kidmercury

I love calling people's bluffs. LOL, my favorite. Probably because I used to be a more deceptive person, quite foolish of course. Fortunately, I've since found the truth that set me free.

Anyway, out in the Internet business world, lots of folks have been calling the bluff Mark Zuckerberg, the visionary behind Facebook, regarding Zuckerberg's comments that the age of privacy is over and that is why Facebook's privacy settings are changing. In particular, Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read/Write Web straight up dissed Zuckerberg, calling his bluff, in his well written coverage and analysis of the story. Damn.

Here's the deal:

1. Facebook makes more money if they can force certain user information to be public -- blogging in particular, because the cat's out of the bag on blogging being where it's at. Less privacy gives Facebook's ecosystem greater reach.
2. So? Who gets to decide this issue? Facebook? What about Facebook users? What about developesr that build games on Facebook?

And this is the big problem with any big social media site: governance. What's really needed is a "government of Facebook" that helps the entire ecosystem reconcile these issues in a fair manner -- very similar to political/governmental systems in the "real world." And just as big oligarchies fail in the real world, they fail in the digital world too; having Facebook and a few of its corporate executives make these decisions is not the right solution. The way to compete with Facebook is to create a social network that has a better governance system than Facebook. And that's the real reason why niche social networks will come to prominence, so much so that they will usurp the role of nation-states. At least, that's one option, should we choose to make it real.

Of course the other issue is that Facebook is not really going to get what it wants even if it does try to violate user privacy. In addition to migrating to other social networking systems, they'll create multiple Facebook identities as a way of concealing privacy. I already have two Facebook pages, one I associate with this blog, and a far more public one for everyone who can't handle the truth (i.e. most people). Although I'm a Facebook hater, as this post illustrates. For more Facebook hate, see our Facebook archive.

marko

good post. direct user governance is the key.

i don't understand why facebook or twitter doesn't empower their users in this way. their success is because of their users, if they leave, the business is dead, so why not try to align interests as much as possible? its the only path to a sustainable business in this space.

is it purely a short-term quick win mentality (accelerated by their investors), or do they really not understand the challenges they will face soon if they don't focus on enabling this? i have no idea as i don't know their motivations and time horizons. but i do know that there is user demand for alternative models and services....

kidmercury

hey marko,

i think they simply have the wrong model. it is like if t-mobile/ATT/any carrier tried to put ads in your phone calls instead of charging you directly. the app economy may be able to save them, but can they come up with the proper system to manage everyone's interests? i doubt it, because IMHO, the best government is local.....