back to article Facebook adding new privacy control tools for your 'stuff'

Facebook has moved swiftly to introduce changes to its privacy controls and settings and it will roll out new tools to restrict access to posted material and edit past posts in the next week or so. The privacy settings menu has been simplified to three topics: "Who can see my stuff?" "Who can contact me?" and "How do I stop …

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  1. h3

    Facebook works by deception always has.

    Problem is Google is imitating them. (i.e start youtube app now on Android and you automatically get added to Youtube spam emails. There is no way to remove it from your account. So when they opt something else in then you will start geting spammed.)

    I am thinking of starting a goatse / tubgirl / 2 girls one cup / lemonparty / prophet mohammed channel to see if I can get rid of it that way.

    1. Nelbert Noggins

      I suspect to get rid of it you will need to try and delete your account

      Even if you find keywords that don't return results due to matching iwf blacklists... you can bet it's recorded and tagged against your account ;)

    2. LarsG
      Meh

      Decision already predetermined and made.

      The decision had already been made and predetermined by Facebook before they asked users their opinions.

      It was a bit like the elections held in Iran.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sadly

      Sadly too many people have the 'I AM NOTHING WITHOUT FACEBOOK' thought embedded and conditioned in their brain.

      Many use the site as a 'I Facebook therefore I am' affirmation to their entire existence. While it can be good as a keeping in touch medium, but what it does not excuse is the amount of banal, unimportant, boring, self effecting and uninteresting posts put up by people who lives are so far removed from anything vaguely important or interesting.

      Imagine the impact on lives if Facebook failed. We'd have to listen to this crap in the pub, at least it has an off button.

      1. Elmer Phud

        Re: Sadly

        But many don't.

        Many have installed AdBlock and Social Fixer to make life simple.

        We know all about Facebook and tired of the constant whine of doomsayers or 'early adopters' who are now getting bored with Twitter.

        We have tools to make life comfy - just like in real life.

        Only a fool would make Facebook their homepage.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sadly

        "While it can be good as a keeping in touch medium"

        I keep in touch with people who mean something to me. I visit them, I email them, I text them, I call them, I meet them.

        So "keeping in touch medium" means being fifty faced with people you don't really care about.

        Of course I would not expect most humans to understand this because most of them are fifty faced, underhanded lowlives.

  2. wobbly1
    FAIL

    voting system was borked

    tried to vote , voting system wouldn't allow my "retain current t and c's" vote , no reply from reporting non functioning voting page.... NBC news described it as an end to facebook's fling with democracy, more like one night stand with the elections for Muammar Gaddafi...

    1. Mike Flugennock

      Re: voting system was borked

      Y'know, sometimes I think that if Facebook was an actual country, they'd be under UN sanctions, and have UN observers watching their "voting".

      1. Elmer Phud

        Re: voting system was borked

        Nah, they would be a U.N. member and member of NATO as well.

    2. edge_e
      Facepalm

      Re: voting system was borked

      Vote with your feet

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: voting system was borked

        "Vote with your feet"

        HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA like taht would happen!

        Howelese would your facebook "Friends" be fifty faced towards you?

  3. Magani
    Holmes

    Farcebook notification system

    "Everyone's going to be getting a message about the new changes,..."

    Is this the same system that sent everyone a message about last week's vote?

    </sarcasm>

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The missing options thread

    .. because there will be many.

    Let me start:

    - stop Facebook selling my details

    - stop using my images for ads

    - stop giving away my details via "friends" permissions

    - I want to erase all my data NOW and THEN close my account

    The latter is IMHO quite an important one now.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The missing options thread

      Should have thought about this BEFORE signing up!

      Deserve what you get!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The missing options thread

        Should have thought about this BEFORE signing up!

        Nope. I just could not keep up with the speed of policy changes and the ever changing privacy defaults, so by now I have probably agreed to let Zuck rape my dog and my mother, and do so publicly, accompanied by ads.

  5. Nelbert Noggins

    Facebook T&C is a democracy operating in the users interest???

    I'll admit I don't have a facebook account but, user friendly privacy controls, listening and acting on users concerns doesn't sound like the Facebook I know.

    Surely now they are publicly listed and have shareholders the demands of the shareholders and making a profit is much higher priority that what the users think/want??

    Obviously make the users think they have input and influence, but shareholders and demand for profit is now even more important than user requests isn't it?

  6. Mike Flugennock
    Alert

    D'ahh, cripes...

