

The Facebook Timeline is creepy as hell - benwerd
http://benwerd.com/2011/09/facebook-timeline-nearest-digital-identity-creepy-hell/

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cemerick
I agree it's creepy (just another great reason to continue not using
Facebook), but I don't agree that it's creepy because people can see you in
context. I think it's creepy because people see everything _out of context_.

Those drunken photos, random pissed-off status update, smattering of
professional news, and "Lost a loved one" updates followed by a photostream of
your grandmother's funeral form a stilted caricature of your actual life and
persona.

That's why, when I want to share something significant, I do it in a form
suitable for the purpose, hopefully in a way that is beneficial to the reader,
and contributory to the internet, world, etc. if what I'm sharing is
significant enough.

Perhaps to wit, my memorialization of my grandfather, who I saw decline and
pass away this year: <http://cemerick.com/2011/04/05/opa/>

That is all to say, if you want to control how you are represented, don't turn
over your identity to a third party.

~~~
ben1040
Having recently lost the grandfather who would sit with me at his basement
workbench for hours on end teaching me how to put things together, I found
that post really touching. Thanks for sharing.

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unreal37
The sky is always falling to some people.

I love the new profile, and love the idea of timeline. I have wished for some
time that I can easily go back in time and see what I posted 6 months ago, a
year ago, 2 years ago..,. my life was so different then. Can't wait for this
to be active.

If you add people as Facebook friends who you think "it would be creepy" if
they know things about you from a year ago, that's your fault. You're using it
wrong.

I put my friends into lists long ago, and don't share anything with people I
only met once or twice. Facebook, keep going! This is awesome!

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
You are assuming that only people that you have friended will be able to see
your stuff. How long before facebook changes their polices again, so that all
information is viewable by default to the public? Or before they sell it all
to markters? Or before another app developer finds an exploit in the API to
let them access anyone's information? When beacon came out, the outcry was
loud enough to make Facebook back off. But that doesn't mean they won't try
something similarly bold again.

~~~
djackson
> Or before they sell it all to markters

They do this now...

~~~
lbrandy
No we don't.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So you're saying as an official comment from a Facebook employee that Facebook
at no time sell personal data? Not even marketing profiles as composites? This
is/would be big news to me.

In a way one could argue that allowing targeting of ads so tightly, using
personal data, is commercial gain through that personal data. Not sure I'd
personally push it that far though.

~~~
lbrandy
> So you're saying as an official comment from a Facebook employee...

I come to, and comment on, this site because I believe it is filled largely
with people of an above-average sophistication when it comes to these kinds of
issues. Don't make me reconsider with this kind of inanity.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I'm just trying to clarify - sorry if you think certainty is not sophisticated
enough for you.

If you can't make the statement for legal reasons then say that. If you can't
make the statement for other reasons say that. If you don't want to comment
officially then say that. I don't think it's that inane - either they (you) do
sell data or don't; just strikes me that if you can't make such a statement
officially then you're not likely in a position to really know if it's true or
not.

TBH I'd just assumed that FB do sell such data, to _know_ that they don't sell
any personal data (as I indicated) is a big result IMO and one that I don't
feel I've seen championed. Pretty much I assume any website with a large
subscriber base sells such data unless they explicitly tell me they don't;
even then I'm rarely convinced.

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erreon
I don't really understand how it's creepy as hell. You volunteer information
to it and it posts its. If you don't want people knowing when you are sick,
broke a bone, or lost a loved one then I would think you don't post it to
Facebook. This generation and even more surprisingly some out of generations
of the past really want to share everything and this gives them that ability.

~~~
fourk
The issue that I have with it is that it so easily exposes posts from the
beginning of time to people I only recently became friends with. When I first
signed up for Facebook, it was still in 'college only' mode, and what I posted
was with that restriction in mind.

Over the past few years, this has dramatically changed; now I'm friends with
coworkers, parents, etc. As my list of friends/target audience changed, the
posts I made shifted in nature to stay appropriate to my current list of
friends at the time that I posted any piece of content. When Facebook enabled
post-specific privacy controls, I made lists and used them religiously for
restricting access to content I provided.

However, short of clicking through each and every one of my old posts and
changing the access control list or removing the content/untagging myself, how
do I prevent the next boss or coworker that I friend on Facebook next
week/month/year from easily seeing the dumb shit that I was posting back in 07
when my target audience was other college kids?

What I really wish existed was a privacy setting that allows me to restrict
people from viewing content that existed before our Facebook friendship began.
If I posted something before I knew you, and before I could account for you
being a part of my social stream, it's none of your damn business.

~~~
danmaz74
Being able to give special restrictions to "past" events (statuses) looks like
a very good idea to me.

