SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Facebook keeps changing the rules with their privacy settings and it is causing quite a media frenzy.

Personally I think if an article that describes the privacy settings needs to be 5 pages long, they really are too complicated.
http://www.maclife.com/article/feature/every_facebook_privacy_feature_revealed_and_explained?page=0,0

Some people are taking it to the extreme with a "Quit Facebook Day":
http://www.quitfacebookday.com/

See what is publican being said on Facebook:
http://youropenbook.org/

Incidents occurring on Facebook:
http://failbook.com/

I don't plan on quitting Facebook any time soon, but I have been pretty careful about how open my content is and what I post on there. Personally I wish when the privacy settings were changed that they would keep them more restrictive with options to open them up. I in addition I do think they could be easier to understand and quicker to control.

In the end though Facebook is a company that makes more money when people share more info, I suppose that is the price we pay to use the service.

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: May 24 2010 02:25 am

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

I don't get the whole privacy thing. Honestly, I don't put anything online that I don't want people to see and that includes people I'm friends with. So only having your Facebook as private only shows me what kind of a stupid asshole someone is.

Joined: Aug 04 2009 Posts: 2515

The internet is a great place but it's also a dangerous place if your not "internet savy" and know what your doing.

There are always going to be people who aren't internet savy but with the growth of social networking, facebook, twitter etc. there is an influx of people who definitely aren't e.g. people over approx 45 who weren't raised with computers in existence and young people 16 or under generally (you hear of those headlines "young girl stabbed to death meets up with facebook stalker".

Us more educated people on the matter KNOW not to put your phone number/address up on facebook, that's just fucking stupid. It can really easily be accessed normally if not private or if it is it can easily be hacked. Information even on your computer isn't safe from hackers so why people think that putting stuff on facebook is any safer is a mystery to me.

Then the people who generally are complaining, who are they? Mothers/fathers of children who use facebook and older people to an extent.

If you don't know how to use the internet fucking properly don't use it, you have to have a degree of awareness and intelligence when using it so you aren't fucked over.

If it's about facebook distributing your information you shouldn't fall for that either. Anytime you send away for something from the government or you receive mail from them you are nearly always asked about your personal data. When signing up for online games WoW for example they ask about your personal data and it's usage. This is fucking everywhere and you have to avoid it when you can. I don't give two fucks if facebook knows my email boohoo i'll get sent spam i can just mark it to be sent to junk folder.

People need to wise the fuck up.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Doddsino wrote:

So only having your Facebook as private only shows me what kind of a stupid asshole someone is.

Your perspective is narrow.

What about people who want to communicate with friends using the platform but are interested in limiting the amount of information that their peers can share?

What about people who want to promote a band, store, or other business?

What about being capable of receiving invitations to events that are made through Facebook?

A Facebook account having a degree of privacy isn't a bad thing and it isn't unreasonable. It doesn't make you an asshole if you want to protect yourself and at the same time maintain a cultural connection to your peer group. Actually it makes a person who denies you these rights an asshole.

Still, that isn't the problem here. Facebook does offer the security measures that people need. The issue is that the security measures change quickly and are difficult to understand.

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

GPFontaine wrote:

What about people who want to communicate with friends using the platform but are interested in limiting the amount of information that their peers can share?

What about people who want to promote a band, store, or other business?

What about being capable of receiving invitations to events that are made through Facebook?

A Facebook account having a degree of privacy isn't a bad thing and it isn't unreasonable. It doesn't make you an asshole if you want to protect yourself and at the same time maintain a cultural connection to your peer group. Actually it makes a person who denies you these rights an asshole.

Still, that isn't the problem here. Facebook does offer the security measures that people need. The issue is that the security measures change quickly and are difficult to understand.

You can send a personal message.

Why would you want your business to be private?

Just because you recieve an invite, doesn't make you a bad person. If someone invites you to a party and someone sees that, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going, so I don't see how putting that on there does anything significant.

I don't really see the level of security people are looking for here. You're allowed to be in charge of what you put on there or take off what others might put on there, My Facebook is very simple, if someone wants to pry into my affairs, they're more than welcome to, but they aren't going to find anything significant. Which begs the question as to what is so seemingly uncomfortable about having an open profile? What do you have on your Facebook that makes you want to keep it as private? It's not like these people are going through your home or reading your bank statements!

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

I have a solution for all of this: Get rid of your Facebook. I've never understood why the fuck it was necessary. Facebook is NOT a replacement for real interaction, and it wastes time that could be spent doing something productive... like playing games. Besides, if it didn't exist, problems like this wouldn't exist either.

