17 ms·

The Facebook Timeline is creepy as hell

179 points by benwerd 15y ago

bennesvig 15y ago
I think it's something most people would welcome, but only if they could choose what it shown and hidden. Great line - "On one level, it’s brilliant. On another, it’s undeniably, pervasively creepy, to a level we’ve hitherto been prepared for in human society."
- HarrisonFisk 15y ago
  You can choose what is shown or hidden. There are initial recommendations, but you have 100% control over what is shown, highlighted or hidden.
  - yellowbkpk 15y ago
    The problem is that society as a whole hasn't really adjusted to having to explicitly make this decision with a user interface element. Previously the decision was made for you as a side effect of your mode of communication (phone calls to your best friend) or your location (a family gathering), etc. As Facebook et al. has become the de facto communication model for society, the default is to share everything with everyone, and no matter what your explicit setting some marketer has access to that information for the right price.
wccrawford 15y ago
I could have sworn that FB now lets you choose what's publicly shared and what's only shown to friends? Given that, how is this a problem?
- sp332 15y ago
  Most people will "friend" almost anyone who asks, or random people they meet at parties, or coworkers, etc. Lots of people are my "friends" on Facebook that would make this creepy.
  - TeMPOraL 15y ago
    So? And still, you can group friends into lists and share selectively. Just like Circles in Google+.
    - sp332 15y ago
      Sure, but do you? I don't, and I don't see most people taking the time to do that.
      - TeMPOraL 15y ago
        No, I don't, and I'm OK with that. And I'm OK with other people not doing that too. I don't mind sharing what I put on Facebook, and I like reading what my (Facebook) friends are doing. So I personally don't mind those changes, at all. I understand though that many (most? - given the comments under Facebook-related stories) people are not so OK with that.
      - joelhooks 15y ago
        I've started to for some things, mostly as a courtesy to the viewer over filtering publicly consumable content.
  - bonch 15y ago
    That's your fault for friending anyone who asks.
  - sahillavingia 15y ago
    Well, that's your fault for adding them and considering them your "friends," isn't it? I don't think your mis-use of Facebook is their fault at all.
    - sp332 15y ago
      I don't consider them friends. I think of them as contacts, maybe acquaintances. You know, social connections. Facebook calls them "friends" but that doesn't mean I do.
- amcintyre 15y ago
  > "I could have sworn that FB now lets you choose..." For me, it's the "now" part. The Facebook management can decide to make that information available to others, openly or behind the scenes, if they deem it to be in their financial interest. Sure, maybe they won't. I just don't like voluntarily building such a collection of information and leaving its fate so completely in the hands of others.
  - wccrawford 15y ago
    This isn't new information we're talking about. It's information that's been on your account since you started using FaceBook. Why are you suddenly worried about them sharing your data with the world?
    - amcintyre 15y ago
      Sorry--I'm not "suddenly worried," I was worried from the start, and hence don't have a Facebook account. I apologize as if I inadvertently made this seem like a "that's the last straw" moment for me. However, I do know several regular Facebook users that do indeed view this sort of thing as too much, and (for the moment, at least) they are reconsidering whether they want to continue being users.
joebadmo 15y ago
Auto-sharing[0] [1] just seems like an obviously terrible idea. For both the privacy implications and the signal-to-noise ratio. Separating the streams into high-signal deliberate sharing and low-signal 'ambient' sharing is interesting, but seems kind of fiddly/inelegant. An obviously better way to do it is to auto-share into a private queue that you can then go through and approve for sharing into specific lists/circles. Maybe that's a bit too fiddly, though, and probably too cognitively expensive. I suppose it also creates an update bunching effect, where your updates come in bursts instead of a steady stream. Either way, passive auto-sharing just seems like it makes embarassing situations too easy. It also sometimes seems to me like Facebook is actively and deliberately trying to make human communication/interaction as reductive as possible. [Edit: I think there's another angle to this that's kind of quietly subversive in a pervasive way: If auto-sharing of your various web activity is on by default, then you might have some low-level filter on your actions, because you're always a little bit afraid that everyone can see what you're doing. We all start to behave as if we're living in a pan-panopticon (everyone is watching everyone else).] [0]: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/read_in_facebook_social_news_apps.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/read_in_facebook_social... [1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3028328 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3028328
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  This article is not about auto-sharing.
  - joebadmo 15y ago
    Does auto-shared content not go into the timeline? If it does, then this article is absolutely partially about autosharing. If not, apologies, it's hard to keep track.
