Privacy is no longer a social norm, according to the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg commenting on the rise of social networking

Facebook's Zuckerberg Questions Privacy Expectations

January 11, 2010
By Tom Jowitt

Privacy is no longer a social norm, according to the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg commenting on the rise of social networking

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of Facebook has said that people no longer have an expectation of privacy thanks to increasing uptake of social networking.

Speaking at the Crunchie Awards in San Francisco this weekend, the 25 year-old web entrepreneur said: “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people.”

Zuckerberg went on to add that the rise of social media reflects the changing attitudes among the general public, saying that this radical change has happened in the space of five years.

"When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was, 'why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?'," he said.

“And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information,” he said.

Facebook is estimated to have over 100 million users in the United States alone, and more than 350 million users worldwide. Zuckerberg's comments come after the social networking giant recently decided to (somewhat controversially) change the privacy settings of all its users.

In December, Facebook launched a number of new tools which enabled users to control who sees what content on their account, as well as a Transition Tool and simplified privacy settings.

The issue of privacy is a vexed one, especially in the United Kingdom where, late last year, the Home Office pledged to push ahead with controversial plans to monitor all Internet use. The Ministry is requiring communications firms to monitor all Internet use, and is asking them to retain information on how people use social networks such as Facebook.

Yet the dangers posed by people opening up online to the rest of the world is well know. Back in August, a survey sponsored by British insurance firm Legal & General found that users of social networking sites were giving away vital information about themselves and their whereabouts that was b... to establish a list of targets. The report, "The Digital Criminal," found that 38 percent of users of sites such as Facebook and Twitter have posted status updates detailing their holiday plans and a third of people have posted status updates saying that they are away for the weekend.

Zuckerberg also said it was important for companies such as Faceook, to reflect the changing social norms in order to remain relevant and competitive.

"A lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they've built," he said. "Doing a privacy change for 350 million users is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies would do.

"But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner's mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it."

Photo credit: (CC) Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com / bub.blicio.us / CC-BY

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Comment by fireguy on January 15, 2010 at 12:05pm: Use it while you can to spread the truth. Its's too late in the fight to worry about internet privacy if you want to use the tool for good you can, if you want to "bunker up" you can take that route.

I am not saying that what they are doing isn't wrong and that we should not try to stop them from databasing our every move and thought. I just think that they are going to shut the internet off sometime and we should use it while we can.

Comment by Jeff on January 12, 2010 at 8:10pm: Facebook hasn't really changed anything at all. The box that allows for Google to search you is now checked and you have to 'uncheck' it to prevent that. I posted a complete essay on ALL of the Facebook security changes and how to deal with them on my Facebook page several weeks ago.

Peace

Comment by Tara on January 12, 2010 at 7:37pm: I promote all those ideas too Jeff and am pretty vocal about my beliefs whether it be here on 12.160 or life in general. With that being said, when it comes to matters of the heart...... family, close friends, co-workers and such, I try to only speak of them generally out of respect and I still like to have some things in my life that remain private! That's just who I am!

When it comes to Facebook, they are completely going against their original privacy policy without the consent of the users. Their excuse is that privacy is no longer the social norm?????? Ok, well lets get an opinion poll going then? It just makes me wonder about Zuckerberg's motives and in what hands the user's personal info will fall into? I'm smelling a rat myself!

Comment by Jeff on January 12, 2010 at 6:23pm: I have nothing to hide.

I am a radical. I'm proud of it. I am entitled to freedom of speech and thought and voice my opinions freely both here and on Facebook.

I'm not scared.

I promote abolishing Congress.
Arresting the president and the Supreme Court.
Jailing all legislators.

And starting over.

Comment by Tara on January 12, 2010 at 5:32pm: Just say no to Facebook! If you do choose to still use it, don't put out too much personal info unless you want it all to come back and bite you in the but! That goes for any social site though. A little common sense goes a long way!

Comment by Dewk Chronic on January 12, 2010 at 4:20pm: How about working on facebooks bug,viruses and other spy ware stuff??? They obviously are using it for other purposes.