Facebook creator faces up to responsibility

[demoleft]

Source: afp

Amid growing discontent over Facebook’s lack of privacy protection, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has broken his silence and promised that users of the social networking site will be given greater control over the availability of their personal information.

After enduring several weeks of criticism from an increasingly angry public, the management of Facebook has emerged from the shadows. Founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, in an article published in the Washington Post on Monday, announced that the company would take steps to better protect the privacy of users of the popular social networking site.

Moreover, the 26-year-old billionaire conceded for the first time that certain recent decisions taken by the company had “missed the mark”.

Read more: http://www.france24.com/en/20100524-mark-zuckerberg-facebook-privacy-internet-security

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high time.

[onehandle]

1. He's just worried about all the bad press they, and he personally has been receiving.

He considers his Facebook slaves a bunch of suckers and is paying lip service.

[joanmj]

2. I say just delete your Facebook account!

That's what I did after a labyrinth effort to delete.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. It's the only logical conclusion in a reasonable world.

Which makes it all the more unusual.

[willing dwarf]

4. Somebody tell me what it is I've got to hide?

I don't get what all the hoopla is about on this one. Sorry if I seem dense.

[LearnedHand]

5. Social engineering and slippery slope

Social engineering: From all the status data, photos, likes/dislikes, movies seen, purchases, etc., marketing organizations can compile an eerily accurate model of YOU. YOU may not care about whether unseen/unknown people have that much information about your lifestyle habits, but I care.

Slippery slope: The more we say to ourselves "I have nothing to hide," the more corporations and governments press in closer and closer. One day, YOU(TM) and your life will be a wholly owned subsidiary of BP or Total Information Awareness, or whatever. We SHOULD NOT freely give up information to the masses that they have no business having. If you want people to know everything about your life, create a one-person performance piece and lay it all out there. I should not, by default, have to tell FaceBook or any other online outfit that I OPT OUT of sharing my personal information. If I want to share it, make it an OPT IN.

[Iowa]

6. Well said.

[willing dwarf]

7. Good point about how they all press in

I think you are right. It seems abstract to me, but seeing how "data mining" happens in the non-profit world, I can only imagine how extreme it must be in the for profit world. Creepy stuff.

Thanks for your response.

[boppers]

9. If you want people to know everything about your life, create a facebook page.

By publishing it on their platform, you're opting-in to their control.

[boppers]

8. The problem as I see it:

People are publishing reams of data about themselves without realizing that they're effectively making it public.

A photo of a drunken binge in college? Do you want that turning up for employers when you're searching for a job years later? Did you jokingly put your religious preference as "Satanist Cannibal", and how's that going to look to the parents of someone you're dating? Did you make a swastika/cross/crescent out of your farmville crops, and would you want your cow-orkers to know?

[FarrenH]

10. That's been my consideration from day one of using Facebook

Especially since my nephews and I share an appalling sense of humour. My cherub-faced youngest nephew (13) likes to wait until he's got the attention of older folks at the tables around us at coffee shops, then say loudly "Uncle, why won't you stop touching me in inappropriate places?" and I can't help but play along with replies like "You started it".

Luckily for me, I am and have been an open book with all my employers and new-found friends and colleagues. I even tell clients that are musing about drug use in society that I spent a few years of my life completely off the rails on Ecstacy, LSD and pot, so anything they want to know I'd be glad to fill them in. Often I add "hasn't everyone?"

Something I realized in my late 20's is that there is a way of approaching these things. First, dazzle 'em with your mad skillz (I'm a walking encyclopedia and a pretty good software analyst/developer) THEN reveal facts like your drug-binging days/disbelief in God/polyamorous past relationships/complete disregard for social convention. And articulate yourself well, so that the internal logic of your world view is apparent, even if they're shocked. The intelligent, articulate "rogue" is an archetype even the stuffiest office drones find themselves affectionately excusing for their faults. At least that's my experience in 9/10ths of cases. The exceptions are few enough that its hardly affected me negatively. I recall my mom, a moderately conservative Catholic, telling me almost daily about the outrageous behaviour of one of her unconventional colleagues. The surface message was disapproval, but she clearly delighted in describing their antics.

So I thought a lot about that when I joined Facebook. Thought about the stuff that could surface years later in the wrong setting and decided in most cases it would be a case of "well we all knew that". The only thing that's ever bothered me is the way possible identity thieves can build up a profile of you and use it to commit fraud in your name, but that's surprisingly easy to do to any heavy Internet user even without Facebook, if you're a skilled hacker.

Despite all of this, I understand the concerns of people who do wish to control their identities in different contexts. Some professions, like law and medicine, may almost demand it. But it doesn't irk me too much.