erreon 15y ago
I don't really understand how it's creepy as hell. You volunteer information to it and it posts its. If you don't want people knowing when you are sick, broke a bone, or lost a loved one then I would think you don't post it to Facebook. This generation and even more surprisingly some out of generations of the past really want to share everything and this gives them that ability.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  But I think a central assumption about a lot of this sharing, especially on social networks is that it's ephemeral, soon forgotten, lost to the passage of time. Just like the conversations we have offline. That's part of what's creepy. The other part is the autosharing, which I've discussed in another comment. Taken separately, I think either part is notably creepy, but put together, they cross waaaaaay over my personal creepiness line.
  - brlewis 15y ago
    The timeline will help you find and delete things you intended to be ephemeral.
- bradleyland 15y ago
  These conversations are inherently difficult to articulate. "Creepy" is an adjective one uses to describe how something makes them feel. There's probably a more specific term for words like this. That is, the adjective isn't an entirely objective measure. Think about this conversation for a moment:: Dick: I sure do hate strawberries. They're gross! Jane: OMG, you are so crazy. Strawberries are delicious! Dick & Jane: LOL (literally, they have a laugh) In this conversation, neither Dick nor Jane are upset or confused by the other's feelings about strawberries. There is little ambiguity to the fact that the adjective "gross" applies only to Dick's feelings about strawberries. Neither feels threatened by the other's feelings about strawberries, because neither of them have any significant emotional investment in the fruit, and their relationship won't suffer as a result. Step back and look at the Facebook Timeline situation. The author finds it creepy. "It", is the act of inviting others in to your life experiences on such an intimate level. "Creepy" is how the author feels when considering doing so on his own Facebook account. Some people, when they read the conversation about strawberries above will have a visceral reaction about Dick's dislike of strawberries. "How can anyone dislike strawberries," they'll exclaim!? The same thing is happening here with the Facebook Timeline conversation. For some people, the Facbook Timeline is like inviting a complete stranger in to the bathroom with you, and not a bathroom with stalls and dividers. I'm talking one toilet here. Then again, maybe you're in to that kind of thing. I'm not here to judge. The point is that in any sizable population, you're going to have divergent viewpoints on what is "creepy" and what is not. Creepy is not an objective measurement. It's how you feel about something. What I don't understand is the author's framing of the issue: "Nobody’s forced to use Facebook, of course, although for many it’s pretty much a mandatory part of the social experience. What worries me is the trend of radical transparency and social context throughout the web software industry, where it’s expected that everyone will share their lives unless they’ve got something to hide. On the surface, for white males like me living in California, there’s a lot to be said for this on an individual level; don’t lie, be up-front, wear your intentions and motivations on your sleeve. But ultimately the decision about what to share has to be the individual’s – if you don’t feel like sharing something, don’t. Radically transparent interfaces are designed in a way that leads to a kind of peer pressure for disclosure: everyone else is sharing information about A, B and C, so why are you being so evasive?" To paraphrase, "I recognize that I'm not forced to use Facebook, but I'm worried about the impending pressure to share." Taken further, one could say that the author is concerned about the "implications" of this. Implications is code for something else though. It's a rhetorical device used to represent a growing dissonance between the author's feelings on a subject and the perceived consensus.
PabloOsinaga 15y ago
Is it just me? or do you also feel that anything that lays out your life as something so definitively finite makes you completely scared? I KNOW life is finite and I will day, but I don't want to see if so graphically! Makes me remember a picture I saw in a modern art museum: it was a "spreadsheet" where each cell was a day in your life. There are not that many of them!! Think about it, you can clearly see them all and it is a small set! So I don't want to see it! That's why people come up with religions at the end of the day! (traditional, singularity). No one wants to die!
yason 15y ago
The information has been public already, ever since you joined Facebook. But since it's easier to access everything soon, a "Delete posts, activities, and likes older than a $TIME" button would be a nice feature, for some value of $TIME.
- viscanti 15y ago
  Some of the new autoshare features are a bit silly, but you can easily opt out of those. The facebook profile has always had ALL of the same info as the Timeline, it was just presented differently, and required someone to click a button several times to load previous info. Sure, a lot of that history was initially hidden and required a bit of digging to get to, but it's always been there. I guess I don't see how it's really any different.
rglover 15y ago
