Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Making Control Simple

blog.facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 69 posts

Re: Making Control Simple

#11

Post by mootothemax »

kilps wrote: post #8
singer wrote: post #6

I suppose this might put an end to the Diaspora dream.

I sure hope not - decentralised social networking (whoever makes it) is the only logical way forward. Imagine email was controlled by one company.

To most non-technical people, email is tied to one company; their ISP or one of the free Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo-style providers. Changing a personal email address can be a huge hassle.

Now, I can see ISPs setting up social network nodes for their users, I just wonder if there won't be some similar pain if/when one changes provider.

Re: Making Control Simple

#12

Post by mootothemax »

aristus wrote: post #7
mootothemax wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, if you log back in to your account within 14 days* then the delete request is cancelled and everything goes back to normal. It makes me wonder if Facebook had a bad couple of days of people deleting their accounts and Mark Zuckerberg thought "Right, we've got 7 days to fix this and get them logging in again, let's get to it!" * I could have the precise timeframe wrong

This is unfortunately a common misperception. If you deactivate your account you can bring it back. If you delete it the data is deleted.

Ok, I'm confused. I've just taken a look at the WikiHow page, and that says there's a delay of 14 days before the account's actually deleted:

http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account

Who's right?

Re: Making Control Simple

#13

Post by singer »

expertcs wrote: post #9

I don't understand why people are jumping back in the band-wagon. Facebook has shown its intention, clearly. Reverting back is only a temporary solution.

What were their intentions... to trick people with their security settings? Perhaps they just didn't take enough time to plan out the settings the first time around.

Re: Making Control Simple

#14

Post by xenophanes »

Eww, looks they are bundling photos with status and posts (you can see them grouped in the pic). So, to make your posts world readable, your photos have to be too. That's not very good control.

Re: Making Control Simple

#15

Post by expertcs »

singer wrote: post #13
expertcs wrote: post #9

I don't understand why people are jumping back in the band-wagon. Facebook has shown its intention, clearly. Reverting back is only a temporary solution.

What were their intentions... to trick people with their security settings? Perhaps they just didn't take enough time to plan out the settings the first time around.

Their intentions are to make butt load of money. The only way they can do it is by selling users data one way or another. One of the main reasons I user facebook is to keep in touch with my friends and know what they are doing without having to do much. Big announcements or happenings are also passed on through facebook, nowadays, which is fine. However, this information is just between friends. Unless, they somehow make most of this information public, I dont see a way for them to make loads of money. They have a funding of $716M and a lot of it at $12B evaluation. What else are they going to do?

Re: Making Control Simple

#16

Post by apphacker »

mootothemax wrote: post #12
aristus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is unfortunately a common misperception. If you deactivate your account you can bring it back. If you delete it the data is deleted.

Ok, I'm confused. I've just taken a look at the WikiHow page, and that says there's a delay of 14 days before the account's actually deleted: http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account Who's right?

It took 14 days for my account to be deleted.

Re: Making Control Simple

#17

Post by studer »

singer wrote: post #13
expertcs wrote: post #9

I don't understand why people are jumping back in the band-wagon. Facebook has shown its intention, clearly. Reverting back is only a temporary solution.

What were their intentions... to trick people with their security settings? Perhaps they just didn't take enough time to plan out the settings the first time around.

You really think a huge company full of lawyers and an entire office in DC dedicated to privacy & policy messed up because they were in a hurry? Trust me, there's not a single setting in the old design that wasn't vetted by a pile of lawyers and policy wonks.

Re: Making Control Simple

#18

Post by keltex »

singer wrote: post #6

I suppose this might put an end to the Diaspora dream.

I doubt it. The cat is out of the bag... Facebook can at a whim change the privacy of your personal data. Sure they caved under pressure and took a step backwards, but whose to say things might not change again in the future?

Some people are totally comfortable with the risk, but frankly I think it would be good for everybody that the "social networking infrastructure" is not owned by one company. Then... like email, ISPs, IM, mobile phone providers... everyone would have a choice and companies could compete for their customers.

Re: Making Control Simple

#19

Post by indigoviolet »

expertcs wrote: post #15
singer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were their intentions... to trick people with their security settings? Perhaps they just didn't take enough time to plan out the settings the first time around.

Their intentions are to make butt load of money. The only way they can do it is by selling users data one way or another. One of the main reasons I user facebook is to keep in touch with my friends and know what they are doing without having to do much. Big announcements or happenings are also passed on through facebook, nowadays, which is fine. However, this information is just between friends. Unless, they somehow…

Facebook doesn't require you to make your data public to target ads to you. Advertisers don't ever see your actual data -- they target to demographics, and Facebook acts as the intermediary, displaying those ads to the appropriate users. Here's a related FAQ: http://www.facebook.com/help/?topic=privacyupdate

Re: Making Control Simple

#20

Post by nikolayav »

xenophanes wrote: post #14

Eww, looks they are bundling photos with status and posts (you can see them grouped in the pic). So, to make your posts world readable, your photos have to be too. That's not very good control.

Which is why you can still also access the granular controls and choose different privacy for those items.
Post reply on HN