For those who don’t already know, Facebook has made changes to the settings (defaults) that mean not only do you get to share (or not share) your information with the world, unless you actively go in and change the default settings your friends can share your information on your behalf.

It is all part of Facebooks plan to know everything about everyone, based on a persons friends and their taste in music, clothes etc..etc.. The problem is it is impossible to develop such a model without some form of invasion of privacy and Facebook seems to have battered down the privacy door in order to move forward.

It is one thing having the ability to share your information with the world, but to default it to on (and add default on settings to previously secured accounts) is not good.

Facebook has been criticised for having an over complicated security model, such that you have to dig deep into menus in order to find the settings you need to turn off. It has improved a little over the past year, but not nearly enough.

The funny thing is I read “The Accidental Billionaires” (the story of Facebook) a few months back and the way Mark Zuckerburg is portrayed (rightly or wrongly) it is absolutely not surprising that Facebook act this way.

I wonder if there was a viable alternative to Facebook if their numbers would take a hit? I know a lot of key figures who are cancelling their Facebook accounts, but I guess the general public are just not aware that their privacy is being given away. It is no wonder that Zuckerburg defends Facebook by stating that they are loved by the public, it is just the bloggers and the media that are on their back.

Anyway…

If you want to secure your account you need to do the following:

Go into :

account > privacy settings > Apps and settings > What your friends can share about you

untick all the boxes (if you dont want your friends sharing your info)

Then go back to privacy settings and into Instant personalisation pilot programme

Untick the box

Now, to be completely secure you must visit each of these pages and select “block” (on the left)

Microsoft Docs.com, Pandora, Yelp

That should do it for now. If Facebook sneak in any more defaults I will post what you need to do to turn them off.

I was hoping to do a write up of Google Wave once I had chance to see it, but at this rate I guess it will be a bit late. So, if anyone happens to have a Google Wave invite going spare and would care to hook me up with one it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Source: FLIRTing with the crowds

I find myself quite often typing something into twitter and going over the 140 character limit. I think have to work out how to re-word what I said, cutting down the length of what I type but still making sense. Ok, quite often I end up with something akin to Newspeak from George Orwells book 1984, but often I find that there is actually a far more effective way of saying something using less words.

Of course some people end up replacing “to be” with “2b”, but that aside it at lease makes you think about what you are typing, even if you do end up butchering it afterward.