everything they are doing. Nothing in the article really surprised me too much except the section that they are encouraging people to add their health care information to FB. Really? How are they selling that as a benefit to users? Why would anyone even consider doing that?
My larger concern about what is brought forward in this post is that all social media sites have the same mindset that the users are not customers but are products to be sold. That mindset makes perfect sense for a free site but it gives me pause and certainly makes me think more about what I will share on any public sight.
They appear to sell it, according to the guy I link to, by implying it’s fun for your friends to know what sicknesses, physical issues, you overcame.
Right.
I’d like to share it on FB but alas, I have to submit my mailaddress and password.
Good article, well defined and clear.
However, one major question remains: what if Google (plus) starts zuckenberging too? I mean, Google also has a reputation of data mining and data selling.
Be on guard, that’s all I can say. I believe it’s vital for all of us to pay attention to what’s happening and to share our thoughts about it.
They want us to share? We will. But that means we’ll also share it when we believe they go too far.
In the end, then, one can simply use these websites’ weapons against them – and quite effectively so.
Facebook is okay. I see and read stuff from distant friends that I would otherwise not see.
But avoid posting ANYTHING controversial. People have been fired for that.
For instance, my employer is based in San Francisco. You can bet I don’t post anything about a number of subjects.
Google will eventually do the same thing FB has done, it’s only a matter of time. Your only real refuge is in the area of Open Software, where Diaspora has created a distributed social network in which *you* retain *all* control of your data. I invite you to check it out. It’s free (as in beer) and free (as in open).
See you there.
I did not care for and have dropped Google+. Facebook may go next, given the recent changes. I am back to LiveJournal, pretty much, just checking in at FB for family news.
I’ve never seen the attraction to any of those social websites, but then, I’m not a narcissist. Why would I want to post stuff about myself, and equally, why would anyone want to read it?
Larry, I have relatives in other states. I like them and they like me. We keep each other updated on our lives. It was really neato to see a picture of my great-nephew when he was only five hours old, from four states away. If it’s otherwise for you, fine. But it isn’t narcissism.
I hear ya. I’m the World’s Least Interesting Woman–why should I foist that on anyone?
Good response. I refuse to be drawn into the social networking craze, be it Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or any of the others. Don’t give a rip what someone else is doing, nor do I care to give out such info about myself. I do not get on the Internet to socialize. These are pointless wastes of time.
I still don’t see what all the excitement is about Google+. Only a few of my friends have embraced it, but these are the same folks who dumped Myspace when Facebook came along, and they did the same thing to facebook when Google + started.
I’m a longtime facebook user and I enjoy it, ven though I don’t agree with all of the “improvements.” Hopefully people will weather the changes.
If you think this is about “improvements” simply being poorly done, you have missed the entire point of this article, and every OTHER story about Facebook’s attitude about user privacy.
I got into FB with help from my adult children and it is a good way to share pictures and see what is happening with many layers and extensions of family, friends, and in my case, many former students, most of whom now live far, far away.
People are good about posting warnings/advice about how to re-adjust your security settings, after each new FB change.
Like anything, it is what you make it. Yes, discretion about what you say and what pictures you post is appropriate. At PJM, at least 1/3 of the posts are ones someone with any common sense would not make on FB. Of course, 5-10% of them are ones that people with common sense would not make anywhere. But the anonymity here and at most political site breeds a lot of wild talk and blather. FB, since it is not anonymous tends to be less a freefire zone.
Finally, I think the word “narcissist” is getting over-used considerably, unless one takes it as simply a throwaway adjective which could be used to describe more than half of us. It is 2011, not 1911 or 1961. Hell, by the losse way that the word gets applied, most people who post their political opinions online could be called narcissists.
that would be “loose” way.
“But the anonymity here and at most political site breeds a lot of wild talk and blather.”
“But”! “But”! “But”!
D-White, does the following qualify as 5-10, 1/3, 4-4-4, half-educated, or pervasiveness?
Dwight
“But you have to admit, there is a pervasive, albeit not universal quality of the posters here of being half-educated. What they know of the Founders, science, or politics comes FROM their agenda, not from objective study. It’s like learning about the Founders view of guns from an NRA website.”
June 26, 2011 – 5:39 am
Has the years of programming in Tweed Faculty Lounge distorted the Doors to the Pick It Fence But of Perception to the point of where you slavishly follow Mr. President so closely that you walk around your house speaking to your pets in an affected black dialect? Or post on PJM with a tone of faux profundity?
D-White, you’re right (no pun intended), for once. Some things should not appear on But Book. And elsewhere. And Mr. President needs your advice badly.
You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand…
Kudos, Dwight, for pointing out the overuse and misuse of the term narcissist.
Isn’t it ironic that so many people adamantly proclaim their dislike of social networks because they don’t want to be aware of anything that anyone else does, feels, thinks, is experiencing or otherwise cares about? Is that in and of itself a form of narcissism?
Bragging about refusing to use social networking is a also form of bravado to cover negative emotions about realizing no one cares about what goes on in your life. I can’t reach the grapes, they must be sour!
If you don’t want to share in other people’s lives, don’t. But don’t confuse it with some noble virtue.
