Why Mark Zuckerberg Needs to Come Clean About his Views on Privacy(social.venturebeat.com)
social.venturebeat.com
Why Mark Zuckerberg Needs to Come Clean About his Views on Privacy
http://social.venturebeat.com/2010/05/13/zuckerberg-privacy/
7 comments
Have you heard of the phrase, "When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."
Well even from the beginning of Facebook, within the Harvard campus, Mark Zuckerberg has been surrounded with allegations ranging from questionable personality traits, unethical behaviors and outright illegal activities.
Now with the release of a new "biography" detailing the early days of Facebook in Silicon Valley, these instances continue to highlight character flaws that seem to some to be quite disturbing. So why are we so surprised to witness continued actions of betrayal and lack of customer-focused decisions on behalf of a company that he runs and guides on a daily basis? "Zuck IS a duck!"
Personally, I totally agree with the concept of a more open society and the need for a platform in which to exchange personal ideas and personal media with friends and family. What I don't agree with are the blatant decisions that manipulate that information in ways contrary to the users' choices.
Many times in the past year, I have been literally offended and personally shocked at the amount of attacks to this information of mine and have contemplated closing my account for those reasons.
Instead, I have controlled my privacy options as best as I can and have held on to see where this all leads, in the hope that Facebook will finally get their act together and re-focus their energy on connecting people, not causing anguish those people who make them the billion dollar company that they are, their customers.
With Zuck the duck in charge, I'm not so sure that this will happen.
Well even from the beginning of Facebook, within the Harvard campus, Mark Zuckerberg has been surrounded with allegations ranging from questionable personality traits, unethical behaviors and outright illegal activities.
Now with the release of a new "biography" detailing the early days of Facebook in Silicon Valley, these instances continue to highlight character flaws that seem to some to be quite disturbing. So why are we so surprised to witness continued actions of betrayal and lack of customer-focused decisions on behalf of a company that he runs and guides on a daily basis? "Zuck IS a duck!"
Personally, I totally agree with the concept of a more open society and the need for a platform in which to exchange personal ideas and personal media with friends and family. What I don't agree with are the blatant decisions that manipulate that information in ways contrary to the users' choices.
Many times in the past year, I have been literally offended and personally shocked at the amount of attacks to this information of mine and have contemplated closing my account for those reasons.
Instead, I have controlled my privacy options as best as I can and have held on to see where this all leads, in the hope that Facebook will finally get their act together and re-focus their energy on connecting people, not causing anguish those people who make them the billion dollar company that they are, their customers.
With Zuck the duck in charge, I'm not so sure that this will happen.
> Mark Zuckerberg has been surrounded with allegations ranging from questionable personality traits, unethical behaviors and outright illegal activities.
It certainly seems he wouldn't fair well if he applied the concept of ‘radical transparency’ to himself.
It certainly seems he wouldn't fair well if he applied the concept of ‘radical transparency’ to himself.
Now that would be an interesting distributed effort to see: try to build a timeline of all of Zuck's questionable behaviour on a single site, we could call it something like zucksucks.com ;-)
Absolutely brilliant! Just start with all of the articles citing direct actions on his part. I'm sure the compilation would end any speculation as to the nature of his character, if there ever was any.
What would that accomplish? Please spend the time you could be slandering a persona everyone loves to hate doing something more meaningful with your life.
No one ever claimed that Zuck is Zuck because he's a good guy; Zuck is Zuck because he's CEO of Facebook.
No one ever claimed that Zuck is Zuck because he's a good guy; Zuck is Zuck because he's CEO of Facebook.
Slander: a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report.
Since when did calling someone on their verifiable actions become slander? When America becomes complacent to the lack of moral and ethical accountability of our CEOs and business leaders, the end cannot be far away.
We must expect and demand a certain level of trust from the people who safeguard our personal information. The possibilities offered within the concept of "the cloud" will never come to fruition without this essential component.
What if your bank decided to publish the activity on your accounts?
Since when did calling someone on their verifiable actions become slander? When America becomes complacent to the lack of moral and ethical accountability of our CEOs and business leaders, the end cannot be far away.
We must expect and demand a certain level of trust from the people who safeguard our personal information. The possibilities offered within the concept of "the cloud" will never come to fruition without this essential component.
What if your bank decided to publish the activity on your accounts?