------
Retreads
When I read about FB Timeline (and watched the trailer), I was concurrently
impressed and uneasy.

Impressed because it's an elegant way to deal with a problem that didn't exist
until recently...how to make old user info useful and re-relevant. Until they
had so many multi-year users there was no need to revisit old data.

Uneasy because I've seen this before. Essentially, they've created a version
of the Officer/Enlisted Record Brief (ie - US Army personnel dossier). Surely,
there's nothing wrong with creating a consistent, repeatable format for
understanding people and their experiences. It saves time and reduces effort
required to pass judgment. In two specific ways, though, I found dossiers
inadequate undesirable:

(1) A record brief never accurately captured the skills and experiences of the
person being considered. A life is so vast (and variable!) that it can't
possibly be captured in a proscribed format. I guess this abuts my general
unease with FB as a whole. I felt that I would never be able to capture myself
through my profile/pics/etc and didn't want to be judged by a poor facsimile.
Status updates and the increased ability to interact with friends and family
tempered this unease. Now they've gone a step further towards formalizing a
life's structure.

(2) The ouputs could drive the inputs. Because FB inevitably has to be
selective on what can be recorded in any type of dossier (standardization
being the key), FBer behavior might be modified to match those fields. Army
dossiers drive Army people to focus on activities and experiences that look
impressive on the dossier (awards, deployments, schools). FB Timeline is an
order of magnitude removed, but if it catches on and becomes the de facto way
that users are judged by family/friends/employers, the possibility of driving
user behavior certainly exists.

Yes, I know that FB is voluntary.

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rglover
_These things are designed to be forgotten, but with the Facebook Timeline,
much of your life is all but indelible, published front and center until you
go through each item individually and hide or delete it._

That, right there, is why this is so terrifying. Regardless of stalkers and
people who browse your past for kicks, this is an insane utility for profiling
individuals down to the minutiae of every day life. What's more is that it's a
catalog, itemized down to the hour of activity on your Facebook. Yes, this has
been available in theory for awhile, but now it's highly accessible and easy
to find and scrutinize any moment in anyone's life (that is, if they've been
posting to their Facebook). The scary part: a lot of people do.

The geek in me wants to applaud Facebook for the technical achievement of the
whole thing, but deep down, this just feels a bit too much like opt-in
surveillance (whether that be by the government or individuals).

~~~
sahillavingia
That's why you have friends on Facebook, not "stalkers and people who browse
your past for kicks."

~~~
rwolf
I see talk of controls for hiding and sharing items on the timeline, and for
turning the timeline on and off, but not for only making it available to your
friends.

The barrier to entry to browse a user's past appears to be: a Facebook
account.

~~~
HarrisonFisk
All content on timeline follows the same privacy settings as the object has.
So if you have been posting things as Friends only, all of the content will
also be Friends only. If you have been posting Public updates, then it will
also be Public.

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PabloOsinaga
Is it just me? or do you also feel that anything that lays out your life as
something so definitively finite makes you completely scared? I KNOW life is
finite and I will day, but I don't want to see if so graphically! Makes me
remember a picture I saw in a modern art museum: it was a "spreadsheet" where
each cell was a day in your life. There are not that many of them!! Think
about it, you can clearly see them all and it is a small set! So I don't want
to see it! That's why people come up with religions at the end of the day!
(traditional, singularity). No one wants to die!

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endlessvoid94
The biggest issue for me is the following.

When I post something on facebook, there's a personal context of who I'm
friends with at the time. Three years ago, I was a different person. I was
friends with different people. And I've never before had the access to old
data.

Now, I (and others) are able to browse those posts in a different context from
when they were posted. It's a pretty radical shift. For example, I've grown
more and more guarded about posting things like "this job sucks" or something.
But I used to do it years ago, because it was much more private than it is
now.

Now others can go back and see my posts. It's opt-out instead of opt-in on my
part. It's very different, and it's unclear to me what the ramification are.
Might be bad, might be good.

Like everything else: "we'll see".

~~~
voyou
>Now others can go back and see my posts.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "now" here, but this isn't a recent
change - for as long as I can remember, Facebook has let you see past posts by
your friends. If anything, the Timeline feature limits the visibility of past
posts, because, if I understand it, it lets you choose what stuff is
emphasized on your timeline.

~~~
endlessvoid94
It has never been easy for me to see status updates and wall posts from 2006
without clicking back hundreds of times.

Perhaps I'm overlooking something though. I'd love to know if this is the
case.

~~~
rythie
However, Facebook did show random old status updates on right hand side next
to other content by them.