These things are designed to be forgotten, but with the Facebook Timeline, much of your life is all but indelible, published front and center until you go through each item individually and hide or delete it. That, right there, is why this is so terrifying. Regardless of stalkers and people who browse your past for kicks, this is an insane utility for profiling individuals down to the minutiae of every day life. What's more is that it's a catalog, itemized down to the hour of activity on your Facebook. Yes, this has been available in theory for awhile, but now it's highly accessible and easy to find and scrutinize any moment in anyone's life (that is, if they've been posting to their Facebook). The scary part: a lot of people do. The geek in me wants to applaud Facebook for the technical achievement of the whole thing, but deep down, this just feels a bit too much like opt-in surveillance (whether that be by the government or individuals).
- sahillavingia 15y ago
  That's why you have friends on Facebook, not "stalkers and people who browse your past for kicks."
  - rwolf 15y ago
    I see talk of controls for hiding and sharing items on the timeline, and for turning the timeline on and off, but not for only making it available to your friends. The barrier to entry to browse a user's past appears to be: a Facebook account.
    - HarrisonFisk 15y ago
      All content on timeline follows the same privacy settings as the object has. So if you have been posting things as Friends only, all of the content will also be Friends only. If you have been posting Public updates, then it will also be Public.
    - phwd 15y ago
      A "public" post versus a friends post[1]. And the option to switch any previously public posts to friends[2]. [1]: http://cl.ly/ANI0 http://cl.ly/ANI0 [2]: http://cl.ly/AMpv http://cl.ly/AMpv
gfodor 15y ago
I'm curious what happens when a Facebook user dies. Is their timeline going to have pictures of their funeral at the top then? This is just depressing. Edit: This is a serious question.
- phwd 15y ago
  No actually it is memorialized and family members can request removal. https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=13941 https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=13941
- jaredmck 15y ago
  facebook has had huge problems, in my opinion, with how they react to people dying for quite some time now - a friend of mine died several years back and facebook often asked me to send him a message because we hadn't interacted in a while. haven't seen this sort of thing quite as much in a while (although he does show up as offline from time to time, in my chat list on the right side of the new facebook design) but it's a tricky problem and one that certainly can mar the experience. i imagine it would be far worse if you saw this sort of thing after your spouse, child, or parent died.
  - nbm 15y ago
    There's a process to memorialise the account of a user that passes away - help docs at https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=150486848354038 https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=150486848354038 Here's the form for friends: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased
- jojopotato 15y ago
  I wonder what facebook will do when a significant portion (let's say 10%) of it's user base has passed away. Is the data of a past life still worth something to them? Will they spend the money to keep it? I bet that anthropologists and sociologists would love to get their hands on historical data. Also, I suppose the data of a famous person might be worth a lot in 50 years, like the publishing of a president's diary. I can see it now "See the hidden facebook messages of Lady Gaga"
hirenj 15y ago
I've just spent the last 10 minutes attempting to violate causality. It turns out that the implementation is a little bit sketchy when trying to add "Life events" that occur before you're born. I'm kind of looking forward to recreating all of "Back To The Future" as life events on the timeline.
cemerick 15y ago
I agree it's creepy (just another great reason to continue not using Facebook), but I don't agree that it's creepy because people can see you in context. I think it's creepy because people see everything out of context. Those drunken photos, random pissed-off status update, smattering of professional news, and "Lost a loved one" updates followed by a photostream of your grandmother's funeral form a stilted caricature of your actual life and persona. That's why, when I want to share something significant, I do it in a form suitable for the purpose, hopefully in a way that is beneficial to the reader, and contributory to the internet, world, etc. if what I'm sharing is significant enough. Perhaps to wit, my memorialization of my grandfather, who I saw decline and pass away this year: http://cemerick.com/2011/04/05/opa/ http://cemerick.com/2011/04/05/opa/ That is all to say, if you want to control how you are represented, don't turn over your identity to a third party.
- ben1040 15y ago
  Having recently lost the grandfather who would sit with me at his basement workbench for hours on end teaching me how to put things together, I found that post really touching. Thanks for sharing.
posabsolute 15y ago
I think people like the author are missing the point, I'm pretty sure 20 years old and less people really don't care about their timeline privacy and if they do, they can easily change that. People that "care" about those issues are 25+ tech people, my mom do not care, and teens in my family reallly do not care the new facebook features prove that facebook is really moving forward in the 'social' space and are succeeding. Google+ a threat? I don't think so, maybe for the old facebook, but not this.. I can already see all new moms going crazy about that timeline feature. It's boring to see so much articles about how bad 'privacy' is, how creepy facebook is and etc. Seriously anyone can see that.. there is privacy if you look for it, if you don't it simply to assume that you want your profile public..
