WordPress Paranoia Prevents Me Warning About Facebook Evilness

So – if you’re on Facebook, here’s a link you should all follow and take action about:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/settings/?tab=privacy&section=applications&field=friends_share

It should look like this:

But WordPress saves it like this:

The WordPress saved version isn’t properly resolved by Facebook, it just goes to:
http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy

It should go to a page that looks like this:

Facebook privacy - what my friends can share about me

Here’s a shortened link that does work: http://bit.ly/bwG9Xe

Follow it, and decide whether you like what you see. You do know who your friends are, don’t you, and you do know who they know? And where they go? And what applications they have installed? Becuase my reading of the above is that they can share information you shared with them to all those people, whether you approve or not? Or maybe I just misunderstand the permissions granted by the above form in the weird and wacky game of Top Trumps that is the Facebook privacy environment. Maybe the permissions you set to only share photos and videos with friends trumps the settings that let friends share your photos and videos with applications and sites they visit. Or maybe they don’t? Does anyone know for certain…?!

This is what mine looks like now:

For more on this, see: Keeping Up with Facebook Privacy Changes (Again)

PS You should probably also consider unchecking this ( http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy&section=applications#!/settings/?tab=privacy&section=applications&field=instant_personalization ):

If you leave it set on Allow, when you visit a site that Facebook is friendly with it might share you data with that partner site for you… bless…

PPS Because Facebook is geting increasingly cavalier with what it lets applications do with you data, I suggest you take a look at the applications you have installed from the Applications page at:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/editapps.php?v=allowed

This page is not easy to find from the under the privacy settings, but can be reached from the Facebook Account menu, under Application Settings.

If you don’t use an app, particularly an external one, I suggest you delete it…

[UPDATE: Why I Joined the Facebook Privacy Changes Backlash…]

Author: Tony Hirst

I'm a Senior Lecturer at The Open University, with an interest in #opendata policy and practice, as well as general web tinkering...

7 thoughts on “WordPress Paranoia Prevents Me Warning About Facebook Evilness”

  1. I had most of them unchecked when Facebook shuffled the rules for the 10,000th time, but as a statement, I am starting UNCHECK ‘EM ALL campaign

    i control what I share

  2. Just to share my own experience – Concerned about my privacy I went to http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy&section=applications#!/settings/?tab=privacy&section=applications&field=instant_personalization to make sure my ‘personalisation’ wasn’t being shared and noticed it was unchecked. I then navigated to my profile page and noticed there was a ‘we want to improve your web experience/personalisational message’. Clicking on ‘learn more’ took me to the page previously linked to and surprise surprise the ‘personalisation’ tickbox was now checked.

    So moral of the story if you click on a link to the personalisation settings having not logged into FB since the privacy changes the box will appear to be unchecked. That is until to navigate to your FB home page for the first time when FB will automatically opt you in.

    Wholly peeps!

    1. SO you’re opted out till you go to your FB home page, at which point you’re opted in…? Or does the click thru opt you in… methinks this is all a little Schrodinger’s cat like…

  3. I think it is the first one, you’re not in until FB have had a chance to tell you that you are in …

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