[IxDA Discuss] Changes to Facebook (Perceived Privacy)

[Christopher Fahey]

> Chris wrote:
> > But how does one beta test a network-related feature on a social 
> > network site, where everyone is interconnected?
> 
> I'd say not all test scenarios require that both ends of the 
> social relation require the availability of the new feature. 
> Facebook's news feed is, as far as I can tell, a good example 
> of this, right?

Strictly speaking you are correct, but I think it's a two-way feature that
cannot be split up.  

There's a "social contract" here: Because it requires that (a)your page
shows what other users have changed on their sites, and (b) those other
users should understand that their information is being shown on other
pages, the feature is incomplete if you allow some users a special right to
watch but feel secure that they are not themselves watched.

This is the "universality/reciprocity" aspect of the feature. The feature
might be perfectly acceptable if you could be sure that you could see what
other users were doing without being seen yourself. But since the essence of
the feature is that everybody can see everybody else, the sense of
universality is essential to the feature. That is, the people being watched
are equal participants in the feature to the people watching. You can't
truly test one without the other.

Picture it: Facebook could have set up a test where 1,000 random users were
given the feature of seeing everything their friends changed on their sites,
but the 50,000 friends of theirs who were being watched were not told about
the fact that they were being monitored. This would not be an accurate test
because unless you are both watching and being watched (or if you
consciously opt out of being watched), you are not really using the feature.
You would have a partial insight into the watchers' POV, and zero insight
into the people being watched. 

The whole public complaint about the feature, in fact, was from those being
watched, which emphasizes my point. It makes me wonder if Facebook might
have actually done some testing of the feature strictly from a "watcher"
point of view, and received rave reviews. Only when you realize how creepy
it is to be watched dos the features true impact sink in.

-Cf

Christopher Fahey
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