- silverbax88 15y ago
  I don't understand why people think teens are all okay with a lack of privacy. One of my businesses deals with hundreds of high school athletes every year. I can tell you that about half of them post EVERYTHING online. The other half is very careful about what they post. Some of the teenagers we deal with are very careful - a lot of them are, in fact.
- spodek 15y ago
  "I'm pretty sure 20 years old and less people really don't care about their timeline privacy and if they do, they can easily change that." People without experience to see why they should care don't know to, but that doesn't mean they won't be affected. I didn't care about preparing my business for a recession when I first started it because I hadn't had to manage through one. I do now. Tech people who understand data care because they know the ramifications younger, less tech-savvy people don't. People aren't just crying wolf. Thinking about alternatives creates huge opportunities. Wikipedia and Linux came out of people foreseeing the limitations of proprietary software. Who knows what awesome social media alternatives might come from people foreseeing the limitations of social media based on centralized servers?
mahcode 15y ago
I think that, given the web's evolution, you should assume that the whole world WILL see anything you so decide to put online. It's kind of sad to see that there is so such thing as online privacy.
unreal37 15y ago
The sky is always falling to some people. I love the new profile, and love the idea of timeline. I have wished for some time that I can easily go back in time and see what I posted 6 months ago, a year ago, 2 years ago..,. my life was so different then. Can't wait for this to be active. If you add people as Facebook friends who you think "it would be creepy" if they know things about you from a year ago, that's your fault. You're using it wrong. I put my friends into lists long ago, and don't share anything with people I only met once or twice. Facebook, keep going! This is awesome!
- mrgoldenbrown 15y ago
  You are assuming that only people that you have friended will be able to see your stuff. How long before facebook changes their polices again, so that all information is viewable by default to the public? Or before they sell it all to markters? Or before another app developer finds an exploit in the API to let them access anyone's information? When beacon came out, the outcry was loud enough to make Facebook back off. But that doesn't mean they won't try something similarly bold again.
  - djackson 15y ago
    > Or before they sell it all to markters They do this now...
    - lbrandy 15y ago
      No we don't.
      - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
        So you're saying as an official comment from a Facebook employee that Facebook at no time sell personal data? Not even marketing profiles as composites? This is/would be big news to me. In a way one could argue that allowing targeting of ads so tightly, using personal data, is commercial gain through that personal data. Not sure I'd personally push it that far though.
mkramlich 15y ago
put stuff voluntarily on the Internet later not happy people can see it uhhh
markgarity 15y ago
I guess you could say it's innovative for Facebook to try to continue to push the boundaries of social media and online identities, but I tend to agree with the majority: this is pushing it a little too hard. Facebook is what you make of it. Just as I choose to almost never view my 'News Feed,' I'll similarly opt out wherever possible from using these new timeline features.
esutton 15y ago
Maintaining our privacy on facebook is like eating healthy. We all say we want to do it, but eventually we all eat a hamburger and fries.
endlessvoid94 15y ago
The biggest issue for me is the following. When I post something on facebook, there's a personal context of who I'm friends with at the time. Three years ago, I was a different person. I was friends with different people. And I've never before had the access to old data. Now, I (and others) are able to browse those posts in a different context from when they were posted. It's a pretty radical shift. For example, I've grown more and more guarded about posting things like "this job sucks" or something. But I used to do it years ago, because it was much more private than it is now. Now others can go back and see my posts. It's opt-out instead of opt-in on my part. It's very different, and it's unclear to me what the ramification are. Might be bad, might be good. Like everything else: "we'll see".
- voyou 15y ago
  >Now others can go back and see my posts. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "now" here, but this isn't a recent change - for as long as I can remember, Facebook has let you see past posts by your friends. If anything, the Timeline feature limits the visibility of past posts, because, if I understand it, it lets you choose what stuff is emphasized on your timeline.
  - endlessvoid94 15y ago
    It has never been easy for me to see status updates and wall posts from 2006 without clicking back hundreds of times. Perhaps I'm overlooking something though. I'd love to know if this is the case.
