tl;dr: Any illusion of privacy on Facebook is just that: an illusion. Everyone needs to realize that in the privacy convo.
Four-ish years ago Facebook made all private profile pictures public. No warnings, no options. My girlfriend at the time (soon to be wife) and I weren't publicizing our relationship then because of serious cultural and religious issues that we knew we'd face when we told our parents. We didn't get to make that decision, because a picture of the two of us was her profile picture... one day it was private and the other it wasn't. This had a profound impact on my life in a very real way and has come to represent everything I expect of privacy on FB.
Anything you do on Facebook is owned by Facebook. It says so in ther TOS. If they wanted to make a Billboard out of an embarrassing conversation you had on the site they could. Any illusion of privacy is just that: an illusion. Zuckerberg an FB have been very open about the fact that they see privacy as a dead concept, and that everything should be share by default.
The sooner everyone realizes that there is no such thing as private data on FB the sooner we can approach the service on realistic terms.
Everything you said is spot on, but your particular situation was not unique to FB. If your relationship was a very sensitive issue, then it was bound to be revealed unexpectedly if it was a profile photo...there's no FB setting that will keep your friend, or a friend of a friend, from passing that photo along to someone who you don't want to see it. I don't mean that you can't block friends of friends from seeing it on FB...rather, I mean that you can't block a friend passing it along rough email or in careless bar chatter.
I'm not victim blaming here...but pointing out that the Internet as a whole makes unwanted sharing much more frictionless...and the enemies of our privacy will not always be corporation or high tech blunders.
Definitely true. I just mean to mean to illustrate that on FB the very definition of private changes. One day something is explicitly private, the other FB decides its unreasonable.
I'm not even blaming Facebook per se. This is a whole new territory and they've been anything but timid with their approach to doing what they think is right. That boldness is probably necessary. But, with that in mind users have to recognize exactly what that means to them.
Spot on. If you want privacy, don't use Facebook. I don't.
My worry is that the whole world is getting so tangled into The Social Web that soon, you won't be able to buy an ice cream cone without alerting every advertiser and government agency in the world.
Four-ish years ago Facebook made all private profile pictures public. No warnings, no options. My girlfriend at the time (soon to be wife) and I weren't publicizing our relationship then because of serious cultural and religious issues that we knew we'd face when we told our parents. We didn't get to make that decision, because a picture of the two of us was her profile picture... one day it was private and the other it wasn't. This had a profound impact on my life in a very real way and has come to represent everything I expect of privacy on FB.
Anything you do on Facebook is owned by Facebook. It says so in ther TOS. If they wanted to make a Billboard out of an embarrassing conversation you had on the site they could. Any illusion of privacy is just that: an illusion. Zuckerberg an FB have been very open about the fact that they see privacy as a dead concept, and that everything should be share by default.
The sooner everyone realizes that there is no such thing as private data on FB the sooner we can approach the service on realistic terms.