Social media users in general are pretty much like seven-year olds. They are both really good at doing two things: asking for more and complaining. Recently Facebook updated their privacy settings which resulted in a massive uproar from users and privacy advocates alike. The company has been called deceptive, misleading, and downright evil for their actions. Ten privacy groups even went as far as coming together to ask the FTC to investigate the changes. In my opinion, these people are absolutely crazy and really need to stop complaining.
Facebook started out in a college dorm room as a social network for the Harvard campus. It later spread to other universities, businesses, and now, with 350 million members, it is open to everyone. Initially the focus of Facebook was to remain very closed and only accessible to your own networks but as competition has heated up, primarily from Twitter, they are forced to focus on being more open. The site does contain a mass amount of personal data about users ranging from locations, interests, sexuality, photos, thoughts, and complaints so it is understandable why people would be worried about all of that being in the public realm.
With that being said there are two primary reasons why people simply need to stop harping on Facebook: 1.) You, the user, have FULL control of your privacy and whether your information is public or private. 2.) Everything that you use frequently and enjoy about Facebook is provided to you absolutely FREE.
When Facebook made the change it was not deceptive in any way. In fact, it was rather intrusive. Upon opening the site a box popped up notifying you of the new policy and allowing you to, in that same window, adjust your settings before the changes took place. The options were so mind numbingly simple that they asked whether you wanted to share your information with your “Friends” or “Everyone.” How confusing could that be? A client of mine, who will admit that she is not the most social media savvy, told me that the change was not confusing whatsoever. Also, at anytime a Facebook user can access their privacy settings from the settings menu. They can share as much, or as little, as they like. The process is not hard to figure out and is done with simple, easy to understand, drop down menus. All it takes is a little action. But therein lies the problem. Just the like the seven-year old wanting mommy to take care of them the user wants Facebook to be responsible for everything. Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. It is the user’s information and they should be responsible for who does, and does not, get to see it. Granted there is some level of privacy protection on the part of the Facebook that should be requested like not selling even our most basic information to other companies or mailing lists but this is a whole other level of privacy that Facebook does respect and should be their responsibility.
The other reason I’m growing old with Facebook complainers is because of the amount of money they pay for the service. Oh, that’s right, they don’t. Not a single Facebook user, including all the businesses that take advantage of their pages, pay a single dime. Yet somehow Facebook is able to provide a stable platform for people to interact, connect, share information, upload pictures, play games, and do countless other activities. Must be done by magic and robots then, right? Oh, no, it’s not. Facebook spends millions of dollars a year to create and update servers, pay computer engineers, marketers, and executives to develop and coordinate services that continue to satisfy its 350 million users. While a good portion of this money comes from investors, Facebook hopes to become its own financially viable company through ad revenue and search deals. In the growing age of realtime search, Twitter is winning the race. All of their information is public and searchable at anytime; Facebook’s is not. If they would like to compete in the same realm they need to make a push to put more of their information in the public space so that it becomes searchable, driving even more traffic to the site, gaining more users, and ultimately bringing in more ad revenue. If all of this isn’t done there is only one solution: they’ll start charging for membership. And let’s be honest, how many of you would actually pay for Facebook? I know I wouldn’t.
Put simply, Facebook users really need to stop complaining. Start acting like adults and take some responsibility for what you post on the web. You are given all of the tools to do so. Also, appreciate what you are given. The company bends over backwards to meet the demands of their members and make them happy. The more they do, the more user complain. You are getting an extremely valuable service at absolutely zero cost. If you really don’t want to use Facebook anymore than deactivate your account. Trust me, life will go on.