> What if your bank decided to publish the activity on your accounts?
As something of an advocate for privacy and data protection, I have found it instructive to compare the recent behaviour at Facebook and Google with that of Mint, whose entire business basically depends on people trusting them with access codes to their bank accounts.
I'm not saying Mint's approach is perfect, but this is the first line in point 1 of their Privacy and Security Policy (http://www.mint.com/privacy/security-policy/):
"Simply put, we do not and will not sell or rent your personal information to anyone, for any reason, at any time."
(For the avoidance of doubt, I am in no way connected with Mint, Intuit or any related organisation. I'm just an interested observer of how privacy and security are handled by on-line businesses, and found them a useful example.)
As something of an advocate for privacy and data protection, I have found it instructive to compare the recent behaviour at Facebook and Google with that of Mint, whose entire business basically depends on people trusting them with access codes to their bank accounts.
I'm not saying Mint's approach is perfect, but this is the first line in point 1 of their Privacy and Security Policy (http://www.mint.com/privacy/security-policy/):
"Simply put, we do not and will not sell or rent your personal information to anyone, for any reason, at any time."
(For the avoidance of doubt, I am in no way connected with Mint, Intuit or any related organisation. I'm just an interested observer of how privacy and security are handled by on-line businesses, and found them a useful example.)
Out of curiosity - did facebook have a similar policy and then go about changing it? They also note they post changes on their website, but it does not need to be on the front page, or other high traffic area.
I have seen this service before and really like it, however I just can't trust them with my bank info.
I have seen this service before and really like it, however I just can't trust them with my bank info.
Here's a great infographic (http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/) highlighting Facebook's changes to their default policies regarding the stuff the general public can view on your profile.
The trick they are pulling is to default "yes" for you when they update the policies. You are then forced to go through the labyrinth of settings to change everything back. Clever, no?
The trick they are pulling is to default "yes" for you when they update the policies. You are then forced to go through the labyrinth of settings to change everything back. Clever, no?
I wouldn't necessarily single him out, but it would be interesting to create a site where profile pages + wall messages + photo albums get created automatically based on daily news of public figures.
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I'm not sure what he needs to come clean about. His recent actions speak louder than any words he can come up with now. It's pretty clear where he stands on this.
Facebook's position on privacy will be whatever maximizes shareholder value.
If jealously protecting user information will maximize shareholder value, then we can expect that. But, it probably doesn't so we probably can't.
If jealously protecting user information will maximize shareholder value, then we can expect that. But, it probably doesn't so we probably can't.
“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity."
This strikes me as an extremist viewpoint. Portraying oneself more conservatively in less familiar company is often essential. Indeed, in some cases (private thoughts, for instance) the only appropriate company with which to share is oneself.
This strikes me as an extremist viewpoint. Portraying oneself more conservatively in less familiar company is often essential. Indeed, in some cases (private thoughts, for instance) the only appropriate company with which to share is oneself.
First off I doubt Mark Zuckerberg believes that load of crap for a second. Its a red herring. He's trying to sell people on some sort of 'integrity' revolution because profile openness encourages more pageviews, better targeting on ads, increased opportunities for partnerships etc etc.
He's trying to create a debate around the topic as if there's some fundamental change to human behavior occurring here, when in fact nothing has changed, in fact the necessity for privacy has been nothing but reinforced. The irony is he probably has one of the most guarded public vs private personas on facebook. Total BS
He's trying to create a debate around the topic as if there's some fundamental change to human behavior occurring here, when in fact nothing has changed, in fact the necessity for privacy has been nothing but reinforced. The irony is he probably has one of the most guarded public vs private personas on facebook. Total BS
> Portraying oneself more conservatively in less familiar company is often essential.
People's reaction to the 'less conservative' aspects of each other would have to change if there was no way of hiding them. It is rather analogous to gay people 'coming out of the closet' and the whole gay rights movement but applied to a whole spectrum of preferences and proclivities. People's prejudices will eventually dissipate, especially when they are most likely 'coming out' in some way themselves. In fact those that genuinely are conservative in every area will probably find themselves in a minority. Of course if people have really bad secrets like they are a wife beater of something then this is unlikely to be accepted and there would rightly be moves to stop that behavior.
