Up until now, I thought the “waah my boss saw the photos of me at a party” crowd should just use better judgment, or edit their preferences better or something. But today, I tried to understand my Facebook privacy settings, and I couldn’t. Or at least, I’m not confident that I understand the ramifications of all the choices I’ve made in their labyrinthine privacy settings.

I used to think that Facebook maybe cared about its users, but sometimes had an experiment go wrong. Or they were maybe going to change the game so the whole world cared less about privacy, and maybe this would help society or something.

I feel sorry for Facebook, really; they’re in a new industry where it’s not clear what you can and can’t do, and if you step over the line, the whole internet blasts you. Furthermore, with so much data about everyone, there are all these cool things you could do if people would let you, but to do them, you have to get people’s permission. And more permissions for more things -> more complexity.

But maybe they should just quit while they’re ahead. Today, Facebook haters, I stand with you. To try to use Facebook without accidentally making huge privacy errors is too much of a headache. And if Facebook actually cared about its users, it would take much bigger steps to make sure this situation didn’t happen. I’m not deleting my account, because it’s useful for its basic purpose (remembering people’s email addresses and stuff), but I’m sure not going to be adding more information there.

Comments:

Corinne - Apr 6, 2010

Which is probably why I didn’t see this post in my Newsfeed? Or is the blog still connected?

Dan - Apr 6, 2010

Nah, I think it still works, it just takes forever (about a day?) for new posts to show up there.