Facebook, are you being evil?
05/24/2010Reading through some tweets the other day, I saw tweet after tweet of folks lobbying both sides of the current Facebook debate. It all led me to wonder who really is at fault, if anyone, in this whole thing.
For anyone who's unaware, Facebook has recently changed their privacy policy and tweaked some functionality to better shift toward their Open Graph paradigm. The idea is to better connect people based on the books they read, movies they watch, music they listen to and pastimes they engage in. The reality is that they're tailoring advertising to precisely the things you've told them you enjoy. While on the surface, this may seem like a good thing, many are up in arms about Facebook's action as they see it as an encroachment on their privacy.
At first, my stance was on the side of Facebook. As it's been said, it's a free service. No one is forcing you to use it and what you share is up to your discretion. If you don't want the world to know about your religious views or sexual preference, you may not want to share that information with a social networking site designed to share information just like that. It seemed trite to me for people to blame Facebook for their lost sense of privacy when they were the ones who disclosed it in the first place.
But after further consideration, the whole situation felt deeper than that and a little more shady. It feels shady because everything, though it has been public and transparent, still feels like it was snuck past the users. Posting a message that the privacy policy has changed above my newsfeed is good? but actually highlighting how those changes will fundamentally alter the way Facebook works would have been better. Additionally, allowing me to adjust the way my privacy is upheld though multiple options and settings screens is good, however organizing and simplifying those screens so that your typical user can make those adjustments would be better. I suppose my point is that it's very easy to slip into a conspiracy theorists wet dream when you look at how many ways Facebook could have made these changes that would have improved the system without making themselves look like the all powerful overlord with no regard for it's users opinions and concerns.
Consider the path all the major tech related companies are going. Apple has always been about simplicity and UX. Microsoft's new Windows 7 campaign is all about 'Simpler'. Google has been praised over and over for it's simplicity and minimalism. It's become an expectation. That's why Facebook's confusing, disorganized, cryptic options and settings screens are so aggravating.
The bottom line, I don't really know if Facebook is being evil or just lazy. I do know that you can't be pissed about privacy when you gave up the info to begin with. Will I continue to use it? Yes. Do I trust the Zucker-man and crew? Not so much.
Categories: Thoughts
Tags: Facebook