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Facebook Makes Privacy Settings More Obvious

Posted by Unknown on from the false-sense-of-security dept.

CWmike writes "Facebook is making a series of design changes to the site to make it clearer to users who can see the content that they post, an issue Google has been criticizing Facebook about since it launched its own social network, Google+, in June. 'You have told us that "who can see this?" could be clearer across Facebook, so we have made changes to make this more visual and straightforward,' Facebook said in a blog post on Tuesday. The main change is that Facebook will now display the intended audience for a photo, a text post, a tag or any other piece of content right next to it. Until now, those controls have been on a separate Settings section of the profile. 'Your profile should feel like your home on the web — you should never feel like stuff appears there that you don't want, and you should never wonder who sees what's there.' Another change Facebook is introducing is allowing users to modify the audience of a post after it's published, which they couldn't do before."

17 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Photocopiers to the ready. by SimonTheSoundMan · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is it me, or both Google and Facebook copying each other. G+ has animated GIFs, now Facebook has etc. Now this.

    1. Re:Photocopiers to the ready. by ge7 · · Score: 2

      It just shows that competition is good. Facebook has pretty much added all the features people criticized them lacking. It will be hard time for Google+ now.

    2. Re:Photocopiers to the ready. by DJRumpy · · Score: 2

      Added it back is more like it. A while back (think a year +), you used to be able to change the viewing audience after you posted something, and then that dissapeared a few months ago. You then had to remember to set it when you posted it, or you either had to delete it or live with it.

      I agree though, competition is good. I seriously doubt Facebook has done a good implementation though. For instance, you can setup different levels of who can see what, and all it takes is someone from a restricted list posting a link to something that was 'restricted' to them only, and suddenly anyone can see it.

      I find their lack of security disturbing... (sorry, couldn't resist...).

      Can't speak to Google + as of yet. Haven't seen any activity on there to speak of. It's pretty much dead. Of the two I actually prefer the cleaners of Google + but I suspect my locked down settings are making it difficult for people to find me. Not sure I want to open that up either.

    3. Re:Photocopiers to the ready. by Asic+Eng · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It seems Facebook has realized that Google has dropped the ball on privacy with that real name fiasco. Which seems to be getting even worse. Today when logging into Google+ I got this:

      Hey, this is important: Add a phone to your account Without a
      phone number, you could lose all access to your account if you
      forget your password or if your account is hijacked. Learn more
      [Phone number (mobile or landline)]

      Google will only use your number for account security. We'll
      never share it with other companies or send you unwanted
      messages--ever. Adding a phone number helps make your
      account much more secure.

      In very small font below: "Click _here_ to skip this step anyway."

      So now they are even trying to extract my phone number from me. Geez.

      Initially the attraction was: well it's like Facebook, but not run by hated corporation Facebook. By now Facebook can say: "Well, we may have our flaws, but at least we are not Google".

    4. Re:Photocopiers to the ready. by Inda · · Score: 2

      After a month, I thought G+ was dead too. Then I started playing one of the games.

      In little under a week, I gone from having a dozen contacts to just over 150. The chatter is mainly about games, obviously, but there is no way in the world I can claim G+ is dead. If anything, I'm trying to find ways to stop people posting lol-cats on my main stream.

      Still early days. Give G+ a bit more time.

      --
      This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
  2. Home on the Web? by ksd1337 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your profile should feel like your home on the web

    Um, no. A Facebook profile feels like a cheap apartment. They all look the same, feel the same, and even smell the same (okay, that last one, I don't know what I'm talking about.)

    A personal website, on the other hand, now THAT feels like my home on the Web.

    1. Re:Home on the Web? by badboy_tw2002 · · Score: 3, Funny

      What about an iGoogle profile page?

      And if Facebook is a cookie cutter condo complex of conformity, MySpace is a shitty shantytown of shameless "individualism". And I guess most personal websites are tree houses nailed together with primary colors and blink tags.

  3. Competition is good! by guspasho · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's amazing what a little competition will do for your motivation.

  4. So long as they keep changing the settings for you by Kenja · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So long as they keep changing the settings for you, who cares how clear they are? The issue is not how "obvious" the security settings are, its that facebook has a history of changing them without notice and exposing users information.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  5. Who are they kidding? by Rumagent · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Too little, too late.

    1. Re:Who are they kidding? by mister_playboy · · Score: 2

      "This time it will be different"

      Facebook users all seem to suffer from battered wife syndrome when it comes to privacy issues. If you accept that you have no privacy on FB, OK... but believing they actually give a crap about your privacy after all that has happened it just delusional.

      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
  6. And it only took them 7 years! by Geurilla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It only took them seven years to make these changes, too. And what a coincidence that they roll these out right after G+ launches with these features out of the gate.

    In terms of privacy, their problem is not a lack of features. Their problem is trust. And after years and years of hard work to make me never trust them they have succeeded. New privacy features just can't fix that. Too little, too late

  7. Well, well by ausrob · · Score: 2

    I wonder if this has anything to do with the reported exodus of users (especially in North America)? Or competition from Google+?

  8. Re:Completely bogus. by PickyH3D · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only difference with Google+ is that Google is the ad agency. And if they kick you off, then you lose access to everything related to your account.

    Google is demanding your full, legal name. They want you to join Gmail so that they can sell you ads by scanning your email. All of that goes along with the pretty picture that is painted by your Google searches.

    I hate Facebook, but at least I do not have Facebook email or Facebook search, ignoring the Like buttons all over the place analogous to Google Analytics. I draw the line with Google at Gmail. I cannot keep getting deeper and deeper entrenched with any single company, especially when the potential of being banned, for any reason, has a lot of other potential side effects.

    As long as Facebook keeps its borders intact, and no other independent player pops up, then I will likely be stuck on Facebook and not on Google+.

  9. Google+ settings are deceptive by crow · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google+ lets you specify which circles to share each post with. That's fine. Except that you don't share with circles, you share with people. This is a big difference, and a big problem.

    Let me explain.

    When you share something and say which circles to share it with, Google converts that into a list of all the people in those circles. This is all good and fine as long as your circles don't change. But suppose my mother joins, and I add her to my Family circle. I would expect her to be able to see photos that I've previously shared with my Family circle. No such luck. And suppose I realize that someone shouldn't be in a circle, I can remove them from the circle, but I can't stop them from seeing that post I just shared with that circle without removing the post.

    Google needs to fix this so that posts are shared with circles, not people.

  10. Re:So long as they keep changing the settings for by AbRASiON · · Score: 2

    Rather than moderate this guy up - I need to chirp in and respond that YES, he's precisely correct. Facebook have done this MULTIPLE TIMES.
    I don't care how easy the security is to work with, I care about them fucking resetting it on me.

  11. Re:So long as they keep changing the settings for by greg1104 · · Score: 2

    You weren't paying very much attention then to what was being done with your data. Facebook Beacon was one of the worst privacy violations I've ever run into, bad enough for them to lose a class action lawsuit over it. The Face Recognition feature was also enabled by default, letting data collected from your pictures be used to tag your face in other people's pictures you appeared. If that doesn't seriously concern you, you should reconsider just what else could happen with that data.