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joebadmo
Auto-sharing[0] [1] just seems like an obviously terrible idea. For both the
privacy implications and the signal-to-noise ratio. Separating the streams
into high-signal deliberate sharing and low-signal 'ambient' sharing is
interesting, but seems kind of fiddly/inelegant.

An obviously better way to do it is to auto-share into a private queue that
you can then go through and approve for sharing into specific lists/circles.
Maybe that's a bit too fiddly, though, and probably too cognitively expensive.
I suppose it also creates an update bunching effect, where your updates come
in bursts instead of a steady stream.

Either way, passive auto-sharing just seems like it makes embarassing
situations too easy.

It also sometimes seems to me like Facebook is actively and deliberately
trying to make human communication/interaction as reductive as possible.

[Edit: I think there's another angle to this that's kind of quietly subversive
in a pervasive way: If auto-sharing of your various web activity is on by
default, then you might have some low-level filter on your actions, because
you're always a little bit afraid that everyone can see what you're doing. We
all start to behave as if we're living in a pan-panopticon (everyone is
watching everyone else).]

[0]:
[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/read_in_facebook_social...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/read_in_facebook_social_news_apps.php)

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3028328>

~~~
saturdaysaint
This article is not about auto-sharing.

~~~
joebadmo
Does auto-shared content not go into the timeline? If it does, then this
article is absolutely partially about autosharing.

If not, apologies, it's hard to keep track.

------
sili
Most of us nowadays are well aware that you shouldn't post any information on
FB that you don't want to be shared with broad range of people. We now know
how flippant FB is about privacy.

However that was not the case when we just started using it years ago. Back
than, many people saw FB posts as something private shareable only with a
tight circle of friends. Now these old posts will be coming back into the
light for all to see.

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bennesvig
I think it's something most people would welcome, but only if they could
choose what it shown and hidden.

Great line - "On one level, it’s brilliant. On another, it’s undeniably,
pervasively creepy, to a level we’ve hitherto been prepared for in human
society."

~~~
HarrisonFisk
You can choose what is shown or hidden. There are initial recommendations, but
you have 100% control over what is shown, highlighted or hidden.

~~~
yellowbkpk
The problem is that society as a whole hasn't really adjusted to having to
explicitly make this decision with a user interface element. Previously the
decision was made for you as a side effect of your mode of communication
(phone calls to your best friend) or your location (a family gathering), etc.
As Facebook et al. has become the de facto communication model for society,
the default is to share everything with everyone, and no matter what your
explicit setting some marketer has access to that information for the right
price.

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wccrawford
I could have sworn that FB now lets you choose what's publicly shared and
what's only shown to friends?

Given that, how is this a problem?

~~~
sp332
Most people will "friend" almost anyone who asks, or random people they meet
at parties, or coworkers, etc. Lots of people are my "friends" on Facebook
that would make this creepy.

~~~
sahillavingia
Well, that's your fault for adding them and considering them your "friends,"
isn't it?

I don't think your mis-use of Facebook is their fault at all.

~~~
sp332
I don't consider them friends. I think of them as contacts, maybe
acquaintances. You know, social connections. Facebook calls them "friends" but
that doesn't mean I do.

~~~
yuliyp
Coincidentally, Facebook now lets you add people to an "acquaintances" list,
and easily set privacy on things to all of your friends except your
acquaintances.

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yason
The information has been public already, ever since you joined Facebook. But
since it's easier to access everything soon, a "Delete posts, activities, and
likes older than a $TIME" button would be a nice feature, for some value of
$TIME.

~~~
viscanti
Some of the new autoshare features are a bit silly, but you can easily opt out
of those. The facebook profile has always had ALL of the same info as the
Timeline, it was just presented differently, and required someone to click a
button several times to load previous info. Sure, a lot of that history was
initially hidden and required a bit of digging to get to, but it's always been
there. I guess I don't see how it's really any different.

------
posabsolute
I think people like the author are missing the point,

I'm pretty sure 20 years old and less people really don't care about their
timeline privacy and if they do, they can easily change that.

People that "care" about those issues are 25+ tech people, my mom do not care,
and teens in my family reallly do not care

the new facebook features prove that facebook is really moving forward in the
'social' space and are succeeding. Google+ a threat? I don't think so, maybe
for the old facebook, but not this.. I can already see all new moms going
crazy about that timeline feature.

It's boring to see so much articles about how bad 'privacy' is, how creepy
facebook is and etc. Seriously anyone can see that.. there is privacy if you
look for it, if you don't it simply to assume that you want your profile
public..

~~~
spodek
"I'm pretty sure 20 years old and less people really don't care about their
timeline privacy and if they do, they can easily change that."

People without experience to see why they should care don't know to, but that
doesn't mean they won't be affected.

