Facebook's Zuckerberg Says Forget Privacy 415
judgecorp writes "Privacy is no longer a social norm, according to the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. Speaking at the Crunchie awards in San Francisco, the entrepreneur said that expectations had changed, and people now default to sharing online, not privacy. It's all right for him, but does he mean it's ok for bodies like the UK government to monitor all citizens' Internet use?"
he needs to think (Score:1, Insightful)
just because people do it doesn't mean it's right.
Better ads (Score:5, Insightful)
What he's saying is it is his customers (advertisers not users) want less privacy, so they can target ads more profitably.
The look at me era (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, there are new norms ... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Privacy is no longer a social norm ...". I suppose that's correct. Stupidity and ignorance have replaced it, among other things. But that's ok with me as long as I continue to have a choice. Besides, those new "norms" can make for good entertainment.
The new social contract (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever you have ever said or done will continue to be used against you for the rest of your life. That is the world this kind of thinking creates. It creates fear to think or act. Privacy is ultimately about liberty.
Re:Better ads (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also a lot easier to say 'You don't actually want privacy' than fix the security and sharing model of facebook. If you don't expect privacy, all the various holes and dirty tricks no longer matter.
Privacy: Good for me, bad for you (Score:5, Insightful)
People still expect privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
People friend their friends on Facebook and blab about whatever as they would if they were talking to this person directly in a private context. They don't see that they have submitted the information where it is viewable and searchable by everyone and is being recorded and analyzed by the company for later sale as statistics. This is an indication of technology moving faster then the average person keeps up with, not that everyone is suddenly ok with being monitored.
He's wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
People do have an expectation of privacy that is at odds with what has been happening on the Internet. *Specifically* social networking sites like Facebook where there are real names attached to accounts and visible out in the open.
I feel privileged to live in Canada where we've enshrined some of our expected privacy into law [privacyinfo.ca] to fight assholes like this. I hope the United States follows suit someday.
Ummm. Nooo (Score:4, Insightful)
YOU* Defaulted US to share, not that we CHOSE to. I'm sure had you prompted each individual how private they want their settings when they first signed up, a lot of people would have chosen Friends, or friends of friends, or at least to a specific network (Like the local university).
In fact, You** semi tried doing so not too long ago, and as I recall, A LOT of people then locked their photos and status updates to friends only. I know I did, and about 99% of my friends list did, and when I facebook search someone I met at a party, I have to grab a friend invite before I see anything besides their name and profile pic.
You can't just set it up so that sharing is the norm, and when people use your product, then claim that its what is expected.
*If not You Mark, then whoever is running Facebook Right now.
**Subjective as above
Maybe, rather than privacy, it's time to forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
"people now default to sharing online" (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah of course they default to it when you shove a thing in front of their face that most people don't understand at all and just click "proceed" unknowingly opening up all of their information. Did anyone else see that? Sure, you could choose to keep your "old settings" but it was something you had to specifically mark, and we all know how great people are at carefully checking forms before getting on to look at their sister's new baby or whatever. That change was outright duplicity on Facebook's part. Breaking news: Everyone defaults to IE so that means its objectively the best browser! Right? Right?
Forget privacy ... on Facebook anyway. (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook is designed from the ground up to be nonprivate. Since it doesn't allow you to distinguish between "work friends" and "party friends" and "closet friends", anyone with a brain will only post lowest-common-denominator acceptable comments to FB. If everyone is treating Facebook that way, there's no benefit to be gained by adding privacy to interactions that are already self-sanitized.
But there are *plenty* of social interactions that *do* require an expectation of privacy, ranging from private sexual lives to the mere fact that I don't want my work colleagues to know about my Warcraft friends, or vice versa. But Zuckerberg doesn't see these sides of people, because they're not on Facebook.
Jumping from "Facebook interactions don't need privacy" to "our society doesn't need privacy" is a fallacy of composition.
Re:Better ads (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. His true customers are the advertisers, the developers who make the games. People who have FB accounts are visitors. They are not the ones shelling the dollars over to FB.
Of course, this is just in FB's interests to have zero privacy so they get the maximum ad revenue. FB apps already ask for way more permissions than they ever really need.
Long term, this is not a good attitude to take. MySpace made this mistake, and when something new came along, they were abandoned just like Orkut and many other networks. The FB end users are the guys that will keep the site running.
A very self-serving claim. (Score:5, Insightful)
But false to fact.
