On www.newsweek.com they opened a discussion about the cost of Facebook. In a nutshell they said: You pay for Facebook with your privacy. Now according to this article doing marketing online via Social Media is NOT a good idea because more and more people are bothered by these seemingly loose methods surrounding your privacy online. And will eventually get off Facebook.
I really, REALLY, disagree.
While some tech-geeks and scaredy cats are scrounging quickly as far away as they can from Facebook, because of the changes in policies and default settings. I am inclined to pointing out the detail they seem to be missing: DEFAULT.
Facebook has highly customizable security settings (see tutorials here), and it would be impossible to come up with “default”, meaning upon delivery, settings that will not make people wholly inaccessible. It’s logical, to me at least, that they would put the standard settings to be “loose”, as in no evident restrictions. I think users need to realize that it is their sole responsibility to set up these settings to their personal preference. Facebook users need to educate themselves and decide to what extent they want to share their lives and with whom. And the cornucopia of settings available make it possible to fully control and customize your virtual face on Facebook.
For example, I recently encountered annoyances with comments on my statuses and reactions by total strangers that were on my list as business, causes or local figures contacts. Heck, some people add you solely to get your contact info and fill your inbox with spam. This has happened to me on various occasions. In my previous posts my utter disdain for unsolicited emails from companies trying to sell stuff has been avidly expressed. But at some point I started to look at it wisely: If I set up my privacy correctly, people I do not know personally can’t get my personal email or phone number.
Instead of getting angry at those people, though a special place is reserved for people that send mock quote requests to then use your email to send you daily offers of their own services and they NEVER really get back to you on that quote you worked on seriously, I decided to shield myself in a smart and hassle free way.
Set up my privacy rings: Lists in which I put different contacts. I have 13 different lists, because that is how many pools I identified. For example, I have no desire for my clients to see what I had for dinner or if I have a horrible cold and coughed up green slime… but I want the liberty to post it in my status. I also don’t need all my relatives to know where I’m going this Friday night, now do I? And so, I took 2 hours of my day to clean up my Facebook act and put people in their rightful places.
After carefully packaging people/contacts in their rightful pools, the real fun begins. Who sees/does what? Below are a few things you can do (no tutorial here though!)
Things you can do with the FB security settings (basically control how different groups of people see you, your wall etc):
- Allow/Block access to your Wall. (No more random posts on my wall… YAY!)
- Control who sees what on your Profile, Work, Education, Relationship, Location, Friends (you CAN set 6 default friends so people can’t pick and choose in your list!)
- Control who sees your status update (default).
- When posting, before sharing, you can also change who sees the status update, handy little thing for when I have to rant to specific people.
- Control who can comment on your posts, status updates, links, pictures, etc.
- Remove yourself from the search results.
Like this I forged a unique Facebook experience for myself. I don’t have to worry who read what, I am fully in control and trolls looking to complain at the way I rant are going hungry, because neh-neh-neh… they are not allowed to see status updates nor my Wall.
So in conclusion, the developments regarding privacy on Facebook have shifted, to some users in a dauntingly big way. So big they don’t know where to begin. But in reality you have more power now and you can lock the gates to unwanted peering eyes. You can also test how others will see your profile, so you can tweak the experience even further. It takes a new kind of internet user to deal with these things accordingly and embrace the Social Media beast that has become Facebook.