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| May 24, 2010 |
| Facebook CEO Gets Skewered by Privacy Critics |
| By Kevin McCauley |
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Washington Post Co. chairman Donald Graham provided some of the choicest real estate in journalism — today's Post op-ed page — to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to tell the world that the social networking site is really, really, really concerned about privacy when it comes to its 400M users.
Early results: Zuckerberg struck out.
 His 528-word piece has drawn the responses of 144 people as of 4:30 today with the majority skewering Zuckerberg.
Here are some highlights.
Privacy on FB is non-existent. I do NOT want friends to be able to see photo profiles of other friends by default or to have to know by default who is on my FB friends list as is the case now. I will never fully participate in FB until this changes.
...The problem is not that you made the privacy settings too arcane or that you have changed the privacy policy too often and seemingly always in favor of advertisers, although these things have not helped. The problem is that Facebook offered users privacy on the web, which is why we use it. When you take it away from us, you no longer offer us anything that we need.
As for Zuckerberg’s op-ed piece: Too many "qualifiers", "explanations" and even pseudo "mea culpas" in this "apology" which really prove nothing other than you accept NO share of the blame for FaceBook's hubris,trampling on personal privacy and your condescending and dismissive attitude about it, Mr.Z. It seems to me that the ONLY thing you're sorry about is getting caught...and for the legions of people who have left your site in droves! “
Perhaps the ultimate putdown: a responder provided a link to a quote from Betty White's appearance on SNL in which she called Facebook something that "sounds like a huge waste of time": “I would never say that people on it are losers, but that’s only because I’m polite…We didn’t have Facebook when I was growing up. We had a phone book. But you wouldn’t waste an afternoon on it.”
Zuckerberg promised WaPO readers that he will listen to critics. There’s an earful of criticism on the WaPo site.
This blogger hopes Graham, a Facebook director, provides equal space in the paper to the un-friends of Zuckerberg.
News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch should join the fun and give some space in his media empire to the guys from his MySpace unit.
(Image: Brian Solis) |
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