Facebook and Privacy. Why Don’t People Get it?

I gave a talk recently on Facebook. The talk was meant as an introduction to the concept of Facebook and how it could be used to build communities and enable interaction. While the age of the attendees ranged from mid twenties to seventies, the predominant demographic was those aged fifty and above. This wasn’t a big surprise as the technological revolution has left a number of these people in its wake and even younger ones (myself included) have to constantly keep up with whats new in the realm of technology.

What surprised me most was that quite a number of those attending the talk had already registered Facebook accounts. In fact the majority had an account but did not use it. Their biggest worry was not how to use it (although I hope I was able to show them something new in the talk), but about the possibility of losing or having their identity stolen. It is unfair to deride them for being luddites simply because they have a valid concern which in fact few younger members have. As you get older, you have more to lose than a teenager whose “street cred” only extends as far as the end of the street.

What a lot of them failed to realize is that Facebook offers one of the most customizable privacy settings of any social media platform I have ever used (including MySpace, Ortuk, QQ, Socialtrak, Drupal, etc…). The ability to exclude groups of your “friends” as well as individual friends from viewing parts or all of your profile is what I think is an important function within Facebook. The process I suggested they adopt was the following:

– Don’t put anything on your profile that you don’t want others to see. For instance, I wouldn’t ever consider putting my credit card number or my actual address on Facebook, even if I have the option to block it out.

– Group your friends based on how close you are to them. I don’t mind my best friends seeing everything on my profile and photo album. I have a few FB “friends” solely for the purpose of the FB games I play. These I don’t give any access to anything other than the most basic information about myself.

– Go to Settings -> Privacy in your Facebook account and “customize” access for each of the logical segments of information categorized.

I understand that Facebook will shortly be changing the Privacy Settings page to make it more user friendly. Hopefully this will not remove the granularity of customization that we are now used to.

On the flip side of the equation, I have seen teenagers with FB profiles that are open to everyone and anyone. Basically even without being a friend, you can see everything they have available. This might be a concern in terms of physical and online safety. I think most of them only realize how dangerous this can be when their parents view their profiles….and comment! One of the most amusing sites I have visited recently is http://myparentsjoinedfacebook.com which posts screen captures of parents interacting with their children on Facebook. You wouldn’t believe how fast these kids figured out the Privacy settings after that!

Tong Hsien-Hui

Facebook won’t let you remove dead relative’s page

Facebook seems to be putting their foot in it quite a number of times in the last few weeks.  Wonder if this is what we are to expect in the coming years from them.  I read this post on The Consumerist website where a sister complained that Facebook refused to remove her recently deceased brother’s page after a formal request from her to do so.  Other sites like Myspace had no problems doing so.  Apparently Facebook wanted to keep the page up so that they could memorialize it and allow visitors to post their comments.

While I can see a certain validity in that approach, Facebook has to understand that death and how relatives of the deceased deal with death will be different.  I too find it insensitive that they claim to know better than the next of kin how to deal with the person’s profile.  If a formal request is made by the next of kin to remove their page, then they should do so without further discussion.  This isn’t a complaint for goodness sakes.

I wonder if this lack of maturity on the part of Facebook in dealing with recent events can be classified under growing pains or whether its a symptom of the relative youth and inexperience of the founder.  Their approach of “We know best” is irritating to most of the online community and given the number of choices we have, they had best understand that the same rules of sensitivity apply in the online world as they do in the real one.

Tong Hsien-Hui

Link:  http://consumerist.com/5157481/facebook-wont-let-you-remove-dead-relatives-page-per-policy