

Making Control Simple - dnaquin
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=391922327130

======
mootothemax
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.

~~~
izendejas
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.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
That's true...if only new computers shipped without an operating system, and
operating systems didn't come with a browser installed, and you had to turn on
every feature in every application or website that you signed up for. If only
the world was "off" by default and I had to spend lots of time and energy
trying to get things into a usable state, instead of having the settings set
to usable levels by default.

You might disagree with the defaults they've chosen, but having everything
"off" by default isn't a great world.

~~~
izendejas
I fail to see how the examples you provide have any parallels with the "opt
in" by default settings in a social application.

Having everything by default is the very reason people chose to use this
application in the first place. That's the product people bought into--with
_their_ data and attention--and now that product is getting changed, in many
cases, without their knowledge and/or without their understanding of what's at
stake.

------
axod
Has anyone else been caught with random popups on facebook "offering" to link
your profile interests to public pages?

It's really scammy. Once it pops up, you're trapped. Click on the facebook
logo, and it doesn't take you home. There is no way out unless you either
agree, or manually go back to facebook.com yourself.

What are they thinking doing crap like that...

~~~
jacobolus
Even worse, once you close out of that page a few times and navigate back to
facebook manually, at some point they just delete all of your interests,
unprompted.

Totally obnoxious.

~~~
thedjpetersen
This is because they are replacing your interest with a linked page. The offer
to link is the prompt.

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iamdave
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.

~~~
indigoviolet
Mark mentioned that they're going to put links to this in messaging on the
home page, which is about as in-your-face as possible. Nonsavvy users aren't
reading blog posts either.

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expertcs
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.

~~~
singer
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.

~~~
studer
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.

~~~
singer
I will give them the benefit of the doubt until someone proves that wrong.
Right now, all you have is assumptions to rely on.

~~~
mcantelon
What I don't have to assume is that FaceBook has repeatedly made big privacy-
impacting changes without consulting its users. This is the third major
overreach/retreat. Three incidents is enough to realize that taking privacy
seriously is not part of the company's DNA.

------
izendejas
"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

~~~
nano81
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.

~~~
izendejas
"absolutely" is a hyperbole, but you're right, let's not add to the
misinformation--it's self-defeating.

BTW, are you a facebook employee? I went through your comments and a good 90%
(no hyperbole this time) are comments related to Facebook posts, and some
looked pro-facebook. Nothing wrong, of course, just curious.

------
noelchurchill
I wonder if anyone who deleted their profiles now want them back?

~~~
mootothemax
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

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

~~~
CodeMage
_This is unfortunately a common misperception._

Wrong. If you deactivate your account, you can bring it back. If you request
it to be deleted, you have 14 days to cancel that request (by simply logging
in) before it's deleted. Once it's deleted, that's the end -- you can't bring
it back.

 _(edited to make clear which part of your comment is wrong)_

~~~
aristus
Ah, you are correct. I just tried it (with a dummy account). Apologies. I work
at FB but don't delete my account often. :)

It looks like you will be asked to confirm deletion if you log in during the
waiting period. Simply logging back in will not cancel the deletion request.

"Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently
deleted within 14 days. If you log into your account within the next 14 days,
your account will be reactivated and you will have the option to cancel your
request."

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

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

~~~
mootothemax
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.

~~~
agentultra
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.

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

~~~
what
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>

~~~
anthonyb
From a more thorough read of the policy, III. 3. looks like it means that
you're ok to use "basic information" from someone who connects to your service
however you like, as long as you don't go selling it to ad networks/third
parties. That means that you can store one person's first name, last name,
email address, profile pic, FB ids of friends - but not any of their friend's
details other than their id.

It's not much, but it's enough to help create someone's account on your
competing social network. Whether you'd be able to store/export their
posts/other people's comments is a different question - it depends on the
definition of application, but FriendFeed seemed to be able to do it, so why
can't someone else?

~~~
what
FriendFeed is part of Facebook though?

[http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009/08/friendfeed-accepts-
facebo...](http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009/08/friendfeed-accepts-facebook-
friend.html)

You might be able to take a user's data to establish their profile, they
consented by using your application after all. But I don't think you can
export their friend list and use it to invite them to your new social network.

Either way, I think Facebook could find something in their ToS to shut you
down if they feel like you're stealing their users away. There was a recent
article about a tool from Power Ventures that allowed you to login to multiple
social networks and aggregate the messages, friends lists and what not.
Facebook seemed to claim it was a violation of the ToS because they were
accessing account data using "automated means."

<http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/05/03>

------
what
I'm confused did they really change anything? Or just make the controls
"simpler"? Are there still "only me" settings? (I got bored after reading the
first few paragraphs of the history of Facebook)

~~~
ashu
Or this: [http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/05/facebook-privacy-must-
kno...](http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/05/facebook-privacy-must-know/)

------
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.

~~~
nikolayav
Which is why you can still also access the granular controls and choose
different privacy for those items.

------
mortenjorck
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.

~~~
pavs
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.

~~~
mortenjorck
Point taken. But has that stopped fusion researchers?

~~~
pavs
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).

~~~
iamdave
I had no choice but to upvote this, possibly the most categorical, flat-out
statement that diaspora deserves more scrutiny than they're getting.

It's certainly possible they'll build a solid product, but for something of
this magnitude, and with the amount of audacity they have within their ranks
to accomplish something this monumental (especially coming close on $200,00),
they haven't particularly sold their case to the technical crowd that what
they're going to build wont turn into vaporware.

More pointedly, they haven't sold their case that diaspora will even be worth
checking out.