Posted: May 24 2010 06:07 pm

We need Facebook. Those farms aren't going to grow themselves.

Posted: May 24 2010 06:11 pm

Drew Linky wrote:

I have a solution for all of this: Get rid of your Facebook. I've never understood why the fuck it was necessary. Facebook is NOT a replacement for real interaction, and it wastes time that could be spent doing something productive... like playing games. Besides, if it didn't exist, problems like this wouldn't exist either.

It's purpose isn't to necessarily talk to friends that you already are in frequent contact with in the non-internet world. I use it for that but mainly for keeping in contact with people that you cant see on a daily basis like family out of state/town/country or whatever, and to find people that were a part of your past and catch up and see what they are doing.

Gallery 2 · Posted: May 24 2010 06:19 pm

UsaSatsui wrote:

I'm completely lost; what's the irony again? Confused

Posted: May 24 2010 06:42 pm

Klimbatize wrote:

We need Facebook. Those farms aren't going to grow themselves.

those castles aint gonna siege themselves.

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

AtmanRyu wrote:

UsaSatsui wrote:

I'm completely lost; what's the irony again? Confused

Yeah...I didn't get it either...

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Doddsino wrote:

GPFontaine wrote:

What about people who want to communicate with friends using the platform but are interested in limiting the amount of information that their peers can share?

What about people who want to promote a band, store, or other business?

What about being capable of receiving invitations to events that are made through Facebook?

A Facebook account having a degree of privacy isn't a bad thing and it isn't unreasonable. It doesn't make you an asshole if you want to protect yourself and at the same time maintain a cultural connection to your peer group. Actually it makes a person who denies you these rights an asshole.

Still, that isn't the problem here. Facebook does offer the security measures that people need. The issue is that the security measures change quickly and are difficult to understand.

You can send a personal message.

Why would you want your business to be private?

Just because you recieve an invite, doesn't make you a bad person. If someone invites you to a party and someone sees that, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going, so I don't see how putting that on there does anything significant.

I don't really see the level of security people are looking for here. You're allowed to be in charge of what you put on there or take off what others might put on there, My Facebook is very simple, if someone wants to pry into my affairs, they're more than welcome to, but they aren't going to find anything significant. Which begs the question as to what is so seemingly uncomfortable about having an open profile? What do you have on your Facebook that makes you want to keep it as private? It's not like these people are going through your home or reading your bank statements!

I am comfortable with what I post, I am however not necessarily comfortable with what other people post. What stops a person from taking a picture of you and posting it with your name associated with it and making it public? Privacy settings. If they are hard to understand then they may not be correctly set. That is all I am trying to say.

Doddsino wrote:

AtmanRyu wrote:

UsaSatsui wrote:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/infrastructures.png

I'm completely lost; what's the irony again? Confused

Yeah...I didn't get it either...

Microsoft won the word processor war back in the mid 90's. They were closed source and considered evil. Now Facebook has won the social site war and they are closed source and considered evil.

I think the irony is that we don't learn from our mistakes and are doomed to repeat them even though we complain like hell about the situation after we realize we allowed it to be created.

If I am correct I find it to be a weak stretch, but it was relevant at least.

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

The thing is though...they'll still post the picture of you. So making your profile private doesn't really do much. And if someone does tag you, you can always detag yourself. I do that with ALL my pictures. If my friend posts something incredibly stupid and one of my friends sees it and complains...then I let them complain, it's not like it's my doing. Plus once again...I can delete it if I wanted. I have nothing to hide.

Gallery 2 · Posted: May 25 2010 12:11 am

GPFontaine wrote:

I think the irony is that we don't learn from our mistakes and are doomed to repeat them even though we complain like hell about the situation after we realize we allowed it to be created.

If I am correct I find it to be a weak stretch, but it was relevant at least.

Ok, I see now. Really hard to make that kind of a connection to the subject, but still...

While I do appreciate clever humor, I think there's a problem if you have to be a colossal nerd in order to get a joke of that caliber. Confused

Posted: May 25 2010 03:47 am

AtmanRyu wrote:

GPFontaine wrote:

I think the irony is that we don't learn from our mistakes and are doomed to repeat them even though we complain like hell about the situation after we realize we allowed it to be created.

If I am correct I find it to be a weak stretch, but it was relevant at least.

Ok, I see now. Really hard to make that kind of a connection to the subject, but still...

