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Suppose you're in a room with 5 close friends having a conversation. You're comfortable, animated, energetic, outgoing. In the midst of this engrossing conver

Suppose you're in a room with 5 close friends having a conversation. You're comfortable, animated, energetic, outgoing. In the midst of this engrossing conversation 400 other acquaintances silently enter the room. Suddenly you notice them and realize they can all hear every word you're saying. Most people find this scenario a bit socially uncomfortable and clam right up. Facebook's growth has created this scenario for a lot of people. The basic currency of Facebook (voyeurism) relies upon a loose security model that prevents a person from walling off his/her 5-10 closest friends and using FB for the bulk of their online socializing. Eavesdropping is essential to the business model. The problem is, thusfar most FB users are not really aware just how intricately engineered this voyeurism is and how publicly their lives are being broadcast.

noarchy 15y ago
You can wall off groups of people within Facebook, but the effort required to do this is beyond the motivation level that I'd expect most Facebook users (myself included) to have. Like privacy, making Facebook more tolerable to use is an opt-in thing, requiring proactive measures by the user.
- r00fus 15y ago
  If walling off your group is equivalently difficult to creating a yahoo/google group, then yeah. Facebook's entire premise is that people LIKE being heard/seen and LIKE seeing/hearing others, in their social graph. What is really needed is multiple distinct social graphs per user with distinct walls between them, done elegantly... this isn't an easy problem to solve. There was a really nice presentation from a Googler (who subsequently moved to Facebook) which described this problem eloquently... but I can't seem to find the link.
  - grandalf 15y ago
    Interesting. I'd love to see the presentation if you (or anyone else) end(s) up finding the link. It's interesting to consider the threshold for the sort of social discomfort I described above. In my case it hit around 2/3 of my current friend count.
    - interknot 15y ago
      Here's the previous HN discussion for the (likely) article in question: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867807 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867807
- FiddlerClamp 15y ago
  Even that process is confusing. I've created concentric circles of friends based on privacy levels (specific interest, friends, friends of friends, all). But what if I like a post that a specific-interest friend has posted? Does that mean all of my friends (or everyone) will see that like and that post?

noarchy 15y ago

You can wall off groups of people within Facebook, but the effort required to do this is beyond the motivation level that I'd expect most Facebook users (myself included) to have. Like privacy, making Facebook more tolerable to use is an opt-in thing, requiring proactive measures by the user.

r00fus 15y ago
If walling off your group is equivalently difficult to creating a yahoo/google group, then yeah. Facebook's entire premise is that people LIKE being heard/seen and LIKE seeing/hearing others, in their social graph. What is really needed is multiple distinct social graphs per user with distinct walls between them, done elegantly... this isn't an easy problem to solve. There was a really nice presentation from a Googler (who subsequently moved to Facebook) which described this problem eloquently... but I can't seem to find the link.
- grandalf 15y ago
  Interesting. I'd love to see the presentation if you (or anyone else) end(s) up finding the link. It's interesting to consider the threshold for the sort of social discomfort I described above. In my case it hit around 2/3 of my current friend count.
  - interknot 15y ago
    Here's the previous HN discussion for the (likely) article in question: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867807 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1867807
FiddlerClamp 15y ago
Even that process is confusing. I've created concentric circles of friends based on privacy levels (specific interest, friends, friends of friends, all). But what if I like a post that a specific-interest friend has posted? Does that mean all of my friends (or everyone) will see that like and that post?