Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over

Hmm - I think it matters more that the the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada says ... what the EU says and so on - than what Facebook itself would prefer to believe. Once you're classified as a data controller things change as institutions and other advocacy bodies become involved in the affairs of business organizations. I would also point folks this a recent post by Bob Blakley on the notion that privacy is gone.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience yesterday that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private as it was for years until the company changed dramatically in December.

In a six-minute interview on stage with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Zuckerberg spent 60 seconds talking about Facebook's privacy policies. His statements were of major importance for the world's largest social network - and his arguments in favor of an about-face on privacy deserve close scrutiny.

Zuckerberg offered roughly 8 sentences in response to Arrington's question about where privacy was going on Facebook and around the web. The question was referencing the changes Facebook underwent last month. Your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, Friends List, and all the pages you subscribe to are now publicly available information on Facebook. This means everyone on the web can see it; it is searchable. I'll post Zuckerberg's sentences on their own first, then follow up with the questions they raise in my mind. You can also watch the video below, the privacy part we transcribe is from 3:00 to 4:00.

Zuckerberg:

"When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was 'why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?'

"And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

"We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.

"A lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they've built, doing a privacy change - doing a privacy change for 350 million users is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies would do. But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner's mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it."

Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over

Comments

[Adrian]

It is not exactly true. it depends on how you control it. if you update your status every minute then everyone will get to know what you are doing. I don't accept this. I am quitting facebook soon.

[Tech]

I thought he was smarter than that. If private information was public by default Facebook users would halve.

[Essay Writer]

I don't get it why there are certain people who join Facebook and other social networking sites but keep their profiles very private. The fact that they signed up and agreed to Facebook's terms and conditions, it also means that they allow other people to invade their privacies in one way or another. So why not make thy profiles public? For security reasons? Then why still join?

[essay help]

The age of privacy is over for the long time I should say :(

[Ayırma Büyüsü]

The age of privacy is over for the long time I should say :(

[Acne Scar Treatment]

I dissagree with some comments. They talk about different things, looks like they didn't even read your article.

[louis]

The age of privacy is over for the long time I should say :(

[ffxiv gil]

"We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.

[Mobil Keluarga Ideal Terbaik Indonesia]

The age of privacy is over for the long time
In my opinion also

[mobil keluarga ideal terbaik Indonesia]

privacy has become a rare item now

[stop snoring without surgery]

People who act like celebrities updating their statuses so often will lose privacy. IMHO. Except that they update about things not related to their personal activities (quotes, etc).

[thesis writing]

I think this should be everyone's own choice. And of course, all the personal info should be private by default.

[busana muslim terbaru]

The age of privacy is over for the long time

[Solusi Forum Komunitas Online Indonesia]

I think this should be everyone's own choice more