    - rythie 15y ago
      However, Facebook did show random old status updates on right hand side next to other content by them.
narrator 15y ago
I think a pay for facebook where invasion of your privacy wasn't the product might be an interesting idea.
Retreads 15y ago
When I read about FB Timeline (and watched the trailer), I was concurrently impressed and uneasy. Impressed because it's an elegant way to deal with a problem that didn't exist until recently...how to make old user info useful and re-relevant. Until they had so many multi-year users there was no need to revisit old data. Uneasy because I've seen this before. Essentially, they've created a version of the Officer/Enlisted Record Brief (ie - US Army personnel dossier). Surely, there's nothing wrong with creating a consistent, repeatable format for understanding people and their experiences. It saves time and reduces effort required to pass judgment. In two specific ways, though, I found dossiers inadequate undesirable: (1) A record brief never accurately captured the skills and experiences of the person being considered. A life is so vast (and variable!) that it can't possibly be captured in a proscribed format. I guess this abuts my general unease with FB as a whole. I felt that I would never be able to capture myself through my profile/pics/etc and didn't want to be judged by a poor facsimile. Status updates and the increased ability to interact with friends and family tempered this unease. Now they've gone a step further towards formalizing a life's structure. (2) The ouputs could drive the inputs. Because FB inevitably has to be selective on what can be recorded in any type of dossier (standardization being the key), FBer behavior might be modified to match those fields. Army dossiers drive Army people to focus on activities and experiences that look impressive on the dossier (awards, deployments, schools). FB Timeline is an order of magnitude removed, but if it catches on and becomes the de facto way that users are judged by family/friends/employers, the possibility of driving user behavior certainly exists. Yes, I know that FB is voluntary.
sandieman 15y ago
What does being a white male have to do with anything?
reso 15y ago
"Creepy" is a personal and cultural term that is constantly changing. Ten years ago, having a feed of the conversations and locations of all your friends was "creepy", but now its normal. To make a meaningful negative statement about Timeline or any new technology, you need to argue that it hurts human society on some measurable level. This is not impossible to do, but its much harder than saying "That creeps me out".
sili 15y ago
Most of us nowadays are well aware that you shouldn't post any information on FB that you don't want to be shared with broad range of people. We now know how flippant FB is about privacy. However that was not the case when we just started using it years ago. Back than, many people saw FB posts as something private shareable only with a tight circle of friends. Now these old posts will be coming back into the light for all to see.
tryitnow 15y ago
Oddly enough I am considering using Facebook because of this feature and I never use FB now. What I like about it is that it makes sharing more convenient, almost mindless (if it actually works the way its been hyped).
Stwerner 15y ago
I don't know if creepy is the right word, but I get a weird feeling about it. It isn't that I feel like I'm losing my privacy by people seeing things I posted on facebook years ago, it is more that I am not that person anymore - I liked that my facebook profile was a current snapshot of who I am. I actually enjoyed going through the timeline on my own, reliving some of the memories, and for personal use I think having the timeline available will be really neat to check every couple years or so, but beyond that, I don't know if I want to manage my 'current' image actively enough to keep it open or not.
quattrofan 15y ago
To me this is even more of a reason to post less stuff to Facebook and engage with other platforms, photos go on Flickr, email is via Gmail, business networking is on Linkedin and Google+ is for the close friends. For me Facebook is about tracking down old friends and acquaintances and thats where it will stay. I just don't trust the company and I don't trust Zuckerberg.
altrego99 15y ago
Somehow when I saw the trailer, I had a creepy sensation that distinction between humans and sims are getting blurred.
jarek 15y ago
Stuff like this is why a while back I went all the way back to the beginning of my Facebook activity, when status updates first got introduced and trimmed out anything too embarrassing. It was always there, and someone determined enough could have seen it. Perhaps now that it's easier, people will start to reconsider. Anyway, this is good impetus for rethinking publication settings of some of my not-yet-embarrassing photo albums.
melbel 15y ago
I don't think it's creepy at all. I share a lot on FB but I know who is on my friend's list and I trust them. For a lot of people, it's just a good way to get things off your chest. For me, I am sooooh busy with work, school, raising a 4-year old and countless volunteer activities, I have zero time to interact with anyone outside of the computer when it comes to personal issues. I don't air all of my dirty laundry but if someone is sick, etc., I might post something vague about it just so I feel better. I usually hope my vague posts will trigger a private email where I can go into more detail. Is that weird? I don't think so.

