I've put this off for a while. I mean, honestly, do we really need another post about the Facebook privacy issues?
Apparently, we do. It comes up in almost every conversation I've had about social media in the last two weeks. And that's a LOT of conversations. Here's my take.
We pay for "free" in one way or another. Chris Anderson's Free was a great audio book listen, and I don't disagree that free is a business model and the way of the future for quite a bit of content. However, free does need to pay for itself somehow. Google isn't a charity working on donations, and neither is Facebook. Zuckerberg and the rest deserve to make a living through their business, as much as we'd like to believe that we, the public, deserve unlimited use of a free tool to connect with our friends. Chris Penn, of my favorite podcasters, has pointed out, we pay for free one way or another. He rants:
If you don’t like how these businesses – and they are businesses,
seeking to make profits – treat you, don’t use them. Don’t sign up for
them. Don’t give them your time, data, or mindshare. Build your own or use businesses that are more aligned with your values – and be prepared to pay cash out of pocket for them.
Google pays for free by mining data and revenue from ads correlated to that data. If you don't like Facebook's privacy settings, you have a few choices. Create your own social network and convince all your friends to join. Go to an open source, privacy-aware model such as Diaspora, and convince all your friends to join. Or just connect the old-fashioned way. You know, with LinkedIn.
In the words of a friend of mine, "If you don't like it, you can't have any."
If you don't want your grandmother to see or read it, don't publish it online. I don't subscribe to the philosophy that "there is no such thing as privacy" anymore. We do have the expectation of privacy in many situations. For example, I have the right to expect that my credit card information will be kept private; I will take legal recourse if it's not. My social security number, my home address--these are things I expect to be kept private. That, and other bits of my life I choose not to publish online. As C.T. Moore has pointed out in his post Facebook isn't evil; we're just naive, however,
When you're not in the privacy of your own home, your privacy rights are limited.
As comfy as we might feel online, the entire interwebz isn't "home." Our rights to privacy are limited. When information is published online, it's up to the publisher to determine and implement the desired privacy constraints.
If you must post the photo of yourself licking the frozen flagpole in your birthday suit, it's your responsibility to filter if from public search so that your next employer doesn't see it. Or better yet, don't post it at all, and keep it as a happy memory of the day you left part of your tongue in Canada. Likewise, if you're out drinking with friends and someone snaps a photo of you licking the frozen flagpole in your birthday suit, it's your responsibility to let that friend know that that photo is for personal viewing, not for posting online.
With free tools comes some responsibility on the part of the user. I've made my share of online slip-ups; I'll admit it. I've published angry Tweets, unflattering photos of friends into their cups, posted content intended for a personal account to a work account and vice versa. But none of those were Facebook's fault; they were mine.
Facebook could stand to be more user-oriented. All the above being said, Facebook could stand to be responsive to its users' needs, even though those users aren't paying for the service. Zuckerberg has claimed that he truly believed that more sharing was the default that users preferred. I find that hard to believe, since every progressive shift toward less privacy has been met by user uproar. Has Zuckerberg really not noticed that users are pushing back on every move he's made in the last six months?
Shauna Causey, Seattle's own Energizer Bunny of customer service and social media, was quoted in this article on Facebook privacy:
Facebook is walking a very thin line of trust with its users right now... Many users are looking for alternatives to feel like they are in control of their information online.
True that. Moore says Facebook is just acting like a business, promoting its own interests. Fair enough. But many of us have learned that in business, it's a good idea to listen to your customers. Will Facebook step up and do that?