The Online Reflector

Facebook’s changed things up for its users once again. Only this time, in an attempt to give us more choices with privacy settings, Facebook has given us fewer. If Facebook thinks they are helping their users, they need to think again.

Facebook has advertised these settings as more private with more controls over each individual thing we post. The new privacy settings took effect on Dec. 10, 2009.

According to Facebook’s guide to privacy, the Facebook team has noticed that people have been sharing a greater amount of information recently and they are sharing it with a broader set of people.  They’ve concluded that their privacy settings have become irrelevant and redundant.

To emphasize this point, Facebook has created a set of “publicly available information,” which includes name, profile picture gender, current city, networks, friend list and pages you are a fan of. I don’t quite understand the point of having some information publicly available, and it might make people easier to find when they don’t want to be so easily found.

Also, this set of information is also available to any third-party applications that are authorized. We, as the users, should have total control over whether or not this information is publicly accessible. And doesn’t the idea of having a public set of information available to any application contradict the main idea of more privacy?

One big change users may notice is that regional networks have been removed. Facebook cites the reason for this as that the purpose of regional networks has become dated and the networks have grown too large.

I can see them growing too large, especially with the rise of more Facebook users in the past year, but regional networks can still keep people networked with that is going on in their nearby area. Also, what about the people who aren’t in school or don’t have a job right now? The regional networks provided a nice default network they could use to find activities, events or people.

Another change is the friend list. This is regarded as “publicly available information,” but thankfully Facebook was a bit wiser this time and decided to give us the option of hiding our friend lists to non-friends.

Three more bugs included hiding the profile picture, recent posts and “add as friend” option. You now have to hide each post on your profile individually, which is more of a hassle than it was before. Profile pictures are now public, and I’m not comfortable with the idea of total strangers being able to see my appearance or that of my friends in a picture. Users should have control over that. The “add as friend” option is now mostly mandatory. The only options for this settings are “everyone” and “friends of friends.”

What if people don’t want to be deluged with dozens of junk friend requests? I reject about half a dozen every week and I really appreciated when I could hide that option. Again, the users should be in control of how others can interact with them. Another bug includes not being able to hide what pages a person is a fan of.

Anyone can see what you enjoy, which makes me feel very hesitant to become a fan of anything, however, that bug existed before the privacy settings changed.

My question is: if there are all these bugs among the new privacy settings, why has the Facebook team not made an attempt to fix them? There are a lot of bugs for an “improvement.” Facebook almost made public search listings for everyone, making users visible to non-Facebook users outside Facebook. Thankfully, the Facebook team gave us an option for having a public search listing.

Facebook says the new settings have the ability to adjust privacy for anything we share. This obviously isn’t true, as some things have fewer or no options when it comes to privacy. It’s inconsistent because not all posts have a custom privacy setting that many Facebook users have come to enjoy.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has changed its layout. It underwent a major face lift on Sept. 11, 2008, and has been modified piecemeal ever since. The “new” Facebook merged the wall and mini-feed and put tabs on a person’s profile page.

Granted, most people don’t probably care about what they put out on Facebook regarding personal information, and they probably don’t care who sees it. And although I am very open to my friends and have nothing to hide, I am also picky about who my friends are and what non-friends can see. Information in the wrong hands is dangerous, and I want to make sure my information and activities are only shared with the people I want to share them.

To the people at Facebook: keep in mind that this site is all about your users. We keep you working, and it would be wise for you to listen when we don’t like change. After all, we could just as easily quit using Facebook and move onto the next big thing.