Morada Musings

By now you’ve probably heard that Facebook has made some significant changes.  Or perhaps you’ve noticed some of them on the site, said “Hmmmm…” and didn’t give it another thought.  You should, because the changes they’ve made changes everything you thought you knew about Facebook and how we connect with each other.   Some folks are crying “Foul!” while others are cheering the greater connectivity.

Before I go into any particulars, I’d like to suggest that if you already have a Facebook profile, head on over there and check your privacy settings.  Seriously, go right now; I’ll wait.  (If you don’t know what they should look like or how to change something you see that you don’t like, read my earlier posts or check out Mari Smith’s very helpful blog.)

So, here’s the thing – Facebook wants to take over the cyberworld.  No, I’m not being paranoid -  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the new social plugins aim to “dramatically expand [Facebook's] presence across the web.”  And on the Facebook Blog, [these plugins will help] “all websites [...] work together to build a more comprehensive map of connections and create better, more social experiences for everyone.”   He also said “…public is the new social norm.”  All this relatedness goes by the name of  Open Graph.  How will it affect you?

There are several of these social plugins and each enables to you share information in different ways and different places.  Here, I will just briefly touch on one and encourage you to read on or more of the several very good articles written which explain them in more detail (see the Resources below.)  I also recommend this really great visual representation of the Facebook privacy changes  that  have occurred over the past five years.

Facebook has changed it’s “Like” button to be universal throughout its site but also on other web sites.  Read a great article on a CNN.com?  Click the Facebook Like button and it will show up in your Facebook stream.  Look closely in the CNN sidebar and what do you see?  The  profile photos of other Facebook users who have clicked the “Like” button.  Everyone who clicks is sharing their opinion with the entire cyber world.  Some people will like that, others won’t.

There are already calls for government intercession and backlash from users who feel that the push to breakdown barriers goes too far.  Others simply feel that the default privacy settings are both too broad and too complex that most users can’t make sense of them well enough to tweak them for the level of sharing they really want.  For example, you can choose who sees your new post by setting a default level in your profile but also overriding that by choosing from the drop down list.

That should be an easy enough thing, except it’s not.  The choices are Everyone, Friends of Friends, Only Friends or Customize.  I have set up lists based on how I know the people and/or how much privacy I wish to maintain (i.e. Family, Church, Professional, etc.)  All of these lists appear in the Friends grouping but I want to have very different levels of sharing.  So on a particular post, how will I know that only my family will see it and not my potential clients?  I have to choose Customize then choose the list(s) I want (or, conversely, exclude the ones I don’t.)

What about my profile information – if I don’t wish to share that fact that I support a particular political campaign or belong to medical support group – what then?   I “drill down” in the privacy settings for my profile to each of the specific sections to assign appropriate levels of sharing.  This is not a hard thing to do, but can be time consuming.

And that’s the crux of the matter – how easy is it for people to learn about the changes, figure out how and where to do it, and, to a greater degree, understand the ramifications of the choices they make.  For some folks, the announcements by Facebook at the end of April never made it onto their radar.  Others ignored it, or deferred it for looking into later (and we all know what that usually means!)  Many heard it, thought they understood it and intended to check their settings but haven’t gotten around to it.  They need to.  You need to.  So go do it!

In the immortal words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus at the beginning of each episode of Hill Street Blues –

“Let’s be careful out there!”

Resources:

Mari Smith: Relationship Marketing

Mashable: F8 News & Reveiws, Facebook Guide

Huffington Post: The Ultimate Guide to 11 Big Facebook Changes – And What They Mean