Quite a while ago, Facebook gave users more control about what you want to share with whom. Now, a month later, media reports that users find the privacy settings too complicated.
Let me translate this for you: There is no media story at the moment, so let’s express some concern about Facebook and privacy as that works always. Besides, and just as important: journalists think of themselves as trendsetters, and Facebook is mainstream by now. Ever seen a hipster doing non-biased reporting? See.
So here we go: Yesterday, NPR found Facebook pricacy a growing concern for users. Oh, really? Wow. The everlasting trend, now new! And today, the New York Times has Facebook also on the down. Nick Bilton had to write about Facebook’s privacy settings, and he did the best that he could: he is funny.
In a second article, Joshua Brutstein features a social media consultant that left Facebook recently, and also mentions a couple of high profile computer engineers. He concludes that it becomes a trend showing up in the conscious of the algorithms of Google.
However, how to leave Facebook does, no, not show up as the fifth result in the assisted Google search as mentioned in the article, but far more down on the list – fifth is “How to leave a Facebook group”. And the guys that were reported to leave Facebook left it for Twitter and were Googlers, who were concerned about the instant personalisation that Facebook plans to introduce with Open Graph – as if Google did a better job with Buzz.
Privacy on the internet is a serious concern, but this is not about privacy issues. This is about hipness.
Yes, Facebook became mainstream, so a lot of hipsters feel it hurts their hipness. As reporter David Montgomery recently wrote on Twitter, “Complaining about Facebook privacy has joined fixed-gear bikes and ironic facial hair as a hipster trademark.” Exactly. But do we have to turn this into journalism?
Sorry Mercedes, I have to disagree. If it was about hipness, one had to get out 9-12 months ago, when “everybody else” joined in.
This is (subjective standpoint, I admit, but yours is, too) about a) boredom, because we have been showered with new features for years and got used to them, now realizing Facebook is just another ordinary communications tool and we really don’t care whether Marty likes the current Scrubs-episode. This leads to more and more moments where you feel you waste your time. And it is b) about control, because one after another people realize what F8 means (automatic additions to personal interests, messages showing up on community pages) and nobody feels like they have enough understanding of the platform to really know what’s going on.
I admit the small hype about people leaving is nothing compared to the people who join FB each day, but everyone can end up like MySpace, no matter how big you are. Facebook has still plenty of things to do to become an irreplaceable element of the web.