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Making Control Simple

blog.facebook.com

31–40 of 69 posts

Re: Making Control Simple

#31
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure - these are issues which need to be sorted out. But it's not the end of the world if the average user doesn't completely understand the system as long as it works.

Re: Making Control Simple

#32
post #28

This should deter Diaspora and other open social networking alternatives exactly as much as a monthly decrease in the price of crude oil should deter alternative energy research.

Since when did Diaspora become an alternative to social network or even Facebook? No one knows what the hell it is, other than a few kids drawing some diagrams on a black board.

Let's be fair here: they also wrote some old Unix jokes on that blackboard too.

Re: Making Control Simple

#33
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it's a pain, it's possible and they cannot actively take steps to prevent you from backing up your email. Not true for all the contacts in your fb profile.

Creating an app to extract Facebook contacts would be a piece of cake.

I don't think that's allowed.

"III. Storing and Using Data You Receive From Us ...

7. You must not use user data you receive from us or collect through running an ad, including information you derive from your targeting criteria, for any purpose off of Facebook, without user consent." [1]

I suspect that means you need consent from every user whose information you collected (your own list of contacts is made up of other peoples' basic information).

[1] http://developers.facebook.com/policy/#policies

Re: Making Control Simple

#34
"If you simply want to turn off instant personalization, we've also made that easier" would read a whole lot better if it read:

"If you simply want to turn on instant personalization, we've also made that easier."

If "personalization" is such a great feature, people will turn it on. "opt in" by default, please!

I see absolutely no changes here, except that privacy settings are now tabbed, and that instead of a dropdown, you now have radio buttons. Wow, now this is simpler! /sarcasm

Re: Making Control Simple

#35

Fair play to Facebook, they've done exactly what they said they would, and to the same timeline. I don't like the long preamble trying to justify themselves, but now that I can turn off Facebook Platform entirely, it's a small price to pay.

wouldn't it be great if instead, you could turn it on and it was turned off by default?

give people a compelling reason to use a product (in this case to turn it on), or you have no product--period.

Re: Making Control Simple

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The more content is private the fewer pages of targeted advertising Facebook will serve. So if everything was private facebook would make less money.

By tricking users into making more information public they get more hits and get more opportunities to 'share' your data with 3rd parties.

Re: Making Control Simple

#37

"If you simply want to turn off instant personalization, we've also made that easier" would read a whole lot better if it read: "If you simply want to turn on instant personalization, we've also made that easier." If "personalization" is such a great feature, people will turn it on. "opt in" by default, please! I see absolutely no changes here, except that privacy settings are now tabbed, and that instead of a dropdo…

Absolutely no changes? Seriously? This lets people control their privacy without needing to go through dozens of granular controls, which is a change. It also lets you completely opt out of platform in its entirety, which is a change. It also no longer requires pages and friends to be public, which is a change. If you want to criticize that's cool, but stick to things that aren't completely false.

Re: Making Control Simple

#38
post #28

This should deter Diaspora and other open social networking alternatives exactly as much as a monthly decrease in the price of crude oil should deter alternative energy research.

Since when did Diaspora become an alternative to social network or even Facebook? No one knows what the hell it is, other than a few kids drawing some diagrams on a black board.

Point taken. But has that stopped fusion researchers?

Re: Making Control Simple

#39
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when did Diaspora become an alternative to social network or even Facebook? No one knows what the hell it is, other than a few kids drawing some diagrams on a black board.

Point taken. But has that stopped fusion researchers?

Man you are way out of your head. You are comparing Fusion research to Diaspora? There has been tangible research done on nuclear fusion, there is a road map, we known how they plan to do it, they are building reactors, they have 100s of scientists employed working on it. They may not be successful, they maybe horrible failures, it might never happen. But they are working on it. Its way way far from the black board and you can actually see the work yourself.

What do you have with diaspora? Nothing! Other than some kids notion of what an open social network might look like. No code, no prior reputation, you don't even know if they can make a tic-tac-toe. You know nothing.

So please don't compare Diaspora, something that doesn't exist in any form, to something that does (facebook) or something that people are working on (fusion).

Re: Making Control Simple

#40
I want to point out, that this entire blog post is dedicated to being able to manage your profile accessibility in a more simplified manner, yet not a single link in the blog post takes users to the direct page in which they can make the changes being referenced. This matters because non-savvy users don't have the slightest of a clue where to edit their privacy settings. When Facebook rolled out their first major redesign, status posts came in by the numbers that people couldn't figure out where to post new pictures, despite having an icon right under the status box that they could have clicked.

Secondly, I just went and checked out the instant personalization feature, which I explicitly opted-out of when it launched, only to find the feature re-enabled.

Things have changed, but nothing changed at all.

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