I Link You

Facebook is now public

As of September 26th, Facebook is open to the public. I even get a nice reminder on my home screen: "Now all your friends can use Facebook."

People who are not in high school, college, or employed by a company can join Facebook via regional networks. What about my privacy? Facebook understood that its network structure is very important, so the only people who can see your profile are your confirmed friends and the people in your networks. If you join a regional network, then everyone from that regional network can see your profile. Of course, you do have the option of limiting your profile to certain people. You can also control what new people see on your profile. You can tell everyone what your favorite books are but only a few people know your cell phone number.

Facebook also installed a self-policing feature in which any user can report an suspicious profile or activity going on in Facebook. It's a nice feature, but it's not too practical. Anyone can report someone as a joke, and it would be hard to discern what is a real threat. Facebook is not as big of a company as one might suspect despite floating rumors of a nearly $1 billion buyout. Also, the eyes of high school and college students are not too reliable. For all we care, we just want everyone to see how much fun we are having at school without our parents seeing what we do.

Carolyn Abram, a Facebook blogger, even written a post about the recent change significantly stressing the new privacy controls and that Facebook is useful to everyone.

There are still some people protesting this change. Some have begun to place "Facebookistryingtogetmestalked" as their middle names, so everyone can see. Another example is "FacebookMadeMeChangeMyName."

It's actually quite ironic that these students are so concerned with privacy. Why do these people create profiles in the first place if they are so uncomfortable with sharing "sensitive" information? Facebook made it pretty clear that you have total control over who views your profile and what they can see. Also, it's the responsibility of the user to be cautious of the information he or she puts on his or her profile. It seems like Facebook is roling out the regional network entry slowly, so no one dies of shock.

posted by Koh @ 5:20 PM