The young generally have little experience with privacy and why it's important. Until they get bit by the consequences of excessive disclosure. Then they learn to value it.
(It's not just Gen-Y-ers. It happened to me, and I'm a boomer - which means I predate the Internet by a bunch. B-b)
Zuckerberg's business consists of making a lot of money by catering to those who have yet to learn the lesson. And management positions attract those for whom telling the truth when a lie is more convenient is also not a social norm. Of COURSE he'll make such claims. And they're sheer self-serving puffery.
Re:The look at me era (Score:5, Insightful)
Joe sixpack does not wonder about how posting pictures of naked portions of his anatomy may affect his ability to find a job in 5 years time.
Go ahead, Zuckerberg. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bollocks (Score:4, Insightful)
Sharing is the opposite of concealing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I use my Facebook account to share events in my life, does not mean I am not concealing events in my life.
I have an expectation of privacy. Especially in real life. I do not have the same expectations of privacy in public, or with information I post via internet servers which I do not own or control. There seems to be a lot of attempts to indoctrinate the youth with the concept that their lives are subject to peer review at all times. I disagree with these motives and find them totalitarian in nature.
The 'Everyone can see THAT?' era (Score:5, Insightful)
Zuckerberg is trying to cover his ass. His site can't or won't provide proper access controls. His customers, the advertisers, don't want you to have privacy from them. So Mr. Zuckerberg, calling himself a 'prophet,' no less, tells you that you don't want privacy. But of course, Mr. Zuckerberg still wants his own privacy, and this 'no more privacy' world does not include corporations or governments, only individuals. Is there some easy way to find out who is advertising on facebook? No, and you can't find out what deals have been made regarding your information. So, privacy still exists, for those who can afford it. But not for us. Thank you Prophet Zuckerberg.
A little privacy 101 lesson for Zuckerberg (Score:4, Insightful)
!true, people want their privacy ON THEIR TERMS (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely not true, he set up his site to default to no privacy, that is a COMPLETELY different matter, there are numerous huge groups and countless chain messages in protest of the badly chosen default privacy settings on facebook.
And this from the man who openly admitted to pushing malware in some interview not so long ago to get his company off the ground.
Re:The look at me era (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Better ads (Score:2, Insightful)
Countdown to Zuckerberg's SSN being posted here in 3....2....
666-00-10072
Re:Better ads (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also a lot more profitable to say 'You don't actually want privacy' than fix the security and sharing model of facebook. If you don't expect privacy, all the various holes and dirty tricks no longer matter.
There, fixed that for you. Advertisers do not like privacy (of their viewers).
Re:I expect privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Like your freedom, privacy is something you have to earn
Mark Zuckerberg.... (Score:5, Insightful)
...is 25 years old. One of the sentences in TFA begins "When I was in my dorm room at Harvard."
So, a rich, successful, right-place-at-place-at-the-right-time twentysomething makes a self-serving comment born out of the hubris and inexperience of youth. This is like Paris Hilton saying "It doesn't matter what you do, as long as its *hot*" and it is only newsworthy because Paris Hilton isn't in a position to take a great deal of the intellectual capital I've invested in Facebook and simply passing it to whomever suits her fancy. Perhaps some of Zuckerberg's older business partners could recommend that he shut up.
Selection bias (Score:3, Insightful)
The people who want to live on Big Brother, but aren't trashy enough to get in on the show, feel free. And that's what this dude sees, he sees everything people do share. Hint: Lots and lots of people do lots and lots of things they don't put on Facebook. I'm on it, it's basically a contact page, I answer some event invites and that's pretty much it. send me another lame game invite and I'll gladly ignore it. My real life is far, far away from Facebook.
Re:Better ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Not in general though (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that they pretend to be securing you, when the reality is that it's a bathroom door level of security. A reasonably nerdy middle school kid can burn through facebook security.
facebook didnt build a good security foundation, now they're paying for it.
Storm
Life is better? How so? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do people have more opportunities than their parents did? I don't think so. They have more gadgets. Do more gadgets make people happier? I don't think so. Look at rates of depression, people nowadays are FAR more likely to suffer from depression than their parents or grandparents. Young people are the most likely to suffer from our current economic problems, unemployment is rampant amongst the under 25 crowd. People have less opportunity, less privacy, less control over their lives, fewer real life friends and more online acquaintances. So how, exactly, is life better?
