The new privacy features are built around the concept of the friends list that Facebook began testing last December, where you can manually sort friends into lists that you define. Now, you’ll be able to use these lists to decide who gets to see what about you. A list can be totally private, so you can do things like upload photos and share them with your “college friends” without letting any other Facebook friends get access.
The company says users have been asking for these features as the site continues to expand across demographics and countries and users’ friends become increasingly diverse.
Also:
Facebook Chat, which has been rumored for a little while, is coming within the next several weeks.
He concludes:
Many people who started using it in college are now using it at work, with friends from high school and family members. More significantly, two-thirds of Facebook’s 65 million monthly active users are now outside the US. Just 18 months ago, 90 percent of users its users were within the US. The vast majority of users in other countries aren’t students.
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Elsewhere, a significant number of people are debating whether Facebook is benign or evil!
Kristy Ward, in The psychology of Facebook, writes:
Before Facebook was created, people that quietly observed others were referred to as Peeping Toms. These voyeurs, unnoticed in their activity, were deemed as disturbing individuals and social deviants. ... ... ...Why is Facebook so popular? Behind closed doors, are we all inherently narcissists and voyeurs?... ... ...Our society has an obsession with deviant behaviour. Take Britney Spears, for example. Her most recent antics have been plastered all over US Weekly and OK! Magazine... ... ...Maybe Facebook is both a narcissistic and voyeuristic outlet where all the creeps can come together and rejoice.
She concludes:
Don’t deny your creepiness. Find me on Facebook — but maybe I’ve already seen you and you don’t even know it.
Deirdre Molloy, having recovered from the addiction of facebook ("useful, work enhancing, fun, valuable, diverting, strange, compelling, addictive, aggravating, blundering, wasteful, alienating"), took copious notes at the SXSW Interactive keynote interview with 23-year-old Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and shared what Mark revealed:
“We’re just trying to build an infrastructure on top of which people can operate.”
“People should be able to be heard without any large organisation of millions of people. The world is an increasingly complex place and we need something – an infrastructure – on top of which people can communicate and do it [organise] from the bottom-up.”
“In terms of community we consider it to be a very personal thing. People aren’t being forced into any community, it’s more about allowing them to communicate more and keep in touch with people.”
She concludes:
Egad, Zuckerberg posits Facebook as platform for mass diversity shocker! And yet it’s not so clear-cut. Maybe Mark’s been reading Jaron Lanier? Or perhaps his advisors have been. In turn, spare me the conspiracy schtick; I think it’s a whole lot more confusing and interesting than that. In my book (sic), as both a creature and driver of the complex world, the Facebook story is not over yet – whether you consider it evil, benign or a panacea for all ills.
It’s been an interesting year now social media’s gone mainstream. We’ve lived it, and learnt a few lessons. The gist of it all? Like the SXSW interview, it’s been messy.
What about you?Which side of the fence are you on?
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