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.
8. The News Stream: Forcing Non-News Down Your Throat
Facebook changed the news stream to supposedly make it more interesting. You now see the most important and interesting posts first. The idea is wonderful. After all, it’s a bit time-consuming to go through all the updates from your friends — this especially goes for those of us who have hundreds or even thousands of them.
Sadly, however, the algorithm used by Facebook is anything but effective. Users immediately complained (link to Dutch website) that the recommended posts weren’t interesting at all. The nice thing about algorithms is that they can be more efficient than curation by humans. The bad thing is that they can be absolutely horrendous when they aren’t perfect. Facebook can do many things well, but curation isn’t one of them.
What’s more, even if the algorithm worked perfectly, social media users want to be the ones to decide what they will and won’t read. As one angry user put it:
I don’t like the way they decide for me what’s important or interesting, I’m the only one that can make these decisions. I want to decide if I want to see all, most or important updates of friends, which is set by default on “most.” What are the criteria to declare something a top story? Yesterday a story of a Serbian friend (in Serbian, with Serbian comments) was declared a top story. I can’t read that, does FB translate everything that is posted?
It’s rather ironic, but Facebook doesn’t quite get the meaning of social. Users want to be in charge; they want to choose how and what they share — and what they read. Facebook’s new news stream makes that more, not less, difficult.
7) The Subscribe Button Is Anti-Facebook
Facebook’s new subscribe button lets you subscribe to a person’s public posts, even if you aren’t his friend. The thinking behind this new feature is undoubtedly that this is what Twitter and Google+ are doing, that it’s a much appreciated feature there, and that, therefore, Facebook’s users will also love it.
It’s once again proof that Zuckerberg doesn’t know what his own website is all about. Ask yourself these questions: What do users expect from Facebook? Why do they log in? To read what people they don’t know have to say, or to catch up with friends and family members? The answer, of course, is the latter. If they want to enable non-friends (or: outsiders) to read their updates, they’ll post to Twitter or Google+.
Facebook wants to change that, however. If you activate the subscribe button, those who don’t know you can read your public messages. Although this feature isn’t shoved down your throat — you can choose not to allow it — Facebook obviously encourages it.
Additionally, many users worry that those who do activate this feature will start using Facebook like a second Twitter: quick, short updates that are meant to market and promote themselves (or their products), rather than personal messages aimed at their real-life friends. Of course you can simply defriend such people, but that isn’t what you want to do. After all, you came to Facebook to connect to them. That’s why you are spending hours a week talking to them, reading their status updates, and looking at their photos.
6) The New Profiles Are The Biggest Breach Of Your Privacy In Facebook’s History
One of the many complaints made against Facebook is that the website doesn’t protect its users’ privacy. Instead of taking these concerns seriously, Zuckerberg decided to double down on his wonderful utopian dream, in which everybody shares everything — with everyone.
The new profile — which will be rolled out during the rest of the month — looks quite beautiful. Your profile suddenly becomes your personal website; if you want to send your friends and relatives a url where they can keep tabs on your activities — past and present — you just give them the link to your Facebook page.
However, sadly that isn’t all there is to the new profiles: there’s that … privacy issue again. With whom is the new profile shared? Who can and who can’t see it? What do you have to do to protect your privacy (which is what Facebook does not want )? Additionally, it’s downright creepy that other people may want to go through your old photos and messages. Why are they doing that? Why would they spend their precious time in that fashion? I don’t know about you, but the first thought that comes to my mind is: Stalker alert!
Most people are using Facebook because they want to share what’s happening in their lives today and they want to see what their friends are going through today. They have no interest in what happened years ago.
Some users have pointed out that taking a trip down memory lane is the exact opposite of what Facebook once stood for. This website was once forward looking. Now, however, it will all be about the past. That may be fun for the elderly among us, but for everybody else? Not so much.
5) Make Insurance Companies Happy: Share Your Medical History
One of the most troubling “innovations” of the last few days is Facebook requesting you to share your medical history. Now, as with many of the other features, you can simply choose to opt out. However, that isn’t what most users will do; they won’t understand who’s watching them and who’s hoping they will share that information.
The obvious answer? Insurance companies.
As blogger Emmett Lollis points out, Facebook clearly wants to have the health records of its users on file. Of course, that isn’t useful for Facebook – at all – nor is it very interesting for the average friend. Insurance companies will love it, however. Imagine applying for health insurance. Next thing you know, you’re in trouble (you’ll either have to pay more or they’ll refuse to insure you) because of what your prospective insurer found on your Facebook profile.
Wonderful innovation, isn’t it? With a little bit of luck, Facebook will proceed to actually fill in your insurance application. Isn’t that exactly what you want your social network to do?
I didn’t think so.
4) Clutter, Clutter, Clutter
Do you remember how Facebook looked a few years ago? If so, do you also remember why you stopped using MySpace and made the switch to Zuckerberg’s pet project? Your answer probably is: “MySpace became so cluttered, I didn’t know where to begin and where to end.”
Well, welcome to the new MySpace. Facebook is making sure that history repeats itself. If you log in and go to your news stream, you’ll see that they added a wonderful “news ticker.” This ticker is constantly updated and it tells you what your friends are doing at that very moment. When they “like” a photo, you’ll know about it — not today, not one hour from now, but immediately.
