Facebook: The 'Evil Interface?'

Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu · 2010-05-03T19:53:32+00:00

Is your personal information suddenly flapping in the breeze? Pop quiz! What do you call "the act of creating deliberately confusing jargon and user-interfaces which trick your users into sharing more info about themselves than they really want to?" Give up? Dont feel dumb. Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a free speech, privacy, innovation and consumer rights advocacy organization, had a tough time wrapping its collective brain around the concept as it built its tutorial to help users through Facebooks most recent privacy changes. So EFF turned to Facebook and Twitter users for help. Suggestions for a term to easily describe mishegas such as Facebook's bizarre new opt-out procedures rolled in. These included "bait-and-click," "bait-and-phish," "dot-confidence games," "confuser-interface-design, and though EFF didnt mention the social network specifically, more than a few that made creative use of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerbergs name, such as this one called out on EFFs site from @heisenthought on Twitter: How about zuck? As in: That user-interface totally zuckered me into sharing 50 wedding photos. That kinda zucks" Apparently people feel pretty strongly about Facebooks latest privacy rollback, a new move to personalize your (Web) experience using your public Facebook information, even if you dont fully understand what it means, let alone how to opt out of generously offering your personal info with the social networks partner sites. VOTE AND DISCUSS #live-vote .pierre_widgets_Poll{width:280px; float:left; margin: 7px 0px 0px 0px;} #live-vote .short_answer .short_answer_textfield {width:280px; background: url(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Templates/bbbCustomWrappers/Decision08/img/vote-comment-bg-280.gif) no-repeat left top;} #live-vote h1 {margin-left:0px;} .pollResultsBarChart .question_row .question_graph {width:280px;} .IE #live-vote .short_answer textarea, #debate-vote .short_answer textarea {width:260px;} .IE .userState {width:220px;} .IE #live-vote .buttonWrapperDiv {margin-left:13%;} .IE .chart-stacked tbody td {top: 0px; } .IE .chart-stacked tbody a {padding:22px 0 0 5px;} .IE .chart-stacked {margin-bottom:47px;overflow:visible;} Question on online Is privacy dead on Facebook? Yes No It depends (Explain) I do not know and I do not care Optional short answer(140 characters left) Make your case! Keep it short and classy. Other users may flag anything less. This feature requires a profile. Create a new profile or sign in to comment. Registering is simple. Enter a display name and your e-mail address (always kept private).Privacy Statement Display Name:E-mail: Enter your e-mail address and password to log in. E-mail:Password: Submit Background links Facebook: The 'Evil Interface?' Take, for example, EFFs favorite suggestion from @volt4ire, Evil Interfaces. Its a reference from a talk given by West Point Professor Greg Conti at the 2008 Hackers on Planet Earth conference, EFF notes. But if you want to get into Sci Fi movie references, consider this. As little as two years ago, the idea of Facebook usurping Google as the projected Skynet of our increasingly tech-dependent lives wouldve been laughable or at least laughably lame in the running joke that sooner rather than later, our lives will be run by a Terminator-style artificial omnipresence. But the most recent (and most egregious) privacy rollbacks make it unsettlingly obvious that the worlds largest social network is well placed to own the Internet, and all of your personal information, too. Lets review. Heres the bare-bones bullet list of whats different: If you visit Facebooks partner sites Yelp, Pandora or Microsoft Docs, your information is shared unless you opt out on each, individual Web site. If your friends havent adequately battened down their own privacy stuff, then by proxy, youve shared their information, too. Your interests are now linked to pages everyone can see. For example, if you have pornography as one of your interests, and you dont actively opt out, you are now linked to the Pornography interest page on Facebook, viewable by your boss, Grandma, the world. How exactly do you batten down your info, at least as much info as you can? Good question. More than a few publications have offered instructions on how to navigate opting out, but as EFF noted when it was researching and writing its own guide, more than a couple werent complete. These arent casual users not paying attention, points out EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. These are people who are trying to make instructions, and they still cant file a complete opt-out guide. So confusing are the directions, that Opsahls observation is critical of Facebook rather than those trying to guide others through the process. The incomplete guides hes seen miss the final step in the process. You cant just opt-out of having your information shared on a partner site. You must go to each individual site and opt out there, too. Currently, there are three partner sites, but every time Facebook adds another partner, youll have to go to that partners site and opt out again. Our highest priority is to keep and build the trust of the more than 400 million people who use our service every month, read a recent post on the Facebook blog titled Answers to Your Questions on Personalized Web Tools. To do so, we've developed powerful tools to give people control over what information they want to share, when they want to share it and with whom. TECHNOTICA LET'S SOCIALIZE! Helen A.S. Popkin rants about online privacy, then begs you to friend her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter, because that's how she rolls. The confusing and lengthy process of opting out from using these powerful tools is either clever by design or simply negligent. Its hard to tell, but its bad, says Opsahl. Look at the comparison. Opting out requires several pages that arent linked together. You have to confirm, hit OK, and repeat the process. Conversely, it takes just one page to opt back in to an application, check one box, and youre back. No confirmations necessary. There are those who take a toothpaste-out-of-the-tube philosophy to Internet privacy, as in Hey, its all out there anyway. Privacy is dead. Blah blah blah. But consider messages you share with one group may not be appropriate for another group or your dad. In this way, Facebook, with its evaporating privacy policy, has turned into that really lousy friend who promises to keep all your secrets for a while, but eventually blabs them to everyone and then acts affronted when you call her on it. Click for related content Is Foursquare the new Facebook? Boy Scouts now offer video game merit awards Historic Twitter tweets heard 'round the world Is Foursquare the new Facebook? Your Facebook profile: An open invite to crime? The Internet will watch you FAIL! The seemingly simple answer is just to quit Facebook altogether. Obviously, thats just not going to happen. We are social beings, and were hooked. People continue to be on Facebook because their friends are there, says Opsahl. Its not love of Facebook or its privacy practice that keeps people on the site. Its loyalty to their friends. EFF offers a thorough tutorial on its Web site, as well as the video embedded in this story. Do yourself a favor. Stop playing FarmVille for two seconds and check it out. According to Ophsal, If you follow all the EFF instructions, and Facebook is being honest, you will have successfully opted out. Helen A.S. Popkin rants about online privacy, then begs you to friend her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter, because that's how she rolls. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36877160/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets

Thread starter Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu
Start date May 3, 2010

Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu

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Facebook: The 'Evil Interface?'

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