Full disclosure: I’m a no-life loser with an empty boring life that no one cares about, but I use Facebook to get information from conservative writers, representatives, and groups–like an RSS reader, only interactive. It’s convenient to have that all in the same place as photos of my niece and nephews. Such narcissism!
I just deactivated my FB account. While doing so, the “Reason for Leaving” is “required”. You need their permission to leave?
My reason (edited for this posting): “Required”? Screw you!
It is unseemly that Facebook would ask for a partial driver’s license number to verify a log in.
Cracks me up, reading all the “why would anyone want to use Facebook?” comments. You folks who think it’s just a bunch of narcissists don’t have a clue about Facebook.
Neither, apparently, do the people running it.
Like every other advertising supported business, it’s going to flush itself down the drain soon enough. Point #2, You Aren’t the Customer, You’re the Product Being Sold is spot-on. Facebook isn’t doing things for your convenience, it’s doing it for the real customer, the advertisers.
However, that doesn’t mean FB can ignore the people using it. You might be the Product Being Sold, but it’s dumb of FB to ruin its product, and that’s what they’re doing.
The thing about privacy though is that you have to have some common sense. Posting on FB (or commenting on a blog post for that matter) is a public act. Whether you’re wearing your pajamas or not, you’re doing it in the public square and you should expect people to see and perhaps record what you’re doing. If you went down to the local coffee shop and gossiped with your friend about the wild drugs you did last night, and it turns out your bosses daughter was the barrista who overheard the whole thing, well, who’s fault is that? The coffee shops? Nah, they just provided the venue for you to act like an idiot in. Same with FB. Don’t post stuff you don’t want public.
8 more reasons why I don’t have a Facebook account–and why I forbid my daughter one.
Facebook is in decline. There are limits to the amount of information that most people will give, especially within the formats provided by such an arrogant institution. Young people (the future) are particularly wary.
Facebook has quickly become little more than a modern way of sending out Christmas cards and birthday greetings, and a place to keep a list of personal contacts.
Future generations will look back on the Facebook craze with astonishment and laughter.
What does it say about me that upon completing the article I clicked the like on faccebook button and tweeted the story?
I had Facebook for a while. I quit it when I realized a lot of my friends were rather brainless leftists, who just assumed I was, too.
It wrecked my opinion of a lot of friends.
It’s hard to take this post seriously when it’s so full of vitriol and hyperbole. Not to mention flawed – there are several things on this list you say users _never_ do that I do commonly. Like share photos from college with other college friends.
I’m not going to put my medical records on FB, turn on subscriptions, or loosen my privacy settings. If FB becomes too onerous, I’ll leave, as it sounds like you should have done years ago. The Chicken-Little shrieking every time FB changes features just sounds silly – like the Chicken-Little shrieking from the last time FB didn’t end the world. No matter how much you struggle, it will not stay 2005.
havent read that kind of blog ever!
Facebook can be useful for stuff like finding out when your favorite bands are playing and connecting with people you haven’t seen in years. However, such uses don’t bring in the dough for the company. They need users to spend hours on the site every day, like most teenage girls do. Hence, all the new features, “apps”, etc… If a new feature is actively rejected by users, it will not make money, and will most likely just quietly disappear.
NEVER post anything on any website that you don’t want made completely public. Privacy settings are irrelevant and can be changed by the company at any time for any reason. And the internet has a very long memory. Think “posterity”. All the frequent changes to FB could be good in that it teaches users of this simple fact – and teaches them by experience.
Readers here will find “Search and Destroy” quite informative, there’s a lot to learn about Google. The biggest concern I see for FB, G+ is for parents, kids do not understand there is no privacy, they freely post away, every key stroke is tracked and the “delete” key just makes info no longer available to you, FB retains everything.
Search and Destroy – I recommend you read it and share it with friends.
I have never tried MyBook or facespace, but I have come to learn that there is no free….
It’s all very simple, actually. I don’t post anything on FB that I wouldn’t a total stranger to read, watch, see or download. I use it for two things: “Hey, what’s up?” and “Check this out.”
Simple.
Facebook aka The Thought Police. The web gets more like Orawell’s nightmare society all the time.
I agreed with most of your point but when you said algortithms canm be good for choosing content I almost threw up. I’m not an unthinking automaton and what I wanted to look at yeaterday is not what I want to look at today. Computers will never be able to think and even if they could I’ll still choose to think for myself.
I think it is quite hilarious that the majority of the comments on here are enraged about how Facebook is capturing their information; but, you have to give this website your information to make a comment! HA! FOOLED YOU! They capture it for their advertisers too! I don’t see it… Keep your filter on your keystrokes, and use your parental settings.
An easy rule is to never put any information on any social network or website that you would not want to be totally public.
Yeah, Big Brother—people think it’s the gov’t—it’s not, it’s business. Skynet is becoming more aware via FB!
Yeah, I always got 1984 and Barbarians at the Gate mixed up, too.
I can’t believe that I just ran into this on Twitter… I just got done cleaning my craft room, which also has my computer, etc in it- not even 1/2 hr. ago- I was thinking, “what can I do with this nasty looking mouse pad”… Nothing surfaced. Then I saw the tweet that saved the mousepad! Thanks for sharing- I kid you not, the timing was almost scary… LOL