Facebook earned major props last week for announcing that it was closing down regional networks and streamlining existing privacy controls to be more efficient and effective. Now privacy advocates are upset with Facebook over the changes? What went wrong? Is this just a case of privacy groups never wanting to acknowledge Facebook has done something good? Facebook might like to think so, but this time the privacy advocates are right on the money.
According to multiple reports, including articles from the BBC and Information Week, Facebook’s improved privacy settings aren’t that much of an improvement. In fact, some users argue, the changes were only made to get people to share more about themselves on the public web.
The centerpiece of Facebook’s new privacy overhaul is the ability to decide who gets to see every piece of information you decide to post on your profile. In theory, this is a great idea, because it gives users a very granular level of control over the information in their own account. In practice, however, it has led to some problems. For instance, unless you’ve previously set your privacy settings to a restricted level, your new default settings will be for public sharing.
The argument on Facebook’s side is that they are walking users through the process of changing their privacy settings as soon as they log on to the site, which is definitely a fair defense, but it’s clear that the goal of Facebook’s new privacy settings are not solely to protect users, but also to increase the amount of public information from Facebook on the web, thus making the site more attractive to advertisers.
For me personally, the privacy overhaul has not caused any changes to my account. However, I had very restricted privacy settings in place already. If you are unsure about how your Facebook profile is set up, log-in to the site today and follow Facebook’s prompts to change your settings away from the public default.
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