Privacy Settings
Privately social: the concept is as paradoxical as it sounds. This is the happy medium most social networkers hope to strike within their virtual spaces. If the goal of social networking is to socialize, then it should come as no surprise that the largest social networking sites default to full disclosure. It turns out, however, that the process of layering fine-tuned privacy settings on top of this is no small task.
FIGURE 1
Facebook currently has 50 privacy settings with more than 170 options -- this accounts for a "bewildering tangle" of innumerable combinations -- who has the time to learn how to navigate this, and to determine the precise level of disclosure for each friend? Furthermore, each new feature that social networks release require a whole new set of privacy settings, and can possibly interfere with existing settings.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Facebook has an extensive privacy policy detailing these settings and the implications they have for copyright and legal access. As a matter of fact, Facebook's current privacy policy is nearly 6000 words: longer than the United States Constitution. Specifically, fine print indicates that Facebook is
not actually responsible for breaches in privacy. That is, Facebook is not liable for the true level of accessibility not being on par with what the settings indicate it should be. To quote:
"...no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you share your information. We cannot guarantee that only authorized persons will view your information. We cannot ensure that information you share on Facebook will not become publicly available."
It is simply not realistic for Facebook's privacy settings to be watertight, given how much flexibility they want to grant each user. The problem is intrinsic: how do we satisfy everyone's preferences in an exponentially complex network?
Resources:
Huffington Post Article
What are your rights on Facebook?