People's reaction to the 'less conservative' aspects of each other would have to change if there was no way of hiding them. It is rather analogous to gay people 'coming out of the closet' and the whole gay rights movement but applied to a whole spectrum of preferences and proclivities. People's prejudices will eventually dissipate, especially when they are most likely 'coming out' in some way themselves. In fact those that genuinely are conservative in every area will probably find themselves in a minority. Of course if people have really bad secrets like they are a wife beater of something then this is unlikely to be accepted and there would rightly be moves to stop that behavior.
> People's reaction to the 'less conservative' aspects of each other would have to change if there was no way of hiding them.
Has this ever happened anywhere? We've already seen absence of privacy in tribal societies, and those are exceptionally bad places to fail to conform. Only cities are large and anonymous enough to allow eccentrics to go unnoticed and thrive, which is what makes cities the wellsprings of prosperous liberal societies.
> It is rather analogous to gay people 'coming out of the closet'
Some of whom were murdered for it. There are still only a few areas (large cities, of course) where they are relatively safe. And it took them two generations just to achieve that!
Has this ever happened anywhere? We've already seen absence of privacy in tribal societies, and those are exceptionally bad places to fail to conform. Only cities are large and anonymous enough to allow eccentrics to go unnoticed and thrive, which is what makes cities the wellsprings of prosperous liberal societies.
> It is rather analogous to gay people 'coming out of the closet'
Some of whom were murdered for it. There are still only a few areas (large cities, of course) where they are relatively safe. And it took them two generations just to achieve that!
> Has this ever happened anywhere?
Probably whenever significant technological/social change occurs.
> We've already seen absence of privacy in tribal societies, and those are exceptionally bad places to fail to conform. Only cities are large and anonymous enough to allow eccentrics to go unnoticed and thrive, which is what makes cities the wellsprings of prosperous liberal societies.
I think you could argue this in many ways. Are you arguing that increased privacy played a role in the development of civilisation? It's in interesting idea but I don't see much supporting evidence.
> Some of whom were murdered for it. There are still only a few areas (large cities, of course) where they are relatively safe. And it took them two generations just to achieve that!
Should we go back and stop it?
Probably whenever significant technological/social change occurs.
> We've already seen absence of privacy in tribal societies, and those are exceptionally bad places to fail to conform. Only cities are large and anonymous enough to allow eccentrics to go unnoticed and thrive, which is what makes cities the wellsprings of prosperous liberal societies.
I think you could argue this in many ways. Are you arguing that increased privacy played a role in the development of civilisation? It's in interesting idea but I don't see much supporting evidence.
> Some of whom were murdered for it. There are still only a few areas (large cities, of course) where they are relatively safe. And it took them two generations just to achieve that!
Should we go back and stop it?
Sure, and if we all walked around naked all the time we'd rapidly grow accustomed to not being able to hide our nakedness. But I still don't wanna walk around seeing penises everywhere.
Not knowing stuff is vital to professional relationships. If I go to see a surgeon I don't want to see a compete record of all the stupid things he did while drunk at university. For that matter I don't want my children someday to see all the stupid things I did while drunk at university.
Not knowing stuff is vital to professional relationships. If I go to see a surgeon I don't want to see a compete record of all the stupid things he did while drunk at university. For that matter I don't want my children someday to see all the stupid things I did while drunk at university.
You wanna ban people from putting their penis of Facebook? I think they already do this.
> If I go to see a surgeon I don't want to see a compete record of all the stupid things he did while drunk at university.
If it's irrelevant then it's spam. If it's relevant then it's useful. I'd want whatever data could help me make the best decision regarding surgery.
> If I go to see a surgeon I don't want to see a compete record of all the stupid things he did while drunk at university.
If it's irrelevant then it's spam. If it's relevant then it's useful. I'd want whatever data could help me make the best decision regarding surgery.
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Isn't this how people in the public eye have historically managed their privacy — the public/performer persona and the private individual?
We know what his views are. It's more interesting whether he tells the truth about them publicly or not.
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The chesshere lies through a smile you can't immediately refuse.
I think this is a pretty good example of zuck's both arrogance and privilege. He's so insistent that people have "one identity" because he's a person who CAN have one identity. When he projects who he is to everyone he takes zero risk: he's a white, male, American, who has already made all his money: the pinnacle of the upper class. Having your head in your asshole is an example of lack of integrity.