Re:A very self-serving claim. (Score:4, Insightful)
(mod parent up)
I'm also of the older gen (cough...) and I can see this trainwreck from a mile away. as you get older, you DO have more and more 'stuff' about you that you'd rather not be searchable and public. trust me as your elder, on this (OB:GOML).
privacy will come back - MAYBE - in another generation or two. once this one has grown up and found out the hard way, society might start to veer back a little bit. but it WILL take being burned for the kids to day to really find out. it will take at least a full generation before mankind is even partially used to this technology wave. its just moving TOO fast for us and our social fabric is not developed or ready for this kind of personal flood of info being broadcast into the never-deleted-from ether.
be really careful with this 'show myself to the world' attitude. the whole idea could be a really bad idea and we may have to learn that lesson the hard way.
In a sense, he's right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Information wants to be free. Once something is out there, on the internet, you can't put it back in the bottle. We cannot stop this, so we might as well adapt.
Zuckerberg can f*ck off - !!!STREAMING LIVE NOW!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
If this twat thinks that privacy is no longer a social norm, where's the video's of him masturbating to pictures of George Orwell? The blog describing his plushy fantasies. The tweets giving everyone blow-by-blow updates to the size of his bank balance.
The reality is that even the unthinking morons that post pics/vids/words of themselves doing cringeworthy, career-limiting, dumb shit, STILL make a choice about what to post. There's still plenty of stuff that they don't want ANYONE knowing. The line may have moved over the last 20 years, but it hasn't disappeared.
Re:The 'Everyone can see THAT?' era (Score:4, Insightful)
This.
Zuck is saying "Facebooks's craptacular handling of privacy is not a bug, it's a feature. A very progressive, forward-leaning feature, for the inevitable time that the sheeples are appropriately brainwashed."
The sad part is, I can't make myself believe he's wrong.
Re:Maybe, rather than privacy, it's time to forget (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook will undoubtedly point to some weasel words in their TOS to claim that they still own my personal data
Luckily they allow me to change my personal data.
Cool, they'll own a completely fabricated and falsified set of my personal data.
Re:Put your money where your mouth is, bitch (Score:4, Insightful)
Mark only shares some of his profile information with everyone.
About Me: i'm trying to make the world a more open place.
what a fuck wad.
Re:Maybe, rather than privacy, it's time to forget (Score:4, Insightful)
I use it to find family members and friends I need to get in contact with and also for event invitations which I think is its strongest value.
Now why does this make me special? It doesn't, its the fact that the majority of my friends who used to have bucket loads of information, photos, and applications have since gone to a skeleton account like me. This makes us a loss, we bring no value to the site. The more and more people who do this, the lower the value of Facebook.
Re:The look at me era (Score:5, Insightful)
We are guaranteed the right to privacy to protect us from the government. Tyranny cannot exist when the government cannot pry open arbitrary aspects of the lives of the citizens -- tyrannical laws cannot be enforced if people can simply hide their activities. Unfortunately, this interpretation of privacy rights has been largely forgotten, and most people now think of privacy rights as a protection for criminals, if they even bother to think about their rights at all.
However, the law can only grant rights to the people; nobody can be forced to exercise them. These days, fewer and fewer people are bothering to keep any part of their lives private, and they are not stopping to think about the implications of mass numbers of people abandoning their rights. Worse, even those who do want privacy are finding it harder and harder to maintain, as their friends often post information online that they would not have posted themselves.
Facebook by its very design worsens the situation. Facebook is designed not just to collect data, but also metadata which allows our privacy to be violated in an entirely new way. Information about our lives can be deduced from the metadata that Facebook is collecting, even information that we did not deliberately post to Facebook. It is possible to categorize not just who is friends with whom, but how close that friendship is, and in some cases even more details about the nature of friendship can be obtained. This information has never been truly secret of course, but Facebook is amassing it all, allowing the information to be accessed with ease and without arousing suspicious: whereas it once required a detective to infiltrate a social circle to extract this data, it can now be accessed without any field work.
No, Facebook on its own will not lead to tyranny. It is the general trend, of which Facebook is not just a major enabler, but which Facebook is actively encouraging, that is the problem here.
Re:The new social contract (Score:1, Insightful)
Fear to think or act? That's short sighted nonsense. If there was no privacy then we would achieve massive reform. I would be surprised if the opposite of mass paranoia did not occur. There's no reason to keep everything private after you're free to see everybody else does the same sort of things. There's no desire to spy on everyone when we're all open.
