All this time we thought U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., was hard at work drafting an immigration bill, and it turns out he’s trolling around on Facebook instead. We know this because he had a hissy when he found out he needed to change his privacy settings again.
If you’re a Facebook user, you’ve probably taken care of it, at the incessant urging of your online “friends.” (Account–>Privacy Settings–>Applications & Websites–> Instant Personalization–>Uncheck Allow.) If you’re not on Facebook, well, just please skip this editorial. It will only reinforce your smug certainty that social networking is the realm of narcissistic fools. A few keystrokes, one click, and they’re broadcasting to total strangers via friends and friends of friends. More than half of Facebook users are guilty of “oversharing,” according to Consumer Reports’ annual State of the Net report. So what’s all this huffing about privacy?
Last month, Facebook began sharing users’ personal information — including names, photos and names of friends — with Web “partners” who use the data to tailor their own sites. This presumptuous switch was spun as a favor to users, who live in a perpetual state of vigilance against real and imagined attempts by Facebook to monetize their online mingling.
Users can opt out, assuming they’re tuned in to that sort of thing, but a lot of them are cluelessly preoccupied playing Happy Aquarium. In the Consumer Reports survey, 73 percent of Facebook users believed they were sharing content only with people in their network, while just 42 percent reported making the necessary changes to their privacy settings. Without those adjustments, the info is public.
Schumer unleashed the Federal Trade Commission on Facebook and is threatening legislation to prohibit this sort of unilateral switch. Users are indignant. Sure, Facebook hosts a global neighborhood, customized 400 million ways, for free, but it’s been around for six years and there’s still no “dislike” button. Let’s not even talk about the revamped news feed. Does anybody “like” that?
In the wiki-world of Facebook, everything’s up for a vote. Click to add your support to Petition for Betty White to host SNL; 1 million strong against the Arizona immigration law; Petition to get (insert teenager’s name here) ungrounded; or My sister said if I get 1 million fans she will name her baby “Megatron.”
Now there’s Petition: Facebook, respect my privacy! In its first 10 days, it drew more than 79,000 members.
The bald truth is that people really don’t value their privacy all that much. They’ll guard their credit cards and Social Security numbers, but they’ll cheerfully trade away all sorts of personal information to qualify for cheap Diet Pepsi at the grocery. Ever wonder how the cash register knows which coupons to spit out for you? It’s not all that different from what Facebook is up to. Big deal.
Facebook’s worst misstep was to change the rules in the middle of the game and pretend it was such a “win” for users that there was no point in consulting them. Where is that dislike button?
Schumer has a good eye for cheap causes to champion — he’s also the guy who filed legislation to stop airlines from charging for carry-ons — but we think Facebook and its users can work this out on their own. The FTC can stand down, and the senator can go back to playing Farmville.