The idea behind this ticker is that Facebook wants to enable you to share more than ever before. The problem, however, is that it looks absolutely horrendous: if they purposefully tried to make Facebook so cluttered users would run away screaming, they couldn’t have done a better job.
Now, you can disable the news ticker, by changing your language into English UK, rather than American English, but that isn’t what the average user wants. He wants to be able to get rid of such fancy (but completely useless and even annoying) gadgets without having to work around the system. As always with Facebook, its developer-in-chief couldn’t care less. He know what’s good for you, and if you don’t like: too bad, good luck fixing it.
3) Facebook’s New “Open Graph” Or Why The Government And Businesses Love Zuckerberg
Facebook’s new Open Graph creates a permanent record over which the user has no control. Read that again: its new Open Graph creates a permanent record… over which you exercise no control whatsoever. Facebook collects the information — it keeps an eye on what you’re doing and records it, whether you want it or not. Here‘s a short explanation from tech website Mashable:
In the past, apps that accessed data from the Facebook APIs could only store that data for 24 hours. This meant that apps and app developers would have to download user information day after day, just to keep up with the policy. Now the data storage restriction is gone, so if you tell an app it can store your data, it can keep it without worrying about what was basically an arbitrary technical hurdle….
The author, Christina Warren, explains what the privacy issues involved are:
I took a look at the different documentation of the Open Graph API and the different social plugins, and gathered that the data collection and overall privacy settings don’t differ from what has already been available. Again, what changes is how that data can be displayed to different people and how it can be integrated in different ways.
Nevertheless, it is imperative that users who have concerns about privacy make sure they read and understand what information they are making available to applications before using them. Users need to be aware that when they “Like” an article on CNN, that “Like” may show up on a customized view that their friends see.
Lauren Weinstein — an expert on the Internet and privacy – adds rather succinctly:
Biggest fans of Facebook’s new Open Graph:
- FBI, CIA, NSA, TSA, + (all Department of Homeland Security departments and assets)
- Local Law Enforcement
- Your boss
- Your medical and life insurance companies
- Your auto insurance company
- Department of Motor Vehicles
- All lawyers (especially divorce and personal injury)
- Anyone else who might want to know how you’ve spent your time, at any point in the future, based on the permanent data record created automatically by your activities at vast numbers of sites, all collected in one place for ease of court orders.
Is it any wonder that Big Government and Big Business love Facebook?
And that brings me to…
2) You Aren’t the Customer, You’re the Product Being Sold
There’s a saying in the business world: if you aren’t paying for the service you’re using, chances are you are the product being sold.
Well, that’s pretty obvious in the case of Facebook — and users are noticing it.
Most of the changes aren’t meant to make life easier for users — that means: for you and me — but for advertisers. The goal clearly is to make it easier for them to target people whose Internet behavior implies they may be interested in a company’s products. If that means that you and I have a more difficult time using the world’s largest social network, so be it. Facebook has more important things to consider, namely money. Selling out its users is par for the course if doing so helps Zuckerberg cash in just a little bit more.
Of course, every single company in the world is driven by the profit motive. I’ll be the first to say that there’s nothing wrong with that. Quite the opposite is true, even: capitalism tends to reward excellence. Companies that do well, that deliver excellent products, are encouraged to innovate and improve their product even more, for us consumers, so they can make even more money.
As far as Facebook is concerned, however, we aren’t the customers, but the products being sold. That’s why our feedback is completely and utterly ignored. Users tell Facebook time and again what’s wrong with the website. Many folks have wondered why Zuckerberg and his friends don’t listen. The reason is simple: they listen to their real customers, meaning their advertisers and other companies that use Facebook to make a quick buck. You and I are taken for granted; after all, we are the product.
1) Big Brother Has Arrived, His Name Is Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg’s mission in life is to make people share — everything, everywhere, and all the time. He believes in the hacker’s perfect world, one in which everything is transparent and open, and where there’s no room for secrets… or closed doors.
The rest of us may have a somewhat different vision of the ideal future, but “Zuck” doesn’t care. He has a mission in life, and he’ll achieve it. That’s that, end of debate. As Wired explains:
Facebook believes that when people share within its system, without fretting about the data they generate, his company can deliver tangible benefits. (Just as American Express made productive use of Ek’s information.) People will become closer with each other, be able to express themselves, and generally participate in a community of friends and contacts more deeply and fruitfully than they could hope to do so in the physical world. It is an idealistic vision, but self-interest is involved as well. Facebook stores all the data that people share with their buddies, family, business associates and people they sat next to on an airplane once and impulsively friended. And it can use that to allow advertisers to micro-target their sales pitches.
In other words, Zuckerberg’s mission is both idealistic and pragmatic. He envisions a brave new world, which sounds rather frightening to me, in which we all share everything. Bringing this nightmare about is wonderful enough for him, but what makes it even better is that he can get rich by shoving it down our throats.
I have seen the future: it’s filled with Facebook’s blue color, watching our every move. Not because we believe that to be in our interest, but because Zuckerberg has decided it is.
George Orwell wrote about a frightening future (or past for us, of course) in which the government knew what we were doing constantly. His nightmare may still become reality. He was wrong about one thing, however: it isn’t the government that poses the biggest threat to our privacy, it’s a company called Facebook.
Michael van der Galien is a political and social media blogger from the Netherlands, but currently residing in Izmir, Turkey. He edits his own social media blog, Michael Blogs. Follow him on Twitter and Google+.
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