Posts tagged Facebook

After I got spammed with criticism about Facebook’s privacy policy from all sides, I want to put in my two cents, as well. The two main points of criticism are:

• Facebook would want to share certain information of its users with selected partner companies. This information would be shared with the partners without asking permission from the users.
• Very open privacy settings would be assigned to newly registered Facebook users by default. In fact, the users would have the possibility to change those settings to fit their requirements afterwards, but on the one hand this would be too complicated and on the other hand Facebook would be obliged to protect the users from being too careless with sensitive data.

Now here is, what I think about these points of criticism:

We have to be realistic. Facebook is a company, and, as a part of the economic system, is condemned to aim for the senseless goal of profit maximization. It’s only natural that such a company wants to get the most out of its goods. And the good of Facebook simply is information. Facebook would shoot itself in the foot (and for the costs that Facebook causes, certainly ruin itself), if it spoiled new ways of advertisement by deactivation of this new way of advertisement for all users by default. Deactivating advertisement on a page, if you have the possibility to do so as a user is one thing. But activating the advertisement voluntarily, though it already is deactivated by default, and you actually wouldn’t even have to lift a finger, is simply unrealistic.

And the fact that Facebook is such a company that is thinking economically, is actually an advantage for the user, in the end. Imagine Facebook based on students working in a voluntary capacity. If you don’t earn money for what you do, it doesn’t matter how much your heart would be in it: Sooner or later other work that earns you money would become more important. And then Facebook would suffer from little innovation, too little time for solving bugs, too little consideration of user’s feature requests, too few resources to serve the rush of visitors. Even if many people would donate even more money, such a site would become uninteresting and disappear from the screen fairly quickly. A giant network with 400 million users, where everyone can find most of his friends, would have never become reality that way. And all innovation that Facebook shows at the moment to conquer the internet, actually is a good benefit for the users, because: Social rules.

Those, who don’t like that Facebook shares some their data publicly by default resp. forwards them to its partners, feel free to change your privacy settings anytime you want. For those who scream that Facebook has to take over responsibility for its users’ naivety, I can only answer with a shake of the head. All privacy settings aside: It should be taken for granted to be at least a little considerate with the information that one shares on Facebook. Somebody who tells Facebook everything, just like a best friend, is just to blame as much as somebody who trusts his bank clerk as much as his psychologist.

I read an article lately, that was about a chat log where Mark Zuckerberg was quoted on what he allegedly said about the first 1000 users on Facebook when he was a student: They “trust me”. Dumb fucks. – At first I also stumbled. But let’s face it: Even I would have said something like that if hundreds or even thousands of people willingly gave me their contact data when I was a student. Everyone who knows me, also knows that I would never abuse this information. But the upside is: Facebook became a company that is under close surveillance. It can’t afford to use the data of its users in another way than it’s written in the privacy policy. And Facebook does offer the possibility to determine exactly which data is to be offered and which not resp. who may not see it.

And I really can’t comprehend the criticism that says it would be too complicated to change the privacy settings. Due to the latest changes in the privacy settings it became even more clear with whom which information is to be shared. But also before these changes it was clear enough, in my opinion. Sure, it wasn’t done all by one click and one had to look a little closer. But isn’t that obvious? If you want to control your privacy settings on the highest level of detail (even broken down into every little post), you have to accept the respective complexity. I’m really thankful to have the possibility to determine exactly who is able to see which information and who is not. Facebook already tried to make this as simple as possible, and I have to say: It did a good job. Regarding intuition it’s only inferior to Apple’s iStuff.

In short: I decide on my own and voluntarily, which information I share on Facebook. To reproach Facebook with not acting responsible enough is wrong, in my opinion. I have all the possibilities I need, regarding privacy - I only need to do it myself. And it’s a good thing, too. We don’t really want a mindless society where nobody has to care on his own, what information he gives to others.

By the way, for those who haven’t realized yet, I have integrated Facebook into my blog now: Now you can simply use your Facebook accounts to login to the blog and write comments. Or tell me and others, whether you like a blog post, using the “Like” button. I’m happy about it. And for those who say that this is too invasive, I can only say: Have the courage to use Facebook’s privacy settings to prevent, that anyone can see something that you don’t want him to see. It’s actually pretty easy. ;)