Patterico's Pontifications

5/14/2010

Facebook Privacy

Filed under: Blogging Matters — DRJ @ 2:25 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

CNN reported yesterday on concerns about Facebook privacy:

“In recent weeks, the site has been hit with several privacy bugs and scares that, among other things, made private chat conversations briefly visible to Facebook friends. And on April 21, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new Facebook feature called the “Open Graph,” which essentially brings Facebook-like functionality to a number of websites.

CNN.com is one of several dozen sites that partner with Facebook to display and share users’ interests.

Some Facebook users, including Sam Schreiber, say they are bothered by the fact that their online preferences are showing up all over the internet now, instead of just on Facebook.com.”

Nicholas Carlson of SAI’s Business Insider claims a source provided copies of emails between Zuckerberg and a friend written “shortly after Mark launched The Facebook in his dorm room.” If true, they demonstrate Zuckerberg’s initial casual or joking attitude toward Facebook privacy:

“Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend’s Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don’t know why.

Zuck: They “trust me”

Zuck: Dumb fucks.”

Carlson concludes Facebook’s attitude toward privacy has been “consistently aggressive: Do something first, then see how people react.”

— DRJ

7 Responses to “Facebook Privacy”

  1. As usual, someone wayyy too young to be handling this kind of responsibility. Total and complete contempt, which is just one reason why I never opened an account with that site. The reality that they just recently announced a partnership with Yelp, Pandora and Twitter only intensifies the increasing concern among their users that anything they do on any of these sites will ever be a private function.

    Dmac (21311c)

  2. I’d like to think Zuckerberg was joking. He started Facebook while a student at Harvard and those “dumb f**ks” are his classmates — tomorrow’s future leaders.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  3. well, i have an account on FB…. of course its for this identity, not my meatspace one, and what information i put down is, at best, “vaguely accurate”. i left a lot of things blank, and then, once i was done, i locked down the permissions to “draconian”, so its hard to share anything, and even if they do, its effectively worthless.
    seems like i was smart to play it that way.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  4. I’m sure he was kidding, or amazed at what people willingly offered up. However, he wouldn’t have been alone with that idea in Cambridge.

    MIT/Harvard Dating Site rigged to give site creator female student’s contact info

    Must be in the water. I was a grad student at MIT for 3 years and I’m not sure if this guy’s idea was simply too brilliant. (of course, not endorsing cyber-stalking at all)

    Techie (43d092)

  5. DRK #2 – not just tomorrow’s future leaders – also Justices of SCOTUS !

    Alasdair (7dc63b)

  6. DRK ????

    Dontcha just hate alphameric inflation ?

    (blush)

    Alasdair (7dc63b)

  7. Heh. I’ve done that more than once, and it’s my own initials. You’re right about SCOTUS, too.

    DRJ (d43dcd)


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