The Facebook is going to get rid of regional networks. Interesting idea. Also totally lame.
I wasn’t so keen on the idea of regional networks when they implemented it a few years ago. I thought Facebook was better when used only by people with access to university email addresses (in practice, only by students and recent alumni). There’s something to be said for creating an online social network that my parents can’t access because they haven’t been in a university for 30 years.
But when they started workplace networks and regional networks, I went along with it and joined the Israel network. Because of my privacy settings, this meant that anyone could theoretically sign up for the Facebook, join the Israel network, and see my home address and phone number. But I didn’t worry about that happening because I couldn’t think of anyone who would actually choose to contact me that way instead of googling me and contacting me through my website.
Over time, the Facebook people have tried really hard to shift the users’ focus away from networks and toward groups, and then away from groups and toward pages. I think the pages are dumb and I haven’t joined any. There’s no reason to have pages if there are already groups, except that pages duplicate a crappy MySpace feature. Why would anyone want the Facebook to be more like the MySpace?
The elimination of regional networks is a transparent attempt to get people to share more data with more people, and eventually for the Facebook to become an even more important location for sharing content online. I don’t oppose this in principle. Until now, I allowed access to most of my information by people in the NYU network, the IDC network and the Israel network, and anyone could hypothetically join the Israel network with no verification. The Facebook people evidently think I’m going to allow my privacy settings to show my information to “everyone,” because that will apparently be the default setting. They are dead wrong. Not only am I not going to allow everyone to see me, but this change has made me re-think the whole network concept. Everyone I know or knew at NYU or IDC is already my friend, so there’s no real reason to keep access by those networks to my information either. So I’m changing almost all of my privacy settings from “my networks and friends” to “friends of friends.”
I imagine I’m not the only person who will end up sharing less with fewer people instead of sharing more with more people. I understand where the Facebook is going and how it’s growing, but it’s also about time to accept that its days are numbered now that many of my friends’ parents are members. One of the lamest things about the Friendster was its permission for everyone to access everyone’s stuff, and that opened it up to all sorts of Indonesians and Filipina stalkers. The Facebook has avoided a lot of Friendster’s mistakes until now, so I hope they’ll steer a smart course in the future.
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I honestly don’t understand the appeal of letting people who are not your friends have access to any of your information on Facebook. I consider pretty much anything I do on Facebook to be of a personal nature–whether it’s a picture of me with my family, or a status update reflecting what I’m thinking at that moment. Why give everyone at NYU or in the city of Washington, DC–99.9% of which I’ve never met–the ability to access it? I wouldn’t post those pictures outside my window nor stop a stranger on the street and tell them what I’m thinking.
If I have not confirmed you as my friend (and who I consider to be a Facebook friend is another topic), then all you’ll ever see is my name and profile picture thumbnail.
So why bother joining networks? I suspect it’s because Facebook is built on networks, and that without them, it would just be a graphically clean version of MySpace.
I divide the information about myself into two categories: things I would not want a prospective employer to know, and things that don’t matter one way or another. In the former category I include my political and religious opinions and my medical situation; I have totally different identities online for that stuff and generally keep it away from my name. In the latter category I include my favorite movies and pictures of me reading a book on the beach. I’ve never had a problem with someone in the NYU network being able to figure out what I look like, or even been able to think of a reason for everyone in the NYU network not to know what I look like, so it never occurred to me until now to change it.
The main reason I changed it to “friends of friends” instead of just “friends” is for people to be able to find me in searches who don’t necessarily know my full name, or that I changed it five years ago.
B”H
It’s a globalization oriented strategy. Notice that I didn’t use the word “Conspiracy.” It’s no secret.
Personally, I am careful with my settings, and do not accept everyone who friends me. Probably bad for blog promotion but so what.
I also periodically “clean up” my friends list.
It’s the Virgo in me.
I usually let anyone become my friend, but I only let strangers see my “limited profile,” which doesn’t have any information about me that could get me in trouble. I only kick them off my friends list if they start harassing me with messages to attend their events.
What do you do if actual friends start HARASSING you to attend their events?
If I’m definitely coming to the event – I mark “attending” on the event page. If I’m not coming to the event – I mark “maybe” on the event page. If I’m in a different continent – I mark “not attending.” Harassment hasn’t been such a problem because I don’t mind email about my actual friends’ events.