179 points by benwerd 15y ago

I think it's something most people would welcome, but only if they could choose what it shown and hidden. Great line - "On one level, it’s brilliant. On another, it’s undeniably, pervasively creepy, to a level we’ve hitherto been prepared for in human society."

HarrisonFisk 15y ago
You can choose what is shown or hidden. There are initial recommendations, but you have 100% control over what is shown, highlighted or hidden.
- yellowbkpk 15y ago
  The problem is that society as a whole hasn't really adjusted to having to explicitly make this decision with a user interface element. Previously the decision was made for you as a side effect of your mode of communication (phone calls to your best friend) or your location (a family gathering), etc. As Facebook et al. has become the de facto communication model for society, the default is to share everything with everyone, and no matter what your explicit setting some marketer has access to that information for the right price.

wccrawford 15y ago

I could have sworn that FB now lets you choose what's publicly shared and what's only shown to friends? Given that, how is this a problem?

sp332 15y ago
Most people will "friend" almost anyone who asks, or random people they meet at parties, or coworkers, etc. Lots of people are my "friends" on Facebook that would make this creepy.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  So? And still, you can group friends into lists and share selectively. Just like Circles in Google+.
  - sp332 15y ago
    Sure, but do you? I don't, and I don't see most people taking the time to do that.
    - TeMPOraL 15y ago
      No, I don't, and I'm OK with that. And I'm OK with other people not doing that too. I don't mind sharing what I put on Facebook, and I like reading what my (Facebook) friends are doing. So I personally don't mind those changes, at all. I understand though that many (most? - given the comments under Facebook-related stories) people are not so OK with that.
    - joelhooks 15y ago
      I've started to for some things, mostly as a courtesy to the viewer over filtering publicly consumable content.
- bonch 15y ago
  That's your fault for friending anyone who asks.
- sahillavingia 15y ago
  Well, that's your fault for adding them and considering them your "friends," isn't it? I don't think your mis-use of Facebook is their fault at all.
  - sp332 15y ago
    I don't consider them friends. I think of them as contacts, maybe acquaintances. You know, social connections. Facebook calls them "friends" but that doesn't mean I do.
amcintyre 15y ago
> "I could have sworn that FB now lets you choose..." For me, it's the "now" part. The Facebook management can decide to make that information available to others, openly or behind the scenes, if they deem it to be in their financial interest. Sure, maybe they won't. I just don't like voluntarily building such a collection of information and leaving its fate so completely in the hands of others.
- wccrawford 15y ago
  This isn't new information we're talking about. It's information that's been on your account since you started using FaceBook. Why are you suddenly worried about them sharing your data with the world?
  - amcintyre 15y ago
    Sorry--I'm not "suddenly worried," I was worried from the start, and hence don't have a Facebook account. I apologize as if I inadvertently made this seem like a "that's the last straw" moment for me. However, I do know several regular Facebook users that do indeed view this sort of thing as too much, and (for the moment, at least) they are reconsidering whether they want to continue being users.

joebadmo 15y ago

Auto-sharing[0] [1] just seems like an obviously terrible idea. For both the privacy implications and the signal-to-noise ratio. Separating the streams into high-signal deliberate sharing and low-signal 'ambient' sharing is interesting, but seems kind of fiddly/inelegant. An obviously better way to do it is to auto-share into a private queue that you can then go through and approve for sharing into specific lists/circles. Maybe that's a bit too fiddly, though, and probably too cognitively expensive. I suppose it also creates an update bunching effect, where your updates come in bursts instead of a steady stream. Either way, passive auto-sharing just seems like it makes embarassing situations too easy. It also sometimes seems to me like Facebook is actively and deliberately trying to make human communication/interaction as reductive as possible. [Edit: I think there's another angle to this that's kind of quietly subversive in a pervasive way: If auto-sharing of your various web activity is on by default, then you might have some low-level filter on your actions, because you're always a little bit afraid that everyone can see what you're doing. We all start to behave as if we're living in a pan-panopticon (everyone is watching everyone else).] [0]: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/read_in_facebook_social_news_apps.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/read_in_facebook_social... [1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3028328 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3028328

saturdaysaint 15y ago
This article is not about auto-sharing.
- joebadmo 15y ago
  Does auto-shared content not go into the timeline? If it does, then this article is absolutely partially about autosharing. If not, apologies, it's hard to keep track.

erreon 15y ago

I don't really understand how it's creepy as hell. You volunteer information to it and it posts its. If you don't want people knowing when you are sick, broke a bone, or lost a loved one then I would think you don't post it to Facebook. This generation and even more surprisingly some out of generations of the past really want to share everything and this gives them that ability.

