danah boyd, a distinguished author on studies of the Internet, whom we first studied in her writing “White Flight in Networked Publics?” and “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites” also writes about Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck after it’s 2006 introduction of the newsfeed. I decided to study this article because many users don’t remember Facebook’s technology pre-news-feed. What’s interesting about Facebook’s introduction of new features & re-designs is that it’s almost always contested by most users before it is desired and loved. Those of us who have used Facebook for a long time have seen many statuses after the release of each feature denouncing it.
danah boyd, in her article brings up many key points about the news feed we now have very few complaints about, especially relating to privacy. danah points out that prior to the news feed, all the information displayed on the newsfeed still existed, but was just not aggregated. danah points out a very interesting note: that the newsfeed by aggregating social activities creates a culture that makes people feel left out for not having been in a social activity. Marshall McLuhan, talked about the notion of a global village, and stated that even as we become closer, sometimes we become farther. While Facebook news feed is now much more personalized and algorithmically calculates relevant posts based on social relationships and how close you are with a certain person, the initial news feed simply listed posts backwards on time of all friends. Facebook has handled privacy in an amazing manner since the publication of this article: by allowing post visibility, limited visibility, and by socially aggregating relevant content.
User: ‘Who do I talk to the most?’
Cobot: ‘Peter.’
User: ‘Who does Peter talk to the most?’
Cobot: ‘Dan.’
User (to self): WHAT!?!? Why does Peter talk to Dan more than me? *$%& him, I’m not
talking to Peter anymore . .
The above post is an example of how Facebook is used to creative negative self-confidence for individuals. Another popular phenomenon is FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) created by social networks when individuals see events on social networks. Facebook has done a great job of fixing many of the privacy issues (social convergence, weighting friends) that danah claims as social issues.
Facebook Newsfeed Settings: Now
Very interesting post! I love how you talk about the variations of privacy that Facebook has been able to provide for users. As a frequent Facebooker myself I often wonder how many people see things I post, and if all of my friends see what I post in their news feed. It is fascinating that a website that is supposed to bring us all together and more accessible to one another is actually causing negative self-confidence.
I would be interested to know more about the newest changes in the Facebook privacy policies. The past week I have noticed many of my friends’s statuses changing to a privacy statement informing the Facebook world what they wanted ownership over on their Facebook page. Overall, well done!