TLDR: Facebook doesn’t care how private you want your settings; your data is going to be able to be bought and used by data miners and targeted advertisers. This is a win for Facebook and advertisers, but a lose for just about everyone else. Why? Well, you should have read the article, you lazy asshole. I’ll quote the pertinent part for you:
"The example Facebook uses in its announcement is a page for ‘Cooking.’ Previously, you could list ‘cooking’ as an activity you liked on your profile, but your name would not be added to any formal ‘Cooking’ page. (Under the old system, you could become a ‘fan’ of cooking if you wanted). But now, the new Cooking page will publicly display all of the millions of people who list cooking as an activity.
Cooking is not very controversial or privacy-sensitive, and thus makes for a good example from Facebook’s perspective. Who would want to conceal their interest in cooking? Of course, the new program will also create public lists for controversial issues, such as an interest in abortion rights, gay marriage, marijuana, tea parties and so on."
Yes, they will use targeted advertising on Facebook. That isn’t the terrible problem. They’ve been doing that for a while now. But if you list your address, your mobile phone number, or other such things (even if you have it set so that only friends can see it), then these advertisers will have access to that information as well. Your e-mail address is mandatory, and so I’m sure that Facebook shares that with other people as well. But let’s address the text I quoted as well. Complete strangers will know about your political affiliations, your sexual orientation… anything that you post to your profile. And they might not be advertisers. They might be prospective employers (oh, looks like Bob Johnson is for gay marriage… doesn’t seem like the type for our company), or more sinister people (like the free iPad scam artists going around Facebook right now) .
So, what can you do? Only two things, really: 1. Delete all personal information. 2. Delete your account completely.
I’ve seen people use Facebook…it’s like a drug to them. And we all know how many warnings you can give to druggies before they try to do something about it.
I think the mass majority of facebook users are more concerned about their puppy farms and sheep tornados or whatever the fuck goes on in Farmville than their privacy settings.
Funny that you mention that. Farmville is one of the worst things on Facebook. I don’t just mean it sucks. I mean that it’s an evil corporate machine designed to cheat you out of money and rife with scams.
It really bothers me when I see people just getting sucked into those Facebook games. I used to play some like Tetris and Bejeweled, but I’ve never even touched Farmville (and don’t want to either).
Asians in particular seem to really like playing those games. (I’m totally serious about this.) So on that note, fuck Facebook. Pretty soon, it’ll be MySpace all over again.
While we’re talking about stupid shit here, I REALLY HATE Youtube’s redesign. Just found out the other day I have no shuffle options on my playlists. What the fuck!?
It’s a wise decision to keep most private information off of the internet in general, not just Facebook. Share only what you would share with your average stranger.
I never got into Facebook. I can understand the appeal and I suppose contacting people you used to know is nice, but at the same time, it always felt like a bit of a popularity contest to me. I always took umbrage at how you would call someone you barely knew or haven’t talked to in years a friend, since I know from experience my friends need the patience of a saint to deal with me and everybody else, even if I like them, are just “acquaintances.” Plus, I’ve always been a bit of a recluse online, so even when that wasn’t the case, I always preferred that people only be able to contact me when they already knew me some other way. Besides, from what I hear, that site is not good for an addictive personality like mine.
I’d like to see your reasoning. Care to expand on that?
Kairi: On the top right of your screen you should see something that says, “Account.” Click on that, and then click on “privacy settings.” Click on “friends, tags, and connections.” To the right of friends, you should see a drop down box. Click on that, and then click “Only Friends.” Ta da!
I don’t think the EFF’s description is accurate. You can change your privacy settings so only friends, etc., can see your interests. The new “interest group” pages don’t allow you to list their members. They do show six random members in the sidebar (like the “Friends” box). But first, I’m not sure the public can see you there, if your privacy setting for interests is Friends Only. Second, I find it highly unlikely your employers will navigate to the “gay marriage” interest page, with thousands of members, and reload it for hours to see if your name pops up in the sidebar.
That said, it does irritate me when Facebook claims to remove privacy options for my own good.
Hooray! Now these data mining companies can keep our information indefinitely instead of 24 hours!
I had a whole giant response to this, but Firefox decided it didn’t like me and crashed. I’ll try to remember as much as my response as possible. Yeah, it seems you’re right about the employers thing, though I’m not sure that someone who has a Facebook account wouldn’t be able to find my interests, anyway. Also, the employers finding information on us isn’t the only issue here, or even the biggest one. The biggest issue I have with this is that they’re going to be using my information and selling it to corporations without my permission. I understand that Facebook is a for profit company, and that’s how they roll. My biggest problem is that I’m not giving them permission to use my private information in this manner. There are plenty of people who would be fine with sharing their private info, and Facebook will still be able to make reams of money off them just as surely as they’ll play Farmville. Furthermore, they already have an ad revenue service. I guess maybe Facebook would consider me a “bad customer,” in that I don’t want to share any of my information with them, and that I use adblock software. But I should be in no way obligated to click their ads or share my information with their sponsors.
That’s technically true, but you can opt out. http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=1068. I’ve done so, since I don’t particularly want Facebook broadcasting my Pandora stations.
Facebook is an awesome way to advertise. I use it all the time for such. I don’t enjoy, however, when people update their status every 30 minutes regarding things nobody cares about but them. Also, I’m not to fond of song lyric quotes for status updates.
The average person is filmed more than once a day, things that go into your cell-phone’s microphone, even when it isn’t on, can still be heard by others, etc. It’s illegal to even exist without the government knowing certain information about you.
