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From the post: A few years ago, before the CEO cared a whit about social networking or identity, a Google User Experience researcher named Paul Adams created a
by briandon 15y ago
From the post: A few years ago, before the CEO cared a whit about social networking or identity, a Google User Experience researcher named Paul Adams created a slide deck called the Real Life Social Network. In a very long and well-illustrated talk, he makes the point that there is an impedence mismatch between what you share on facebook and your interactions in real life. So when you share a photo of yourself doing something crazy at a party, you don't intend for your aunt and uncle, workmates or casual acquaintances to see it.
In real life, the crazy party photo you would be showing your friend would be on your phone's screen or (in olden days) it would be a hardcopy photograph. Putting your phone or the hardcopy photo back into your pocket would be the end. The potential for blowback would be limited to whatever could be whipped up by your friend's verbal description of what he'd seen.
Whenever you put anything on the Internet, though, there's not really any way to control its spread. Whatever privacy mechanisms a sharing/social site puts in place will be broken by crackers at some point or part of the system will break on its own and leak information. Long before that, though, one of the people you permitted to access the controlled content will simply copy it and share it with other people.
Don't put anything online that you wouldn't be comfortable with your grandma or work colleagues/boss reading.
- tbh2347 15y agoIt's not about the technical restrictions, the edge cases. It's about what a user expects when posting, the overall experience when sharing. There will be the occasional embarrassing reshare, but for the most part users will (in theory...) feel more comfortable sharing more sensitive information if they better control who sees it. I found this post on technical vs social privacy interesting: https://plus.google.com/116222833568410151476/posts/QDwkrxrpqXg https://plus.google.com/116222833568410151476/posts/QDwkrxrp...
- billswift 15y agoThe problem is that on the Internet you don't have that control. How and where you post something can influence how it can spread, but nothing can control how it spreads, just ask the RIAA. The problems are mostly caused by people who "feel more comfortable" because they wrongly think they can control it. As many people have said, "If you don't want it to get out, then don't put it on the Internet."
- tbh2347 15y agoThere's no control just like there's nothing stopping people from recording your conversation in real life and passing it around the office. Sure, on the Internet things are easier, but it's the same concept that you can make it socially difficult to reshare certain things. Saying "If you don't want it to get out, then don't put it on the Internet" is coloring things too black and white. What about those tech articles that you'd like to share, but don't want to annoy your non-technical friends with? What about the nonsensical updates that you're _okay_ with people seeing but _would rather avoid_ having certain people see? Not everything that people post are naked pictures or incriminating evidence. There's just some things that are socially awkward to share, and that's where "control" comes in.
- sambeau 15y agoYou often have no choice as the photo is put online by a (or worse an acquaintance) and then helpfully tagged by someone. I'm not sure that Google+'s circles will stop your boss from seeing a drunken photo in this scenario.