On Facebook, as a result of the recent changes in format, a new status update has been making the rounds.
“Do me a favor: please hover over my name here, wait for the box to load and then hover over the “Subscribe” link. Then uncheck the “Comments and likes” choice. I would rather my comments on friends’ posts not be made public. Thanks** Then repost if you don’t want your EVERY MOVE posted on the right for everyone to see! 
I’ll do the same for you if you want. just click ‘like’.”
There’s a large number of assumptions being made here. One is that since you’re asking your friend to uncheck “Comments and likes,” you don’t want your friend to see these things. This means that unless you’re talking directly to that friend, you don’t want your friend seeing things that you say, which, to me, seems to directly oppose the reason to be on a social network at all – to be sociable and to network with people. You are also assuming that your friend doesn’t want to see what you’re posting. You’re effectively asking your friend to walk out of the room while you’re talking to other people.
The biggest assumption here, though, is that you believe that your friends are responsible for your privacy. This is hidden behind the “I’ll do this for you, in case you don’t want your every move to show up on the right side of the page”; promising reciprocation hides the fact that you are making it your friends’ responsibility to not read what you post.
Who’s responsibility is it, in reality? Yours. The internet – Facebook, Twitter, journal sites, etc. – are not private, secure data storage. These sites provide the service of broadcasting what you say to anyone who will listen. It’s like talking about private matters in a crowded subway: Once you’ve said something, anyone who can hear can’t unhear it, and could spread it beyond your control. And even worse, when you say something on the internet, it’s recorded, saved, duplicated, and backed up, to the point of being almost permanent, and under someone else’s control.
So what’s the ultimate way to keep your thoughts private? Don’t post them. If there’s something you don’t want to be made public, don’t say it, and don’t write it. Once you express a thought in any way, you have already forfeited its privacy, and it’s not Facebook’s fault.
September 22, 2011 at 8:10 pm |
I see your point, but it should still be an option to hide this. I don’t want my underage nephews or nieces to see an adult-oriented comment I wrote under another (non-mutual) friend’s picture.
September 28, 2011 at 11:21 am |
I definitely agree. Another commenter mentioned that you can control this: When you choose to reply to another user’s post or pic, there’s a little icon beside the timestamp that you can hover over. If it’s set to “Public” or “Friends of Friends,” then when you reply, your reply will be visible by the public or the friends of your friend’s friends (meaning your friends). If it’s set to “Friends Only,” then only the friends of your friend can see it. Hope that helps!
September 22, 2011 at 10:29 pm |
This is nothing more than asking someone to avert their eyes. The problem is with the privacy settings of the things you are responding to. If someone’s wall post is set to “friends of friends” or “public” and you reply, it will appear in your friends’ feeds, THEIR friend’s feeds, and if public will be visible to anyone that otherwise reads the original post. Encourage your friends to make their posts friends-only.
You can also see the visibility of a post or pic you’re responding to before you respond. There’s a little icon beside the timestamp you can hover over.
And the functionality that they’re asking you to make use of (un-subscribing from comments and likes) has no effect whatsoever in my experience. I’ve done this for each and every friend in my list, and have also done it numerous times via the the drop-down with each item in my feed, and it simply has no effect. I still see the comments/likes from people I know I’ve done this for multiple times.
September 28, 2011 at 11:18 am |
Thus the difficulty with Facebook: You do have control over what you post and how it gets distributed, but much of it is not obvious and few people understand it. (Theoretically, anyway – I agree with you that Facebook’s implementation is rather buggy and/or poorly designed, so that what you think it does isn’t what it actually does.)
I agree with you that it is asking to avert your eyes, but I feel that it’s not appropriate in this situation. I try to think of the analogous behavior in a social setting – the crowded subway I mentioned in the post – and I see it as the difference between covertly handing a photograph to your friend and asking him to peek at it vs. telling the other riders, “I’m going to show my friend this picture, so please don’t look in this direction.” While hopefully your friends will choose to avert their eyes out of respect for you, it’s not really their responsibility to avoid looking.
September 23, 2011 at 8:56 pm |
This is a great post-so many people forget what they post is always there.
September 24, 2011 at 5:50 am |
This is common sense. Sadly, 99% of Americans do not posess this. Excellent blog!! Should be plastered all over the web!
September 24, 2011 at 8:24 pm |
[...] The Ultimate in Privacy Premise: The ticker is freaking people out. The “please hide my comments & likes for me” status that’s going around tries to put the onus for your privacy on your friends. UI implications: We need to either get comfortable with all our actions being visible, or leave the system. Assessment: The way the ticker is set up, it’s a bit of a reality check into “Hey, everyone can see what I do on the internet”. They always could, but aggregating those actions and explicitly revealing them makes people feel kinda naked. [...]