    I have my preferences set to hide my account from Internet searches. So, does this mean that now everybody and their cat can find my Farcebook profile in Web searches now? Not that my feed is full of goatse, Hot Asian Teens and drunken Christmas party fotos, but, still, just on general principle...

    Well, at least on FB my name is fake, my place of residence is fake, my gender and birthdate are fake, and all the fields where I'm supposed to put my favorite music/movies/books/workplace/schools I attended have been left blank. At least I've given them practically no marketable information, and I log on once in a blue moon... and the type of images I post -- edgy, mean-assed political cartoons -- aren't exactly the kind of stuff they'd want to use in advertising.

    I guess now I'm going to have to head over there, check my preferences and see what they've b0rked this time.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You are not their customer

    You are their product

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Privacy, you say? Well we'll give you enhanced privacy controls because the courts are about to order us to do so anyway. There will be a cubic fuckton of loopholes, of course, but 'enhanced privacy controls'. Hey! As long as you all keep uploading shit it's all good.

  9. dssf

    Past Friends and "friends"

    Could turn out to be fiends if there has been a 25 year gap since high schoo, nevermind since grade school.Why the hell would I want to be found by people *I* never could find on my own since 1993? If they had no footprint, i do not want a a lot of questions in my mind.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Facebook likes to make frequent changes to privacy settings

    As each time they further break down the settings from more general to more specialized, they can set defaults to something no one in the right mind would want. The people who are paying attention will lock down their settings each time, but some will miss/ignore/not care and their settings get more open as time goes on, which is what Facebook wants.

    I think I'd have more respect for them if they just said "you're using our service for free, if you want more privacy tough, no one is making you come here". That's the outcome they're trying to attain but they go about by wearing down people with their constant changes to how settings work. It's not like everyone is going to go back to Myspace.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: Facebook likes to make frequent changes to privacy settings

      "I think I'd have more respect for them if they just said "you're using our service for free, if you want more privacy tough, no one is making you come here". "

      I've never seen it as anything but that .

      Second (Get a) Life lasted a long time as the replacement for Facebook, didn't it?

      1. Phil W

        Re: Facebook likes to make frequent changes to privacy settings

        I agree with this sentiment whole heartedly.

        Facebook is a business, they exist to make money. You choose use a free service they choose to provide, and they have no need or obligation to change that services to meet your desires or needs.

        Asking Facebook to provide you with the services you want, but not do things that make them money is akin to having a bank account but demanding that your bank not use the money kept with them for profit making investments etc. and just expecting them to store your money for you free of charge and to pay for all the costs of doing so themselves.

        If you were a paying customer of Facebook this would be entirely different of course. But fee based social networks are unlikely to work on a large scale due to the existence of Facebook, Google et al.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Facebook likes to make frequent changes to privacy settings

          "If you were a paying customer of Facebook this would be entirely different of course. But fee based social networks are unlikely to work on a large scale due to the existence of Facebook, Google et al."

          YUP!

          Everyone wants owt for nowt!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Living in a looming privacy time bomb?

    I am just so tired of this! This week I purged all FB email and posts, and purged my Gmail accounts! Obviously I can't delete copies of private message already sent which is a major problem, but I've had enough of the constant 'changing games' of FB, Google et al...

    Its quite unsettling! It has an Orwellian stench to it. My fears overall stem not from what I don't know, but from what I can't anticipate about how my data may be used in the future... possible even against me. Whether its just to buy stuff , or profile me in ways that I am staunchly against!

    I laugh at the Onion's CIA’s ‘Facebook’ Program ... and yet, I can't help feeling the joke is on me! I am certain we are living in a looming privacy time bomb. I recently typed my fiancé's name into search engines. It was unpleasant to find old cached FB profiles on sites like Pipl.com! How did they get that when the profile wasn't public? Even deleted FB photos of old boyfriends were still cached on major search engines! Something stinks here...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Living in a looming privacy time bomb?

      My dear boy, welcome to the new world where your privacy no longer exists if it gets in the way of making a profit.

      As a matter of fact, let me generalise that: LAWS no longer matter if they get in the way of making profit..

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Difficulty

    I must say I've been meaning to deactivate my FB account for some time, but haven't been able to. I hate it and everything it represents. Every time I sign in, all the mindless posts about whit that no-one cares about...

    Anyway, I don't because when (actual) friends find out, they'll look at me like I need to be sectioned.

    Also, all those old flames that you thought you might still have a second chance with... It's difficult!

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