[IxDA Discuss] Changes to Facebook (Perceived Privacy)

[Nasir Barday]

Chris wrote:

> 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.


In this case, the feature itself does show users how they were being
tracked-- a mini-feed shows when in your own profile, allowing you to hide
stories about yourself at will. But without that, would the mere fact that
the same information they saw on their friends was appearing about
themselves have been easy enough to figure out?

Actually, couldn't this problem have been weeded out before even reaching
the prototype stage? Contextual inquiries with follow-up interviews probably
would have shown that while users may have been ok with automatically
publishing some information, they may not have been as eager to, say, show
everyone the comments they made on other friends' photos.

Even if Facebook simply knew how squeamish people were about this issue,
they may have designed in the privacy controls for the news feed from the
get-go. In fact, they probably should have known this already. One of the
reasons Facebook attracts such a large user base is the privacy controls.
Perhaps a thorough competitive analysis would have saved Facebook the grief.

- Nasir