Facebook’s been doing some funny things lately. Except, they’re not so funny.\u00a0 First, they changed the link to add a Fan page from “Become a Fan” to “Like.”\u00a0 Facebook users are accustomed to clicking on a “like” when they “like” someone’s status update.\u00a0 It’s an easy way to acknowledge someone or their comment without a stream of boring one word affirmations cluttering up everyone’s feed.<\/p>\n
Clicking on “Like” in other places now has an entirely different result.\u00a0 In fact, clicking on “Like” in response to something a friend has done has different results now, too.\u00a0 If you’re not careful, it will sign you up to all kinds of pages, and you won’t necessarily know you’ve done it.\u00a0 A friend became a fan of a page.\u00a0 How did I know?\u00a0 A status update came through reading “Friend likes Such-And-Such Page.”\u00a0 Underneath this update, I had the standard Comment and Like links.\u00a0 I clicked “Like” meaning I liked the idea of what she’d done.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it also signed me up as a member of “Such-And-Such Fan Page.”\u00a0 This was a definite UNLIKE.\u00a0 I didn’t know it at the time.\u00a0 I only realized it when I was looking through my configuration, and I found “Such-And-Such Fan Page” as well as a few others I’d apparently “liked” without realizing it.\u00a0 This may be great for padding the memberships of various fan pages, but I really don’t think this it the way they want to do it.<\/p>\n
That was the first thing they’ve done.\u00a0 The second is this “Link Everyone Everywhere” thing they have going now.\u00a0 First, they said you could opt out by going to Account, Privacy Settings, Applications and Websites, Instant Personalization Pilot Program, and unchecking the box in front of “Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites.”<\/p>\n
As soon as I found out about that, I unchecked that box post haste.\u00a0 Not only would all my public information on FB be available on that site, but all my friends could see it too.\u00a0 I could quickly see information about me popping up in places on the web I didn’t want to make it available.<\/p>\n
Fine.\u00a0 I thought it was done.\u00a0 I’d unchecked the box.\u00a0 Then my brother made a comment about FB removing information if you didn’t let them post your information places.\u00a0 I didn’t know what he meant until a day or two later when I came to FB, and they presented me with a box that I was (I guess) supposed to be all excited about offering me the opportunity to share all my entries with every page I’d become a fan of.\u00a0 Huh?\u00a0 No way.\u00a0 There was no way to bypass the box.\u00a0 I had to accept it or be reminded later.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 I went through and unchecked every single box, then clicked the acceptance.\u00a0 FB shook it’s finger in my face and said, “If you don’t select at least one box, we’re remove your location, employment, and school information.”\u00a0 I told them to have at it.\u00a0 Then I went in and removed as much personal information as I could from my profile.<\/p>\n
I also changed who could see all my “not allowed to post” applications that I wasn’t using anymore to Custom — Only Me.\u00a0 A few days later, I decided to go in an BLOCK every application I was no longer using.\u00a0 I couldn’t delete it, so as far as I can tell, BLOCKING is my only option.<\/p>\n
Finally, I hear FB is getting ready to turn on geo-location capabilities.\u00a0 Will they do this by default and broadcast\u00a0 my MAC address location (essentially telling the world of my exact physical location when I’m posting)?\u00a0 I don’t like this at all.\u00a0 Twitter made that capability available, and I quickly told them “No Thank You” when asked (actually, it was more like “HELL NO!”).<\/p>\n
I operate on Facebook under my legal, given name.\u00a0 On the rest of the web, I operate under some variant of that or a pseudonym.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 I’m not doing anything wrong.\u00a0 But I also know there are twisted, sick people out there, and who knows if I’ll pick one up someday who just wants to do bad things.\u00a0 I don’t want to make it easy for that person to do bad things.\u00a0 My web experiences have all been good so far, but it only takes one freak.\u00a0 Also, my husband prefers to keep his identity off the web.\u00a0 He’s a very private person and believes he has the right to remain so (so do I).\u00a0 I do the best I can to balance my partially public web presence and his desire for none at all.\u00a0 I don’t need Facebook deciding the whole world should see my every move and comment.<\/p>\n
I liken what they are doing to insisting I walk around on a city street with a flashing billboard over my head with my name and personal information as well as a map with my planned destination and highlighted trails for where I’ve been.<\/p>\n
I wouldn’t do that in real life, and I make an effort not to do that on the web. Although, I realize a trained person with a mission to do so could follow me on the web, so can a trained investigator in real life. Generally speaking, that information isn’t available to someone seeing me walk down the street, and it should not be available to someone seeing me wandering the web.<\/p>\n
I surfed to a Texas Supreme Court candidate’s site a few months ago and the web page had a column for Facebook on it. Since I was logged into FB in another window, my page showed up in the sidebar. I can’t describe how disconcerting this was, and it definitely cost the candidate my vote.<\/p>\n
This is a pilot program with Facebook.\u00a0 I’m sure it’s partially an effort to remain or obtain profitability.\u00a0 I just don’t think it’s a good direction to force us into.\u00a0 I’d hate to have to leave Facebook.\u00a0 It’s a useful tool.\u00a0 I’m not sure it would be useful enough to pay for — especially given the direction they seem to be moving.\u00a0 Clearly, the landscape of social networking is changing.\u00a0 I’m not sure it’s for the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Facebook’s been doing some funny things lately. Except, they’re not so funny.\u00a0 First, they changed the link to add a Fan page from “Become a Fan” to “Like.”\u00a0 Facebook users are accustomed to clicking on a “like” when they “like” someone’s status update.\u00a0 It’s an easy way to acknowledge someone …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46,64,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-tech-stuff","category-web-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}