Today, Facebook announced that it’s released “new tools to give you even greater control over the information you share.”
If you’re an active Web surfer, you’ve probably already read a lot about this. But I’d like to add some more.
Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadwWriteWeb.com authored a post today, “The Day Has Come: Facebbook Pushes People To Go Public,” and near the end of it, he writes, “Facebook confirmed to us in a press call earlier this year that the company does in fact want users to post more publicly…”
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has publicly stated (most recent occasion) his desire to make the world more “open and connected.” So, Facebook’s desire for users to post more publicly shouldn’t be a surprise.
Anyway, here are a couple of my thoughts on this:
- I think it’s fine what Facebook is doing. Afterall, users still retain a lot of control over how their information is shared with the world. If you don’t want to share it, don’t.
- Ironically (or not), I’d consider myself a pretty private person with people I know, online. I rarely use Facebook’s status feature — mainly because I prefer sharing what’s going on in my life with people in-person. I also don’t include a lot of information in my profile. So I didn’t really think anything of this news today. Maybe I should? Maybe I’ll think differently down the line? I guess we’ll see.
- Hats off to Facebook for continuing to iterate and innovate.