I didn't care about preparing my business for a recession when I first started
it because I hadn't had to manage through one. I do now.

Tech people who understand data care because they know the ramifications
younger, less tech-savvy people don't.

People aren't just crying wolf. Thinking about alternatives creates huge
opportunities. Wikipedia and Linux came out of people foreseeing the
limitations of proprietary software.

Who knows what awesome social media alternatives might come from people
foreseeing the limitations of social media based on centralized servers?

------
hirenj
I've just spent the last 10 minutes attempting to violate causality. It turns
out that the implementation is a little bit sketchy when trying to add "Life
events" that occur before you're born. I'm kind of looking forward to
recreating all of "Back To The Future" as life events on the timeline.

------
narrator
I think a pay for facebook where invasion of your privacy wasn't the product
might be an interesting idea.

------
gfodor
I'm curious what happens when a Facebook user dies. Is their timeline going to
have pictures of their funeral at the top then? This is just depressing.

Edit: This is a serious question.

~~~
jojopotato
I wonder what facebook will do when a significant portion (let's say 10%) of
it's user base has passed away.

Is the data of a past life still worth something to them? Will they spend the
money to keep it? I bet that anthropologists and sociologists would love to
get their hands on historical data.

Also, I suppose the data of a famous person might be worth a lot in 50 years,
like the publishing of a president's diary.

I can see it now "See the hidden facebook messages of Lady Gaga"

~~~
dasil003
If current trends continue, anthropologists will be just about the only people
left that may give a shit about _anything_ that happened 50 years prior.

------
reso
"Creepy" is a personal and cultural term that is constantly changing. Ten
years ago, having a feed of the conversations and locations of all your
friends was "creepy", but now its normal.

To make a meaningful negative statement about Timeline or any new technology,
you need to argue that it hurts human society on some measurable level. This
is not impossible to do, but its much harder than saying "That creeps me out".

------
quattrofan
To me this is even more of a reason to post less stuff to Facebook and engage
with other platforms, photos go on Flickr, email is via Gmail, business
networking is on Linkedin and Google+ is for the close friends. For me
Facebook is about tracking down old friends and acquaintances and thats where
it will stay.

I just don't trust the company and I don't trust Zuckerberg.

------
melbel
I don't think it's creepy at all. I share a lot on FB but I know who is on my
friend's list and I trust them. For a lot of people, it's just a good way to
get things off your chest. For me, I am sooooh busy with work, school, raising
a 4-year old and countless volunteer activities, I have zero time to interact
with anyone outside of the computer when it comes to personal issues. I don't
air all of my dirty laundry but if someone is sick, etc., I might post
something vague about it just so I feel better. I usually hope my vague posts
will trigger a private email where I can go into more detail. Is that weird? I
don't think so.

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Stwerner
I don't know if creepy is the right word, but I get a weird feeling about it.
It isn't that I feel like I'm losing my privacy by people seeing things I
posted on facebook years ago, it is more that I am not that person anymore - I
liked that my facebook profile was a current snapshot of who I am.

I actually enjoyed going through the timeline on my own, reliving some of the
memories, and for personal use I think having the timeline available will be
really neat to check every couple years or so, but beyond that, I don't know
if I want to manage my 'current' image actively enough to keep it open or not.

------
jarek
Stuff like this is why a while back I went all the way back to the beginning
of my Facebook activity, when status updates first got introduced and trimmed
out anything too embarrassing. It was always there, and someone determined
enough could have seen it. Perhaps now that it's easier, people will start to
reconsider.

Anyway, this is good impetus for rethinking publication settings of some of my
not-yet-embarrassing photo albums.

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markgarity
I guess you could say it's innovative for Facebook to try to continue to push
the boundaries of social media and online identities, but I tend to agree with
the majority: this is pushing it a little too hard.

Facebook is what you make of it. Just as I choose to almost never view my
'News Feed,' I'll similarly opt out wherever possible from using these new
timeline features.

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esutton
Maintaining our privacy on facebook is like eating healthy. We all say we want
to do it, but eventually we all eat a hamburger and fries.

------
altrego99
Somehow when I saw the trailer, I had a creepy sensation that distinction
between humans and sims are getting blurred.

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tryitnow
Oddly enough I am considering using Facebook because of this feature and I
never use FB now. What I like about it is that it makes sharing more
convenient, almost mindless (if it actually works the way its been hyped).

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mahcode
I think that, given the web's evolution, you should assume that the whole
world WILL see anything you so decide to put online. It's kind of sad to see
that there is so such thing as online privacy.

------
sandieman
What does being a white male have to do with anything?

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mkramlich
put stuff voluntarily on the Internet

later not happy people can see it

uhhh