joebadmo 15y ago
But I think a central assumption about a lot of this sharing, especially on social networks is that it's ephemeral, soon forgotten, lost to the passage of time. Just like the conversations we have offline. That's part of what's creepy. The other part is the autosharing, which I've discussed in another comment. Taken separately, I think either part is notably creepy, but put together, they cross waaaaaay over my personal creepiness line.
- brlewis 15y ago
  The timeline will help you find and delete things you intended to be ephemeral.
bradleyland 15y ago
These conversations are inherently difficult to articulate. "Creepy" is an adjective one uses to describe how something makes them feel. There's probably a more specific term for words like this. That is, the adjective isn't an entirely objective measure. Think about this conversation for a moment:: Dick: I sure do hate strawberries. They're gross! Jane: OMG, you are so crazy. Strawberries are delicious! Dick & Jane: LOL (literally, they have a laugh) In this conversation, neither Dick nor Jane are upset or confused by the other's feelings about strawberries. There is little ambiguity to the fact that the adjective "gross" applies only to Dick's feelings about strawberries. Neither feels threatened by the other's feelings about strawberries, because neither of them have any significant emotional investment in the fruit, and their relationship won't suffer as a result. Step back and look at the Facebook Timeline situation. The author finds it creepy. "It", is the act of inviting others in to your life experiences on such an intimate level. "Creepy" is how the author feels when considering doing so on his own Facebook account. Some people, when they read the conversation about strawberries above will have a visceral reaction about Dick's dislike of strawberries. "How can anyone dislike strawberries," they'll exclaim!? The same thing is happening here with the Facebook Timeline conversation. For some people, the Facbook Timeline is like inviting a complete stranger in to the bathroom with you, and not a bathroom with stalls and dividers. I'm talking one toilet here. Then again, maybe you're in to that kind of thing. I'm not here to judge. The point is that in any sizable population, you're going to have divergent viewpoints on what is "creepy" and what is not. Creepy is not an objective measurement. It's how you feel about something. What I don't understand is the author's framing of the issue: "Nobody’s forced to use Facebook, of course, although for many it’s pretty much a mandatory part of the social experience. What worries me is the trend of radical transparency and social context throughout the web software industry, where it’s expected that everyone will share their lives unless they’ve got something to hide. On the surface, for white males like me living in California, there’s a lot to be said for this on an individual level; don’t lie, be up-front, wear your intentions and motivations on your sleeve. But ultimately the decision about what to share has to be the individual’s – if you don’t feel like sharing something, don’t. Radically transparent interfaces are designed in a way that leads to a kind of peer pressure for disclosure: everyone else is sharing information about A, B and C, so why are you being so evasive?" To paraphrase, "I recognize that I'm not forced to use Facebook, but I'm worried about the impending pressure to share." Taken further, one could say that the author is concerned about the "implications" of this. Implications is code for something else though. It's a rhetorical device used to represent a growing dissonance between the author's feelings on a subject and the perceived consensus.

PabloOsinaga 15y ago

Is it just me? or do you also feel that anything that lays out your life as something so definitively finite makes you completely scared? I KNOW life is finite and I will day, but I don't want to see if so graphically! Makes me remember a picture I saw in a modern art museum: it was a "spreadsheet" where each cell was a day in your life. There are not that many of them!! Think about it, you can clearly see them all and it is a small set! So I don't want to see it! That's why people come up with religions at the end of the day! (traditional, singularity). No one wants to die!

yason 15y ago

The information has been public already, ever since you joined Facebook. But since it's easier to access everything soon, a "Delete posts, activities, and likes older than a $TIME" button would be a nice feature, for some value of $TIME.

viscanti 15y ago
Some of the new autoshare features are a bit silly, but you can easily opt out of those. The facebook profile has always had ALL of the same info as the Timeline, it was just presented differently, and required someone to click a button several times to load previous info. Sure, a lot of that history was initially hidden and required a bit of digging to get to, but it's always been there. I guess I don't see how it's really any different.

rglover 15y ago

These things are designed to be forgotten, but with the Facebook Timeline, much of your life is all but indelible, published front and center until you go through each item individually and hide or delete it. That, right there, is why this is so terrifying. Regardless of stalkers and people who browse your past for kicks, this is an insane utility for profiling individuals down to the minutiae of every day life. What's more is that it's a catalog, itemized down to the hour of activity on your Facebook. Yes, this has been available in theory for awhile, but now it's highly accessible and easy to find and scrutinize any moment in anyone's life (that is, if they've been posting to their Facebook). The scary part: a lot of people do. The geek in me wants to applaud Facebook for the technical achievement of the whole thing, but deep down, this just feels a bit too much like opt-in surveillance (whether that be by the government or individuals).

sahillavingia 15y ago
That's why you have friends on Facebook, not "stalkers and people who browse your past for kicks."
- rwolf 15y ago
  I see talk of controls for hiding and sharing items on the timeline, and for turning the timeline on and off, but not for only making it available to your friends. The barrier to entry to browse a user's past appears to be: a Facebook account.
  - HarrisonFisk 15y ago
    All content on timeline follows the same privacy settings as the object has. So if you have been posting things as Friends only, all of the content will also be Friends only. If you have been posting Public updates, then it will also be Public.
  - phwd 15y ago
    A "public" post versus a friends post[1]. And the option to switch any previously public posts to friends[2]. [1]: http://cl.ly/ANI0 http://cl.ly/ANI0 [2]: http://cl.ly/AMpv http://cl.ly/AMpv

gfodor 15y ago

I'm curious what happens when a Facebook user dies. Is their timeline going to have pictures of their funeral at the top then? This is just depressing. Edit: This is a serious question.

