International Law

No I didn't quit Facebook yesterday ... instead I opened my profile to everyone

Yesterday was Quit Facebook Day and I used the occasion to think about my social media presence generally, and my use of Facebook specifically.  Although I read many compelling pieces about why we should all quit Facebook, most notably from Mark Pesce and Renai LeMay, I am still on Facebook today.  Indeed, instead of quitting Facebook altogether, I instead opened up my Facebook profile to everyone.  Given this is somewhat a move against the trend, I thought I should explain my reasoning.

Ever since I created a profile on Facebook I have been very aware of my privacy settings.  I used to use the Limited Profile feature extensively to limit who could view certain parts of my profile (especially the pictures).  When Facebook introduced the ability to create groups (or lists) of friends, I created over a dozen different groups, each with slightly different privacy settings.  As of today I in fact have 18 different groups of friends, all with different privacy settings.  I also considered the privacy paranoia surrounding Facebook to be a little bit exaggerated because if you took the time, Facebook gave you a great deal of control of your privacy.  The problem was, and is, that most people just accept the default settings and don't invest the necessary time to individually configure their privacy settings.  However, it is for that reason that so many people have been understandably upset that Facebook has steadily changed the default privacy settings, so that more and more information has been made available to everyone by default, especially to Facebook's commercial partners.

So I took some time yesterday to think about how Facebook uses my personal information and whether I should quit Facebook.  I reached four conclusions that may appear at first to be somewhat contradictory (or at least counter-intuitive). 

First, I am troubled by the contempt that Facebook seems to have for its users when it comes to privacy.  However, when it comes to my privacy on Facebook, I am not troubled because it has always given me the power to customise my own privacy settings.

Second, given Facebook's general attitude to the privacy of its users, I understand and support those who have decided to quit Facebook.  But I am not willing to quit Facebook (yet).  In part this is because I am comfortable with my own individual privacy on Facebook, but it is also because I feel the utility Facebook provides outweighs my concerns about Facebook's general attitude to the privacy of its users.  My social graph on Facebook does not yet exist (or is duplicated) on any of the alternative social networks, nor is the ability to arrange and RSVP to events.  The reality is also that even if I was to quit Facebook, I would continue to be tagged in posts and photos on Facebook without the ability to easily monitor those posts and photos.  As I feel it is important for me to remain in control of my digital footprint and my online brand, the need to monitor how others tag me on Facebook was an important factor in my decision to remain on Facebook.

Third, it occurred to me that the way I use Facebook has changed over the past few years.  Indeed, it has changed so much that I no longer feel the need to have elaborate privacy settings at all.  So I decided to take advantage of Facebook's new simplified privacy settings, and make my profile available to everyone.  When I first started using Facebook, I was creating content specifically for Facebook - photos, status updates, links were posted to Facebook because that was the only forum I had to share at the time.  However today I almost never create content specifically for Facebook.  Instead, I import my status updates, photos, links and other content from a range of other different online platforms, such as Typepad, Tumblr, ipadio, Twitter, Posterous and Vimeo.  What this means is that almost everything that gets posted to my Facebook profile is already available to everyone somewhere else on the web, without any privacy settings or other limitations at all.  Therefore it makes sense for me to treat Facebook as a social hub or aggregator for the content I create online.  Opening up all my content to everyone also simplifies the process of protecting my privacy.  I can now operate on the assumption that everything on my Facebook profile is open to the world at large, and, if necessary, delete some content or remove tags to protect both my privacy and my online brand.

Fourth, by treating my Facebook profile as an open platform, where almost all of the content on my Facebook profile is posted somewhere else on the web first, my profile and content is very portable.  This means that when there are viable alternatives to Facebook, it will be very easy for me to transport my content (as well as hopefully my social graph) to that new social network.  In that admittedly very limited respect, I like to think that my decision to open up my Facebook page to everyone does not mean I have sold my soul to Facebook, but instead means that I am preparing for the day when I too can quit Facebook and use an alternative social network.

After all that, if you want to find me on Facebook, you can do so here.

Full post as published by Freedom to Differ on June 01, 2010 (boomark / email).