How're Those New Facebook Privacy Settings Working Out for You?

My neocon pal GSFG kept bugging me to join Facebook back in the spring, and I finally did just in time for the Orange County Tax Day Tea Party."

I like it. I don't use it for "social networking," primarily. I use for self-promotion. True, I've met some really nice people on Facebook, and I'd be really happy to meet some of these folks in person. But mostly I want to get blog posts out there for exposure.

Yet, Facebook's been acting funky for a while. I have a perfectly fine Internet connection, but half the time my blog links don't upload, or they don't display properly. What's the use? I just don't log on as much, especially when I'm busy. I've tried to use it a bit more this week, even updating my greeting with brief explanations about my absence. But what's weird now is the front-page "news-feed" is all screwed up. It's not posting real-time entries from your "friends," or at least not on mine. I went on last night and I saw stuff that was "11 hours" old. WTF? Anyway, I guess it has to do with Facebook's new "privacy settings" rollout. I just clicked default when the notice popped up for the new system. I don't post family pictures, and by design I want people to be able to log onto my updates. My URL is facebook.com/American.Power, so folks can check it out and leave me a comment to see how much information is displaying. Is my e-mail available for all? I don't recall signing up with my home address. Is that information available? That'd be pretty lame. I'll go back in an adjust the settings if they're too revealing, but should they be by clicking "default"?

The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial on this yesterday, "The Business of Facebook":

This week, Facebook finally implemented the privacy enhancements it promised several months ago. And oddly enough, the world now knows more, not less, about many of the social network's 350 million users. Although that's not what the public may have expected, it's no accident. And as disturbing as it may be to privacy advocates, the change may have the welcome effect of opening users' eyes to the reality of their relationship with Facebook. Simply put, it's not their friend.

And the last laugh may be on the Facebook mandarins themselves. This is looking like the Sitemeter fiasco sometime back (or the "New Coke" decades ago), although it remains to be seen if there'll be a changeback of any sort. In any case, at least, before deleting our accounts, we can get a good chuckle out of Mark Zuckerberg's follies. The Facebook founder apparently got hoisted by his own privacy-settings makeover. See, "Either Mark Zuckerberg got a whole lot less private or Facebook’s CEO doesn’t understand the company’s new privacy settings":

When Facebook’s new privacy settings were rolled out yesterday, many privacy gurus complained that the default setting was for “Everyone” to have access to your Facebook profile, meaning users had to be proactive about limiting access to their accounts. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the “new ‘privacy’ changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg either missed that article or doesn’t care. Back in October, I checked the Facebook profiles of the Facebook executive team, and found their privacy settings to be quite high. I wrote of Zuckerberg’s profile at that time:

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO – You can see his photo, his networks (Facebook and Harvard alum), and a list of his 889 friends, but that’s it. You can’t add him as a friend, but you can send him a message.

via How much privacy does the Facebook executive team have?

Well, that’s changed. His profile is now on uber-public settings. I can see his wall, his photo albums, and his events calendar. Zuckerberg recently became a fan of Taylor Swift, uploaded graphic photos of “The Great Goat Roast of 2009″ three months ago, and plans to attend the Facebook holiday party on Friday night. I can even tell you where it’s going to be held.

You can check out his profile here. Here are some screen grabs:

Zuckerberg’s profile to a non-friend. It looks like most of his activity is public:

RELATED: "Facebook Backs Off as Founder's Pictures Go Public."