Re:Better ads (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but if you use Facebook, you have no expectation of privacy. Anything and everything you put into Facebook should be considered public knowledge. This is why I do not use Facebook.
The social contract is a lie. And so is the cake. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:he needs to think (Score:5, Insightful)
More the point:
Just because people do it with his product and he wants them to do it more so he makes more money selling data to various interested parties (governments, marketing firms, think tanks, NGOs, lobby groups, industry insiders etc) doesn't make it right.
His bias towards having people use Facebook more is so obvious I don't know why he bothered. It'd be like Darl McBride saying "forget free software because fully commodified IP is the new norm" or something else equally transparent.
Fuck Zuckerberg and fuck his agenda to destroy the personal space.
Re:The 'Everyone can see THAT?' era (Score:5, Insightful)
I was never on the site, and after years of people asking me “Are you on Facebook?” or “I’ll send you the pictures on Facebook” and other such things, I decided that I should create an account, just to say I have one.
Additionally, I’ve had people try to find me on the site repeatedly. Since I have a complicated name, people usually spell it wrong and try to find me a couple of times.
So I decided that I’d create an account that would just say “Yes, you found me.”
I didn’t want to use any features at all.
So here’s what I wanted to do.
- Create a public page with my real name on it.
- Prevent anyone from adding anything to that page.
- I didn’t want any email updates, status updates, wall pictures or anything else. In fact, don’t email me anything at all. Don’t change my page at all.
- I wanted to automatically reject all “friend” requests. (I’m not going to use the site, remember.)
I found so many settings in so many different places, that I decided that this was not easy to do. (Even if it is possible, which I’m not convinced about. Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on this.)
So I decided that it just wasn’t worth the PITA to even try to set this up. So I’m still Facebook free.
In this short experience, it seemed to me that Facebook has such poor privacy settings and UI that it’s doubtful that a novice can even set it the way he or she wants. I think it’s an open question if this is on purpose or by design.
Re:Better ads (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Facebook, but there's a very simple rule for it. Assume anything there is public information. Don't want something public? Don't put it on Facebook (or anywhere else online).
education (Score:3, Insightful)
this is more about education than anything else. don't post anything at all on facebook or any other online service that you don't want to share with everyone you know, and people you will know in the future. anything from your political views to your lifestyle can and will be used against you.
it's commonplace for universities, businesses, etc to look you up on facebook and google and see what you are all about. it's up to you to conduct yourself on facebook in a manner befitting. don't post anything on facebook you wouldn't gladly offer up in a job interview, on your university application, or to a stranger on the street.
i weep for all the kids these days who will have the indiscretions of their teen and pre-teen years come back to haunt them later in life. posted on facebook? it's now public data that will never, ever go away. i consider myself very lucky to be able to forget / hide some of the things i did in my youth. i am sure if i was a teenager today, i'd be right there posting pictures of my ass and making rude comments about my school instructors.
Re:Better ads (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, in fact, they are. Facebook users give money to the advertisers, and the advertisers, in turn, give a portion of that back to Facebook. Any advertiser that gives money to Facebook and doesn't get more than that from Facebook users doesn't do it for long, I assure you. If Facebook mistreats its users, this will directly affect its income stream. Likewise, if it serves them well, that will also affect its income stream.
Re:Better ads (Score:4, Insightful)
on the other hand...
The whole internet experience has been a deregulated mess that has somehow gotten along. Even something as simple as SMTP mail is totally insecure. It is prone to spam... yet... we've managed to get by for decades on it. Spam was a problem, we developed solutions. Ditto for things like posting on forums. Where's the accountability for that star wars kid? Shouldn't that video posting have been approved by a publisher before embarrassing him in public like that? What's interesting of course is the world has not come to and end. It's actually worked quite well in its non-regulated manner. I'm not suggesting there have not been any problems... but we've managed quite well.
I had some old forum posts where i used my real name... I didn't want them anymore. I found the list names, contacted people... most got taken down... the ones that didn't... well I realized... who cares. It's not that big a deal.
If we had regulation on it, chances are everything on the net would have been authenticated, lawyers would be all over every post... the internet as we know it would not exist.
The internet has developed in this quite careless but 'get it connected, and get it working' kind of way.
Now back to facebook. I don't mind user criticism, but there are increasing calls for government to look into things or enforce things. I'm just a little wary of this.
