Take time and explore Facebook settings
Writer Staci Kramer says Zuckerberg should try it. It’s not too good
While Facebook chair and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was boasting to the U.S. Congress this week about how much Facebook is doing to protect privacy for its billions of users, I set up a new Facebook account to test what he was saying.
I wish the result were a welcome surprise.
Instead, here’s everything that was public or turned on by default: my friends list. My profile, which could be indexed by search engines. I could be tagged in any post, even if I hadn’t reviewed it first. The site would suggest that my friends tag me in images. Ad targeting would allow Facebook to sell marketers the ability to find me based on my relationship status, employer, job title, education and interests. And Facebook would use my app and browser activity to decide which ads to show me.
Those are just a few of the settings I allowed automatically by clicking “Create Account.” It could be a lot worse: Many defaults, like who can see future posts or who can see posts I’m tagged in, are set to “friends.”
As a Facebook member since 2007 and a journalist covering tech and media, I know how to look for these settings and update them. But what did Facebook do to prepare me as a new 2018 user? Precious little.
Some of that onus for being prepared rests on the consumer. After all, Facebook warns: “By clicking Create Account, you agree to our Terms and that you have read our Data Policy, including our Cookie Use.” Unlike some developers, Facebook doesn’t even require you to click a link after scrolling through the terms and data policy.
It’s legal. But it’s not even close to enough.
Despite what you find when you sign up for his service, Zuckerberg apparently agrees. Wednesday morning, he told the House committee: “I think that a lot of people probably just accept terms of service without taking the time to read through it. I view our responsibility not as just legally complying with laying it out and getting that consent but actually trying to make sure that people understand what’s happening throughout the product.” During questioning by Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, Zuckerberg added: “It’s contextual. You want to present people with the information about what they might be doing and give them the relevant controls in line at the time that they’re making those decisions, not just have it be in the background sometime or up front to make a onetime decision.”
Yet that’s precisely what Facebook asks new users to do. As a former publishing executive, I get it: Setting default permissions — making users opt out of settings instead of choosing them — is the fastest way to bring a new member on board and the most efficient way to create critical mass for advertisers. And Zuckerberg was right when he told the Senate hearing that users want an environment that matches their interests and needs.
Opt in, though, is the best way to ensure people understand what they are choosing to share. Facebook uses it frequently once a member is on the platform, as Zuckerberg repeated often during his testimony. For instance, the permission settings are next to the “post” button when I’m ready to publish.
The Cambridge Analytica reveal that brought Zuckerberg to Capitol Hill sent me on a dive into my own account, where I was reminded how many times I connected to a site or app with Facebook and how much information I agreed to share with The Washington Post and other third parties. (I chose Facebook over Google to log in at a lot of sites because it felt more private and containable. Ha.) The answer: 37.
After some repair work I signed into my dad’s more recent account to check the privacy landscape when someone who didn’t pay any attention joined Facebook. It wasn’t pretty. He might have agreed to it all if asked or gotten so irritated he wouldn’t have signed up.