While I do appreciate clever humor, I think there's a problem if you have to be a colossal nerd in order to get a joke of that caliber. Confused

That's kind of the entire point of XKCD, though. Not to sound elitist, but you have to be a nerd among nerds to get some of the jokes.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Char Aznable wrote:

AtmanRyu wrote:

GPFontaine wrote:

I think the irony is that we don't learn from our mistakes and are doomed to repeat them even though we complain like hell about the situation after we realize we allowed it to be created.

If I am correct I find it to be a weak stretch, but it was relevant at least.

Ok, I see now. Really hard to make that kind of a connection to the subject, but still...

While I do appreciate clever humor, I think there's a problem if you have to be a colossal nerd in order to get a joke of that caliber. Confused

That's kind of the entire point of XKCD, though. Not to sound elitist, but you have to be a nerd among nerds to get some of the jokes.

Geek damn it. I am a geek not a nerd.

Gallery 2 · Posted: May 25 2010 02:11 pm

The chart never lies!

Char Aznable wrote:

Not to sound elitist, but you have to be a nerd among nerds to get some of the jokes.

I'm content with being a regular geek over an uber nerd, thank you.

Posted: May 25 2010 05:13 pm

GPFontaine wrote:

Char Aznable wrote:

AtmanRyu wrote:

GPFontaine wrote:

I think the irony is that we don't learn from our mistakes and are doomed to repeat them even though we complain like hell about the situation after we realize we allowed it to be created.

If I am correct I find it to be a weak stretch, but it was relevant at least.

Ok, I see now. Really hard to make that kind of a connection to the subject, but still...

While I do appreciate clever humor, I think there's a problem if you have to be a colossal nerd in order to get a joke of that caliber. Confused

That's kind of the entire point of XKCD, though. Not to sound elitist, but you have to be a nerd among nerds to get some of the jokes.

Geek damn it. I am a geek not a nerd.

I fall under "geek", too. But that comic is nerdy as fuck.

Posted: May 25 2010 05:22 pm

I don't understand how Microsoft Word being closed source is comparable to Facebook being closed source. Microsoft wasn't selling our Word documents to advertisers. Microsoft, for all their software flaws, aren't a terrible company.

So because I didn't care that Microsoft was closed source in the 90s, it's my fault that Facebook isn't open source? I don't know, that sounds pretty fucking smug. And nonsensical.

Title: Cat of Ulthar Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 93

Drew Linky wrote:

I have a solution for all of this: Get rid of your Facebook. I've never understood why the fuck it was necessary. Facebook is NOT a replacement for real interaction, and it wastes time that could be spent doing something productive... like playing games. Besides, if it didn't exist, problems like this wouldn't exist either.

This.

And, if you type something very important and personal anywhere on the Internet, you deserve whatever consequences await you. Twisted Evil

Edit: Aren't Facebook pages automatically privatized? I mean like when you sign up, don't you have to be on someone's friends list in order to see their profile?

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

BowCastingWookie wrote:

Drew Linky wrote:

I have a solution for all of this: Get rid of your Facebook. I've never understood why the fuck it was necessary. Facebook is NOT a replacement for real interaction, and it wastes time that could be spent doing something productive... like playing games. Besides, if it didn't exist, problems like this wouldn't exist either.

This.

And, if you type something very important and personal anywhere on the Internet, you deserve whatever consequences await you. Twisted Evil

Edit: Aren't Facebook pages automatically privatized? I mean like when you sign up, don't you have to be on someone's friends list in order to see their profile?

Welcome to the thread. This is the entire point of the discussion. They used to be and now they aren't. This is why people are up in arms and the topic exists.

Also, I don't post things on my page often, but today I received an invite to a BBQ that I would like to attend. It fills a technological need of making communication easier, the debate here right now is if it goes overboard with giving out too much personal data without making it clear what is being shared.

Title: Cat of Ulthar Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 93

Oh.

Gotta be careful when posting certain things on social networking sites, because you never know if a potential employer might be snooping around. I never got into Facebook or Myspace, but I do understand why some have them. Other than a few minor details of my life, I never post anything of great importance anywhere, and I have several email addresses: one that I used to activate my account here and several other sites, and then a few others that were given out to past employers.

I understand your frustration. I mean, I'm sure the privacy thing was what drew many over to Facebook in the first place.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Facebook is going to be making changes to the privacy settings later today. Not sure what they will do, but there will be some form of adjustment.

Posted: May 26 2010 03:21 pm

The problem wasn't that Facebook wasn't automatically privatized anymore; the problem was that they changed everyone's settings to public. Everyone's. And there was no notice. It was easy to switch back, and the news spread fast, but it was unacceptable.