I use the privacy settings on facebook... and I wouldn't post any pictures on there if it didn't. But yeah, people are getting along okay. If you don't want a picture of you on there, tell your friends to remove you. Maybe it's not your friend... there are many ways of dealing with it... and in the end... most people are not malicious and won't post a really bad picture. Theres a possibility things can go horribly wrong... but in general... they have not. Now weigh that against government censorship and monitoring over the internet... which is already happening in places... even in the western world like australia.
I'll side with openness and freedom of the internet despite the inherent problems.
Re:Social media is about choosing to share. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all nice and all, but stop spamming your comment on an unrelated message just because its on top.
Re:Yes, there are new norms ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The argument that people voluntarily share data on facebook and that there is no more privacy or that privacy is no longer needed is broken and as a legal philosophy, is invalid. There was another slashdot article about one woman who that that people sharing data on facebook had abolished expectations of privacy. This is complete BS. Sharing data voluntarily on facebook by some in no ways would compel others to do so. True, some people voluntarily share data on facebook in awareness it is public. This does not mean everyone should be compelled to do so. People have a right to know how data is going to be displayed and whether or not to share the data. the idea that people sharing data on facebook abolishes privacy is so infantile, i cant believe people would make the argument, and i suspect some nefarious intention even that they are preying on ignorance to exploit this to further weaken privacy.
Facebook is known to be a public thing so people expect that what they put there is public unless they make the profile private. people who make purchases through an online store have a right to expect that online store will not broadcast their data. The facebook thing does not extend to other parts of the internet.
Expectation of privacy is often used in outdoor settings. However many countries like Canada has prohibited mass media broadcasting of persons who were shot without their knowledge outdoors, to some degree. Hence the controversy over google streetview in Canada. So many of these things may be subject to further protections of privacy under the law requiring persons to give their consent to use of the data.
When a facebook account is created, the user should know how where the data is displayed, that should be disclosed. The use of facebook does not set precedent for other kinds of sites on the internet, each have different privacy policy and different expectations from customers.
Online, people have a right to maintain privacy and to use sites that vow to protect their privacy.
You're only talking about half the story (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to disagree somewhat. I'm playing Bioshock right now, and not only am I getting my jollies from one hell of a shooter, but I'm also exposed to a very well written story which includes a good rebuttal to the objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand. I'm not going to get that from being in the wilderness for two weeks. The game makes me THINK, and ponder, and I tend to enjoy that.
I see your point about breaking away from technology and all, but part of what makes us truly human is the ability to see, analyze, review, and enjoy our creations, and see the universe we built for ourselves, with all its inherent complexities. While breaking away to the wilderness and cutting our technological ties is good for silencing the ego and reconnecting with our selves, that has to be balanced with being engaged with the world as it is, because otherwise you're missing out on half of existence.
Re:Better ads (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better ads (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, they serve gay dating ads to straight men
Or, to men who claim to be straight, anyway...
Re:Better ads (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, Eric Schmidt [slashdot.org], is that you?
I don't disagree that it's hard to keep things private these days, but that doesn't change the fact that there are plenty of moral, legal things that I do every day that I want to keep private. My sex life and medical information are two good examples.
Re:Better ads (Score:2, Insightful)
That is actually true about anything in Real Life(TM). You can have a friend, that is a friend of your mother/potential employer/anyone, that has told about something embarrassing, and there goes all of your privacy.
Not quite. You see, my grandmother may tell her coffee club about some shenanigans and/or highjinks that I did whilst in college; that conversation, however, is not searchable by my new prospective employer, nor is it discoverable through the wayback machine.
Facebook is.
Flat out wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
DO NOT mistake something popular among the young to be the norm.
We can certainly protect the individual right to privacy while providing for the right of the individual to abrogate his own privacy.
Here's a thought: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better ads (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, exactly!
It's as if he was running a site for pet lovers, and then reasoning that since his subscribers were overwhelmingly in favour of dogs, it therefore followed that everyone liked dogs, and therefore that dog ownership should become mandatory.
The reason I don't use social networking sites is precisely because I value my privacy. At best Zuckerberg is extrapolating from a very skewed sample. At worst, his arguments are cynical and self-serving.
Re:Life is better? How so? (Score:2, Insightful)
True satisfaction seems to require difficult physical effort.
Interesting, but I'd say the really important part is the "effort" part, not necessarily physical. Or else, how do you explain the satisfaction that some people get from solving difficult math problems, coding, etc.? I'm not an expert in anthropology, but from what I see in life it seems that "rewarded effort" (physical or not) correlates quite highly with happiness.