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Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

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Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#11

Post by pak »

p858snake wrote: post #8
krschultz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were not automatically public before, that is a much bigger deal than the change from search to page.

AFAIK^^ interests on new profiles are set as "Friends Only" by defaults and that was one of the defaults on the previous privacy rollout for pre-existing users after the cry out. All this does is change how the interests actually link (They used to be linked to a search field seeing who else had that text, Now they link to pre-formatted fan pages which still show who else like it but with descriptions from Wikipedia.…

Don't you love that you need a second FB account to check whether your privacy settings are actually in effect? It's indicative of how difficult it is to understand the privacy settings that are offered.

Part of the reason Facebook is able to get away with so much of this is that when you are logged into Facebook, it never occurs to you how much of your information is being shown to other people; it's like a crowd of people with funny stickynotes attached to their forehead, everybody sees and is entertained by what they can see on other people's foreheads but they can't easily tell what is on their own.

Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#12

Post by puffythefish »

Do you guys list a series of illegal activities as public interests on Facebook or something? Google's lack of privacy boundaries are much more disconcerting than this -- "Orwellian" seems to imply one being watched, which Facebook is not doing; you are publishing it yourself, to the Internet. This is just an example of poor UI design.

Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#13

Post by ebiester »

puffythefish wrote: post #12

Do you guys list a series of illegal activities as public interests on Facebook or something? Google's lack of privacy boundaries are much more disconcerting than this -- "Orwellian" seems to imply one being watched, which Facebook is not doing; you are publishing it yourself, to the Internet . This is just an example of poor UI design.

I list gay marriage and other socially liberal causes. I'm sure that some socially conservative HR managers that look at my pages will not choose me for a contracting gig. Is it foolish? Perhaps, but simultaneously they were signals that I wished to send out for other reasons.

Similarly, people who include the tea party should not be discriminated against in employment. Yet people will do this subconsciously.

Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#14

Post by indigoviolet »

mikeknoop wrote: post #5

With this move, Facebook is turning many of your before-private profile fields into now-public "Page" connections. Any most users don't realize by clicking that blue button they are making everything public.

Did you read the three sentences on the top of that dialog? The third one reads, "Remember, your Pages are public". There is a more detailed explanation linked off of the "Learn more" link.

[I work for Facebook, but my opinions are my own].

Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#15

Post by indigoviolet »

ebiester wrote: post #13
puffythefish wrote: post #12

Do you guys list a series of illegal activities as public interests on Facebook or something? Google's lack of privacy boundaries are much more disconcerting than this -- "Orwellian" seems to imply one being watched, which Facebook is not doing; you are publishing it yourself, to the Internet . This is just an example of poor UI design.

I list gay marriage and other socially liberal causes. I'm sure that some socially conservative HR managers that look at my pages will not choose me for a contracting gig. Is it foolish? Perhaps, but simultaneously they were signals that I wished to send out for other reasons. Similarly, people who include the tea party should not be discriminated against in employment. Yet people will do this subconsciously.

You can choose to not display your interests on your Profile. They are still "public", but hidden on your Profile.

Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#16

Post by char »

I was actually really annoyed by Facebook's new linking of profile items, but not at all because of privacy issues. (I really don't care if anyone sees the things I put on Facebook).

I initially chose NOT to link any of my profile interests to their respective pages. I have no problem giving Facebook data for their open graph project; my fear was that I would soon be inundated with dozens of news feed items from all of my interests' Pages. So I unchecked all the items that had been on my profile for several years, thinking that they would still be displayed as simple text (as opposed to links).

Instead, they were all deleted! So I took some time to (partially) rebuild my list of interests as links, only to then of course witness the flood of news items posted by those pages. I have been 'hiding' them as they show up. Hiss.

Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#17

Post by indigoviolet »

char wrote: post #16

I was actually really annoyed by Facebook's new linking of profile items, but not at all because of privacy issues. (I really don't care if anyone sees the things I put on Facebook). I initially chose NOT to link any of my profile interests to their respective pages. I have no problem giving Facebook data for their open graph project; my fear was that I would soon be inundated with dozens of news feed items from all…

If you unchecked everything in the dialog, it warned you that everything would be deleted off your Profile. Did this not happen?

The majority of interests you would've been linked to would not give you News Feed items (they're "voiceless" Pages).

Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#18

Post by indigoviolet »

wrs wrote: post #3

Much as I love complaining about Facebook, the fact that they accurately derived the pages to be linked to means they already have this information. In fact I'm not even sure why they bother to ask.

They were derived from the text you put on your Profile. Users were asked because it was the right thing to do, given that the algorithm would make some mistakes, and because converting the free text to Page connections meant that these would be hideable but public.

Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#19

Post by sgman »

indigoviolet wrote: post #14
mikeknoop wrote: post #5

With this move, Facebook is turning many of your before-private profile fields into now-public "Page" connections. Any most users don't realize by clicking that blue button they are making everything public.

Did you read the three sentences on the top of that dialog? The third one reads, "Remember, your Pages are public". There is a more detailed explanation linked off of the "Learn more" link. [I work for Facebook, but my opinions are my own].

Why not add an option to not make the pages public on that modal dialog? I can do it in the settings after all..

Re: Facebook is Getting Orwellian. I Vote Ctrl-W.

#20

Post by indigoviolet »

sgman wrote: post #19
indigoviolet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the three sentences on the top of that dialog? The third one reads, "Remember, your Pages are public". There is a more detailed explanation linked off of the "Learn more" link. [I work for Facebook, but my opinions are my own].

Why not add an option to not make the pages public on that modal dialog? I can do it in the settings after all..

No, Page connections are public. I don't think you can change that under Privacy settings -- you can not display them on your Profile if you so choose. The dialog took the conservative option of warning you that things were becoming public, rather than adding a potentially confusing "hide Pages" option on the dialog.
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