September 7th, 2006
This Is What the Social Networking Privacy Backlash Looks Like
When I predicted a social networking privacy backlash a few months ago, most everyone scoffed. Young people have grown up online. They are used to exposing their lives. They are willingly give up their privacy. They aren’t concerned about the risks.
Well, it turns out that the digital generation does care about their privacy (and they are a lot smarter than you think). The backlash against Facebook’s new feeds for tracking individual user actions was so swift and sure that there should be little doubt in anyone’s mind that privacy concerns will be a PRINCIPAL driver in the evolution of the user-driven web. Sure, not all Facebook users feel this way, and sure there is a bandwagon effect, but there’s no denying that the privacy nerve is very sensitive — even raw.
It’s one thing for people to share their personal information in public when it’s only their friends stopping by to see what’s up, but when they wake up to the fact that technology can enable this information to be tracked and syndicated across the network — suddenly everyone starts to feel pretty naked. And granted this is just a matter of perceptions — information on Facebook is no more publicly accessible than it was before, but suddenly everyone is casting around for a fig leaf.
The news feed takes information that people might have buried in their profile page and automatically displays it on the homepages of people in their network. As the information is broadcast more widely, attention is called to changes that previously might have been seen only by people who hunted. That’s where the new feature goes too far, many students said.
“It used to be so innocent and fun,” said Susanne Tortola, a recent American University graduate who uses Facebook to keep in contact with friends.
Before the recent change, her information — relationship status, notes her friends have posted and photos she kept — was visible only to people who read her profile. But now that Facebook is actively promoting updated information, Tortola can no longer quietly make changes, such as eliminating people from her roster of friends. Facebook’s new system blasts that information as if it were on the marquee outside a movie theater. “Facebook can use your information and distribute it however they want to now,” Tortola said.
I’ve argued before that a desire to share in the economic spoils may drive users to rebel over ownership and control of the content they create, but it may be that privacy concerns will be the first tipping point.
This uproar will probably die down, and Facebook will survive. But before anyone decides to buy Facebook for the $1 billon they were reportedly asking for, remember this: the network giveth and the network can taketh away just as quickly.
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These social networking sites really need to thing before they act, or better yet, ask the users before they act
oops: thing = think
Scott Karp / Publishing 2.0: This Is What the Social Networking Privacy Backlash Looks Like
Scott,
To commit plagiaris on myself (or my MediaPost column coming out today), Facebook’s success thus far is built largely on a big social-media portal model. If the last decade has proven anything, it’s that highly concentrated social-media storms tend to peak, if not dissipate. Attention is limited and crowds shift as centers of gravity shift. Remember Geocities?
Here’s the major theme: People are starting to move into a mindset that their personal meta-data (digital breadcrumbs): 1) belong to the user, and 2) have value, and 3) are under attack.
On a similar potential backlash sort of note, is anyone noticing a severe spam attack on MySpace over the last 48 hours? I’ve gotten more spammy friend invites (from profiles that front for musicians, get rich quick schemes, adult personals, etc) over the last day or so than I have in the last 6 months.
If this continues, I will turn off email alerts of new friend requests (if this is even possible) - my sense is that everybody did this, it would be a crushing blow for MySpace.
Lawrence/Max,
There is a sense of being under attack — the combination of private data with networks vulnerable to fraud and abuse — not a good combination.
[...] This Is What the Social Networking Privacy Backlash Looks Like I’m sure they wished they took the $650m offer that they got! (tags: Social Networking) [...]
[...] Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, has published an open letter apologizing for the feed features that overstepped Facebook users’ comfort level with sharing. He also announces new features that give users more control over their privacy (although not the ability to turn the feeds off entirely). [...]
[...] Scott Karp: This is What the Social Networking Privacy Backlash Looks Like [...]
Hoorah!! Here s the first installment of Chapter 3! Danah Boyd: Facebook’s “Privacy Trainwreck”: Exposure, Invasion, and Drama MSDN: XSLT Security MSDN: Enhanced Styles in Internet Explorer 7 Kim Carmeron: The virtualization of crime Scott Karp: This is What the Social Networking Privacy Backlash Looks Like Read/Write Web: Webified Desktop Apps vs Browser-based Apps Tim Bray: “Publish” Everywhere YouTube: Frank Zappa - Peaches En Regalia (a great performance of my favorite Zappa instrumental) YouTube: Stevie Ray Vaughan - Voodoo Child
[...] Link: Publishing 2.0 — This Is What the Social Networking Privacy Backlash Looks Like [...]
[...] Scott Karp: This is What the Social Networking Privacy Backlash Looks Like [...]
[...] La Web 2.0 comercial tiene su primer encontronazo con problemas de privacidad Leemos en Publishing 2.0 que los usuarios de Facebook, una de las redes sociales más populares en Estados Unidos, se están rebelando contra el manejo que esa compañÃa hace de esa información. ¿Por qué ahora?Bueno, parece ser que ahora con Facebook te puedes “sindicar” al perfil de una persona en particular, y de igual manera que nosotros nos “sindicamos” a un blog y de manera automática se nos informa que hay un nuevo post en ese blog, en el caso de Facebook quien se sindica a tu perfil recibe una notificación cada vez que tú haces un cambio a tus datos - si cambias tu foto, si das de baja a un amigo, etc.Parece ser que este pequeño problema de “patio de colegio” es el que ha hecho que los usuarios de Facebook de repente se planteen preguntas entorno a su privacidad, y por extensión, entorno a quién es el propietario de toda esa información que ellos están creando… y “regalando” a facebook.Scott McNealy… parece ser que incluso a los chiquillos que han crecido con un ordenador bajo el brazo y acostumbrados a manejar sus relaciones por Internet les parece que su privacidad sà importa.Tags Technorati: facebook, privacidad, web 2.0 [...]