And I’m not sure why, but Facebook just prompted me again to “simplify” my settings and make everything public. Come on, guys. No means no.

The increasing difficulty of keeping information one wishes to be private is especially a problem for the initial target demographics of FB, i.e. college kids, yet FB leadership doesn’t seem to care.

Sure, having photos you would not want an employer to see become public is very different than someone who could be in danger. However, it is most definitely a very big issue, especially in this economy, and FB’s quest to monetize and expand beyond their original mission is stabbing their most dedicated users in the back.

An example—a cousin of mine, who is in med-school, was publicly humiliated when a fellow student created a sexist collection of FB photos from private albums of attractive students at the school.

Sure, she could have taken more efforts to have only friends she trusts most have access to the photos, but that is a far cry from what FB used to be….and FB is part of the problem by making it easier for people like my cousin to be exploited even if they wish to protect themselves!

Of course it’s completely within their rights to change the nature of the social network. However, what is heinous about all of this is the manner in which they are trying to have it both ways—-a social network that they still want to present to their largest and most devout demographic as a private and safe place…which they are quietly transitioning into an exploitative cesspool for others to take advantage of the free flow of information only possible within such a venue.

It’s certainly in Facebook’s short-term interests to do this.  As Kit Eaton says on Fast Company,

It boils down to just two things: Real time data and money. Facebook’s execs know real time data is valuable, and Google’s moves to include Twitter’s real time feed last week left Facebook embarrassingly in second place. Facebook wants to be the finger on the pulse of the world, and these maneuvers are absolutely designed to enable this. And if Facebook status updates end up being news items or popping up in Google’s real time feed, it’ll attract visitors to the site, and that earns advertising dollars.

So, basically, Facebook’s sold you out, or at least presenting the sale as a fait accompli: Your privacy for a dollar or two.

I saw similar behavior many times at Microsoft when I was doing web strategy there. To developers, “putting the users in control” means “giving them a way they can mostly protect themselves no matter how complex it is”. All the Facebookers involved in the decisions know enough that they can protect themselves if they want to, and they lose sight of how difficult it is for everybody else. That’s not meaningful control. However it does serve the company’s interests, and that’s the primary lens that most of the people doing the design and implementation are looking through.