Over the past year, I said over and over how I hated Facebook. People routinely asked me during phone calls and at networking events to clarify my reasoning.
I always said it was due to the walled garden effect, whereby the only people who could see my Facebook profile and status updates were my friends and networks, whereas anyone with or without a LinkedIn profile or a Twitter account could see either of those!
In a stunning–albeit, unsurprising–turn of events today, Facebook announced it tore down their wall and allows any of their users to share any of their content with anyone else.
Think about that for a moment.
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Jesse Stay elaborates:
This means that by going into your privacy settings on Facebook and selecting “everyone” on various profile options, Google can now index it, non-friends are able to see it, and it puts Facebook “face-to-face” in the “worldwide conversation” with Twitter. Yes, Facebook has just killed the walled garden.
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Facebook for the past year because the only people who could see my content were friends of mine. This is precisely why, about six to eight weeks ago, I voided mutual Facebook friendships with anyone I hadn’t met or spoken to personally. What’s that saying about hindsight?
No more. I just went through my privacy settings and marked nearly everything to be viewable by “everyone,” with the caveat that only my “friends” can see my other friends and only selected categories of friends can see my tagged photos. Everything else is open to the world.
And here’s the kicker: Even if you choose not to allow everyone to see your content, suppose you’re my friend and I mention you in a Facebook note that I allow Google to index. That means Google now sees you, even if you don’t let it see you.
I still dislike Facebook–but I don’t hate it anymore. The times are changing, and I’m ready to open up my Facebook wall of privacy. If you want to be my Facebook friend, click here for my profile.
Photo credit: pardeshi
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