Facebook Privacy Concerns
Facebook continues to evolve and some of the most recent changes surrounding the privacy of information are a bit unsettling. More specifically, over time, users have had less and less control over what information is public and what can remain private. Matt McKeon, a developer with the Visual Communication Lab at IBM, recently posted a series of images that clearly depict the radical change in privacy over time. The first and last images (click the images to view in greater detail) from a series of images covering 2005 to April 2010 are shown below. The entire sequence is available on his website. The blue areas are those that are public for users using default settings.
The Quitters
May 31 has been declared by some as Quit Facebook Day. Those organizing this event have launched a website and received considerably more publicity than is warranted based on the 3874 people who have signed on to participate.
Ed Stetzer, President and Missiologist in Residence of LifeWay Research, is a prolific blogger and tweeter who chose to delete his personal facebook account last week. In Why I Deleted My Personal Facebook Account — And Why You Might Consider Doing the Same Stetzer explains that his decision was in direct response to the latest changes in privacy settings. He will however retain his public page, which is maintained by B&H Publishers.
The most interesting link in the article is to a popular blog post by a techie: Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook. I encourage you to read it and also his follow-up post if you want to be sure you are aware of all of the changes and the breadth of their implications.
So What? (Or Why I am Not Quitting Facebook)
Privacy matters to me, but not so much that I will seek to keep all of the details of my life secret from others. Growing up, almost everyone learns the important lesson of thinking before speaking. Living in the era of e-communications, we all need to learn (and be reminded on occasion) that data we share (whether in an e-mail or a facebook update) may be shared with someone other than the originally intended audience.
By not quitting, you and I belong to a considerable community of some 400 million active users. Facebook allows us to connect with friends in ways that are simply not possible anywhere else (at least not yet).
Facebook is one of several ways I stay in touch with a growing group of friends. I invite you to be in touch: connect with me on facebook or follow me on twitter.