|
Seen anything interesting in the news lately? Well, if you were able to get past the Icelandic volcano’s intermittent spewing of ash, the British elections or the Thai protests, you may have noticed a wee bit of a storm brewing over the issue of online privacy. All thanks to our friends [sic] at Facebook.
According to a recent article in PCWorld, “Achieving maximum privacy on Facebook now requires you to click through 50 settings and more than 170 options.” A slew of tech celebrities, from Jason Calacanis to Leo Laporte, have denounced Facebook’s decision to make more elements of users’ profiles public, with Laporte going as far as to deactivate his Facebook account “live,” for our viewing pleasure.
Recently, four self-confessed nerds have created the anti-Facebook social network Diaspora, which says it’s “the privacy-aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network,” and for which they raised their target US$10,000 in just 12 days, as opposed to the 39 days they’d allotted for it (the money will cover their living expenses as they write the code). By the time this op-ed is published, you can bet there will be even more criticism of Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg.
Do I agree with all of Facebook’s moves? No. Like many others, I’m irritated by the way it springs surprises on its users, and I personally don’t like the feeling of being a pawn on its chessboard. I don’t like the fact that Facebook is trying to force me to join a “community page” instead of the official page of a business I like. And I’d be really grateful if my “friends” would stop poking me or trying to lure me into FarmVille (buying me a drink at the next IABC/DC Metro meeting would be lovely, thank you very much).
But here’s the thing: Facebook’s a business, and the sooner we all come to terms with that, the better.
And its business is communication. What Facebook has done extremely successfully is provide a vibrant platform for online communication that often results in offline benefits, both personal and professional. You don’t need me to tell you the stories of grandparents reconnecting with grandchildren, of nonprofit organizations dramatically increasing their fundraising dollars through applications like Causes…the list goes on. Sure, there are several other social networks that try to do the same thing. And yes, Facebook has “borrowed” many of its enhancements from other networks. But regardless of how many critics it has, it must be doing something right if 400 million people around the world are using it.
Most of us in the business of communication don’t have the luxury of deactivating our Facebook accounts—or the confidence that one of our other networks will give us what we’ve been used to getting from Facebook, either on a personal or professional level. The reason Laporte and others like him take these steps is because they can afford to. But folks with his reach are few and far between; and that means the rest of us have to figure out how to work around the Facebook minefield of privacy—or the lack of it.
There’s a very simple way to approach online privacy. Don’t post online anything you think should remain private. That doesn’t apply just to Facebook, but also to any other network or site you’re active on, whether it’s your Google profile, your Twitter stream, or your blog. Right now it’s Facebook that’s the center of the storm, but these issues are equally applicable to any other social network or platform where you can share your information with potentially millions of strangers.
In other words or, rather, the words of blogger and technology evangelist Robert Scoble, you should “reboot” your privacy. Don’t want your mom to learn via Facebook what you got up to last night? Certainly, you’re entitled to that. You do have the option to adjust your privacy settings on Facebook so that it’s more difficult for “friends” as well as businesses to have access to your information. Why not do that?
As Scoble points out, the real problem Facebook faces is that we don’t trust it anymore (if we ever did). The issue, as I see it, is not that the company’s been implementing changes to its privacy settings faster than you can say “ethics review,” but that it’s been doing so with what comes across as a cavalier disregard for its users.
I believe we’re all entitled to privacy. But if you think the online world is the only place your privacy is at risk, think again (just ask Tiger Woods). If you want to keep your privacy, there’s only one way to do it—keep your life private, your mouth shut and your fingers off the keyboard.
Shonali Burke, ABC, is principal of Shonali Burke Consulting “an agency of one” based in the Washington, D.C., area, and 2009–2010 president of IABC/DC Metro. She is also adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University’s master’s in communications program, where she teaches a course on nonprofit communication in the digital age. She blogs at Waxing UnLyrical and tweets as @shonali. Contact her at
. |
