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Did Facebook become your new Big Brother or a democracy?
November 21st, 2007 by John BrianThe White House is famous for hiding unpopular policy announcements on Fridays when no one is paying attention. In this holiday week, it looks like two major developments are going on at Facebook that could see ramifications going far into the future, but which were probably scheduled to coincide with universities’ Thanksgiving break.
The first is
the launch and response to Facebook Beacon (no relation to us, or so they would probably claim). Beacon integrates your site with Facebook and posts messages to your feed to say that you interacted with that site, so hopefully your friends will as well. The catch?
That it pops up a little notifier in the bottom right of the screen, telling you that a story will be posted on your feed unless you opt out within a few seconds. This bug already exists on such sites as Blockbuster and Fandango, and MoveOn has a quick demonstration of how it works right here.
More on the reaction, as well as a more positive new change, below the fold…
There’s been pretty strong response, particularly in the "anti-" column - and MoveOn has created a petition and Facebook group, asking them to change the system to let people opt out from the whole thing and opt in to individual services. There have already been articles in the Times and CNet about these measures, and there will probably be more strong words exchanged after the holidays. I’d expect Facebook will make some changes after the holidays if there’s an outcry, as they did when they made some privacy mistakes on the mini-feed.
Personally, I feel that, as a user, you might be interested in telling friends what you’re doing, but it should be up to you if you want to share your every action on Facebook - not to the advertiser.
Non-profits 
might consider using Beacon, but very carefully - it’s a pretty sensitive subject, privacy-wise, even if it is great viral marketing. I’ll be interested to see the details on how it works - I suspect it’s related to the recent introduction of the "remember me" cookie that, while useful, would help sites with Beacon know who you are.
The second big development is the introduction of voting on your feed - starting today, you can give a "thumbs up" or an "x" (wow… that’s asynchronous) to any story that appears on your feed (I haven’t had an ad served yet - we’ll see if they allow voting or not). This story was previewed here a couple weeks ago, with news that employees could vote on their feeds before releasing it to the general public.
Here’s an example of a voting item - incidentally, if you’re not yet a fan of Beaconfire on Facebook - go to our page and become one!
This will, in theory, help them tailor the feed to your liking, though we’ll have to see how much it listens to you - I have one friend who posts at least three items a day which always seem to appear even though I set him to "less from this person" and my posts near zero.
This is an example of the good kind of user data mining, however - users can choose to opt-in or not, by voting or ignoring it, they get something (hopefully!) and Facebook can more effectively serve ads that interest them.
We’ll have to see the reactions from the community on these changes - look for more here as it develops. Or just check our news feeds - something may have popped up there without our knowing it.
