Dear Facebook, I Would Like My Illusion* of Privacy Back, K, Thanks
When Facebook “upgraded” or “simplified” its privacy settings they removed the ability to turn off your recent activity feed (this was one update ago. I think). Now everything you do posts to your wall and the news feed. You can not opt out. If you don’t like it Facebook says you’re welcome to use the “Remove” button.
Great except there is no “remove” button on any mobile version of Facebook and it’s a pain in the you-know-what to delete all of my activity every time I’m active on Facebook.
I may grumble a bit every time Facebook makes an “improvement” but I adjust pretty quickly and move on. I am just not getting over this one. Every person I’ve spoken to about this has the same complaints I do. If you search the Help Center you’ll see post after post about it. You’ll see your friends complaining about it in their status updates.
This is what Facebook has to say about it:
Whether we display a story on your profile is now controlled by the privacy of the content itself, rather than an additional setting. For example, only people who can see both your Wall, and the Wall to which you posted would be able to see a story about you writing on a friend’s Wall. You cannot completely turn off recent activity stories anymore. However, if you want to remove a particular story that currently shows up, simply click the “Remove” button that appears to the right of the story after you move your mouse over it. Learn more about privacy here.
Yeah great, but WHY? I want to know why facebook remove the ability to turn off recent activity stories? What possible benefit am I missing to removing my option to check little box that allows me the illusion of privacy?
*yes I know that just by having a Facebook page I don’t really have any privacy, but the ability to hide my recent activity makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Don’t Miss These Twitter and Facebook Guides from Mashable
Whether you are teaching a class, helping a friend or just looking for information for yourself these guides from Mashable are a great resource.
The Facebook Guide topics include:
- Facebook 101: The Basics
- Managing Your Facebook Wall
- Using Facebook for Business
- How to become a fan of Mashable
- Using Facebook Applications
- Facebook 305:Advanced Topics
Twitter Guide topics include:
- Twitter 101 – The Basics
- Building Your Twitter Community
- Twitter for Business
- Twitter Guide Book To Go: PDF Download and Slideshow
- Sharing on Twitter
- Managing Your Twitter Stream
Put Down the Phone and Pay Attention
CC image courtesy of Lights Out Photos on flickr
Last week I (and many others) spent a lot of time documenting the Internet Librarian conference, photos, tweets, blog posts, facebook updates. Did the act of digitally documenting the events change anything? Did the process of lifestreaming change my (and others) behavior, perception of what was happening and memories of it. Will we remember it better or worse?
A recent article from CNN Do digital diaries mess up your brain? looks at the effects of lifestreaming. Just knowing others are watching you may change the types of experiences you choose to have, from books to movies to where you eat and what you wear.
“If we have experiences with an eye toward the expectation that in the next five minutes, we’re going to tweet them, we may choose difference experiences to have, ones that we can talk about rather than ones we have an interest in,” he said.
It also detaches you from what’s happening at the moment. If you’re focused on tweeting what’s happening, you’re not fully engage in what’s happening.
But recording everything you do takes people out of the “here and now,” psychologists say. Constant documenting may make people less thoughtful about and engaged in what they’re doing because they are focused on the recording process, Schwartz said.
What does that do to our actual memories of events? Memories are shaky at best even when you’re completely focused. If you’re only half there, will you remember it later without the aid of digital documentation? What would I rather have a memory of something or documentation of it to prove I was there? What if that documentation goes away?
It makes me think, I do want to be living and experiencing life to the fullest. Does this mean I’ll put down the camera, the cell phone, the laptop? I don’t know. Probably not at conferences, but I’ll be thinking hard about doing it in other areas of my life. What good is lifestreaming an experience if I’m not fully enjoying it?
What Libraries Should Know Before Creating a Facebook Page – Libraries & Facebook Update 2
Otherswise known as : I Was Wrong
My orginal warning about creating a Facebook page is still correct, the update I posted was inaccurate. I’d like to thank Elizabeth for sharing what she discovered when she created a Facebook page after my last post on Libraries and Facebook.
The new “create a page for a celebrity, band or business” link allows you to create a page using a business account.
I don’t have a Facebook account. Can I still create a Page?
Yes, you can do so by creating a Business Account. To get started, you will need to first create a Facebook Page. To start this process, please click here. Once you’ve entered in the required information, you will be asked to log in to an existing Facebook account, or create a new one. If you do not currently have a Facebook account, please select ‘I do not have a Facebook account.’ You will then need to enter your email address and date of birth. Please be aware that managing multiple accounts is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If we determine that an individual has more than one account, we reserve the right to terminate all of their accounts.
So what is the difference between a business account and a personal account?
Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts. Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer. In addition, business accounts cannot be found in search and cannot send or receive friend requests.
Unfortunately that business account is still tied to the page as the primary administrator. Meaning you can not remove yourself. You can promote other people to admin status but they can not remove you.
There is currently no way to take away admin status from the creator of a Page. However, Page admins can add or remove other admins by following these steps:
- Click the “Edit Page” link below the Page’s photo. .
- On the right hand side, click the “Add” link in the Admin section.
- Select the friend you would like to add an admin.
If the original creator leaves the organization for any reason, there is no way to remove them. (You could try to contact Facebook, but if you’ve ever done that you know how that works.) Do you really want someone who no longer works for you to have control over your page? What if they were fired, or quit in a huff? I know, in an ideal world no one would ever leave and we’d all live happily everafter, but it does happen sometimes.
Libraries and Transliteracy Blog- Media Skills Integrated into Core StandardsA draft of K-12 standards put forth by the National Governor’s Association, as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI), integrates media skills as a key design consideration of these standards. The draft points to the importance of these skills: To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a technological society, students [... […]Tom Ipri
- What is Transliteracy?I attempt to answer some questions about transliteracy including what is it, in my Librarian by Day blog post – Defining Transliteracy I have been asked this question many times by librarians so I am way overdue for this post. Most recently I was asked “….are librarians the people best equipped to define and interpret transliteracy (as opposed [...] […]Bobbi Newman
- Digital Literacy Skills Essential to Closing Broadband Gap #knightcommThe Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy sites the Broadband Adoption and Use in America (pdf) report released by the Federal Communications Commission in Digital Literacy Skills Essential to Closing Broadband Gap when emphasising the importance and need for digital literacy The survey findings reinforce the growing body o […]Bobbi Newman
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