Most non-technical average users (read: the majority of their users ) just don't really understand / care about the privacy issues.
They just love the experience they can find at and pretty much only at the facebook site.
The tech press and media make an initial fuss about all of it but by the time they figure out a way to bring it down to a level the masses can understand facebook has put a notification on the top of the News Feed to explain.
I'm not agreeing with the practices merely attempting to explain why in the minds of the lion share of facebook users mind it just does not matter
A lot of teens/young adults self censor on Facebook, not because of privacy issues with relation to the rest of the world, but because of privacy issues concerning their parents/relatives. 'Oh shit my mom is on Facebook', was an SNL sketch a few months ago. It is definitely an issue that people think about.
The problem is that 'us nerds' try to explain it based on technical merits rather than giving practical examples in which privacy concerns are at issue. (I don't want everything that is said to my best friend Billy to go to my mom; I sometimes use language that my grandma would find inappropriate; I don't want my girlfriends to find out about each other, etc.)
I've found the complete opposite. that most of my non-technical friends care about facebook privacy a lot, many of them delete their accounts as soon as they feel like people are knowing too much about them. As a technical-user, I don't care much about the privacy issues, mostly because I just gave up and realize that privacy really doesn't exist on Facebook.
Users are circumventing Facebook to protect their privacy, using email and self-censoring (this is further along in the presentation). There is also anecdotal evidence presented at the beginning of when they are presented with the not-so obvious consequence of general sharing they are actually quite horrified.
urm, that slidedeck is from google employee, so fairly obviously bias plus the "proof" it provides is one slide with an anecdotal quote.
I cant provide any stronger proof aside from their 500+ million users, but anecdotally, outside this hacker news / techcrunch esque commmunity, nobody cares about the facebook privacy issues. At the very least its in question enough to not be "completely and utterly wrong"
Comments
Most non-technical average users (read: the majority of their users ) just don't really understand / care about the privacy issues.
They just love the experience they can find at and pretty much only at the facebook site.
The tech press and media make an initial fuss about all of it but by the time they figure out a way to bring it down to a level the masses can understand facebook has put a notification on the top of the News Feed to explain.
I'm not agreeing with the practices merely attempting to explain why in the minds of the lion share of facebook users mind it just does not matter
A lot of teens/young adults self censor on Facebook, not because of privacy issues with relation to the rest of the world, but because of privacy issues concerning their parents/relatives. 'Oh shit my mom is on Facebook', was an SNL sketch a few months ago. It is definitely an issue that people think about.
The problem is that 'us nerds' try to explain it based on technical merits rather than giving practical examples in which privacy concerns are at issue. (I don't want everything that is said to my best friend Billy to go to my mom; I sometimes use language that my grandma would find inappropriate; I don't want my girlfriends to find out about each other, etc.)
I've found the complete opposite. that most of my non-technical friends care about facebook privacy a lot, many of them delete their accounts as soon as they feel like people are knowing too much about them. As a technical-user, I don't care much about the privacy issues, mostly because I just gave up and realize that privacy really doesn't exist on Facebook.
But I really do think Facebook users care.
Most users...don't really understand / care about the privacy issues
You are completely and utterly wrong.
I was surprised too, but check out the slides that were posted by the Google UX guy the other day showing their research.
http://www.slideshare.net/padday/bridging-the-gap-between-ou...
Users are circumventing Facebook to protect their privacy, using email and self-censoring (this is further along in the presentation). There is also anecdotal evidence presented at the beginning of when they are presented with the not-so obvious consequence of general sharing they are actually quite horrified.
urm, that slidedeck is from google employee, so fairly obviously bias plus the "proof" it provides is one slide with an anecdotal quote.
I cant provide any stronger proof aside from their 500+ million users, but anecdotally, outside this hacker news / techcrunch esque commmunity, nobody cares about the facebook privacy issues. At the very least its in question enough to not be "completely and utterly wrong"