phwd 15y ago
No actually it is memorialized and family members can request removal. https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=13941 https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=13941
jaredmck 15y ago
facebook has had huge problems, in my opinion, with how they react to people dying for quite some time now - a friend of mine died several years back and facebook often asked me to send him a message because we hadn't interacted in a while. haven't seen this sort of thing quite as much in a while (although he does show up as offline from time to time, in my chat list on the right side of the new facebook design) but it's a tricky problem and one that certainly can mar the experience. i imagine it would be far worse if you saw this sort of thing after your spouse, child, or parent died.
- nbm 15y ago
  There's a process to memorialise the account of a user that passes away - help docs at https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=150486848354038 https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=150486848354038 Here's the form for friends: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased
jojopotato 15y ago
I wonder what facebook will do when a significant portion (let's say 10%) of it's user base has passed away. Is the data of a past life still worth something to them? Will they spend the money to keep it? I bet that anthropologists and sociologists would love to get their hands on historical data. Also, I suppose the data of a famous person might be worth a lot in 50 years, like the publishing of a president's diary. I can see it now "See the hidden facebook messages of Lady Gaga"

hirenj 15y ago

I've just spent the last 10 minutes attempting to violate causality. It turns out that the implementation is a little bit sketchy when trying to add "Life events" that occur before you're born. I'm kind of looking forward to recreating all of "Back To The Future" as life events on the timeline.

cemerick 15y ago

I agree it's creepy (just another great reason to continue not using Facebook), but I don't agree that it's creepy because people can see you in context. I think it's creepy because people see everything out of context. Those drunken photos, random pissed-off status update, smattering of professional news, and "Lost a loved one" updates followed by a photostream of your grandmother's funeral form a stilted caricature of your actual life and persona. That's why, when I want to share something significant, I do it in a form suitable for the purpose, hopefully in a way that is beneficial to the reader, and contributory to the internet, world, etc. if what I'm sharing is significant enough. Perhaps to wit, my memorialization of my grandfather, who I saw decline and pass away this year: http://cemerick.com/2011/04/05/opa/ http://cemerick.com/2011/04/05/opa/ That is all to say, if you want to control how you are represented, don't turn over your identity to a third party.

ben1040 15y ago
Having recently lost the grandfather who would sit with me at his basement workbench for hours on end teaching me how to put things together, I found that post really touching. Thanks for sharing.

posabsolute 15y ago

I think people like the author are missing the point, I'm pretty sure 20 years old and less people really don't care about their timeline privacy and if they do, they can easily change that. People that "care" about those issues are 25+ tech people, my mom do not care, and teens in my family reallly do not care the new facebook features prove that facebook is really moving forward in the 'social' space and are succeeding. Google+ a threat? I don't think so, maybe for the old facebook, but not this.. I can already see all new moms going crazy about that timeline feature. It's boring to see so much articles about how bad 'privacy' is, how creepy facebook is and etc. Seriously anyone can see that.. there is privacy if you look for it, if you don't it simply to assume that you want your profile public..

silverbax88 15y ago
I don't understand why people think teens are all okay with a lack of privacy. One of my businesses deals with hundreds of high school athletes every year. I can tell you that about half of them post EVERYTHING online. The other half is very careful about what they post. Some of the teenagers we deal with are very careful - a lot of them are, in fact.
spodek 15y ago
"I'm pretty sure 20 years old and less people really don't care about their timeline privacy and if they do, they can easily change that." People without experience to see why they should care don't know to, but that doesn't mean they won't be affected. I didn't care about preparing my business for a recession when I first started it because I hadn't had to manage through one. I do now. Tech people who understand data care because they know the ramifications younger, less tech-savvy people don't. People aren't just crying wolf. Thinking about alternatives creates huge opportunities. Wikipedia and Linux came out of people foreseeing the limitations of proprietary software. Who knows what awesome social media alternatives might come from people foreseeing the limitations of social media based on centralized servers?

mahcode 15y ago

I think that, given the web's evolution, you should assume that the whole world WILL see anything you so decide to put online. It's kind of sad to see that there is so such thing as online privacy.

unreal37 15y ago

The sky is always falling to some people. I love the new profile, and love the idea of timeline. I have wished for some time that I can easily go back in time and see what I posted 6 months ago, a year ago, 2 years ago..,. my life was so different then. Can't wait for this to be active. If you add people as Facebook friends who you think "it would be creepy" if they know things about you from a year ago, that's your fault. You're using it wrong. I put my friends into lists long ago, and don't share anything with people I only met once or twice. Facebook, keep going! This is awesome!

mrgoldenbrown 15y ago
You are assuming that only people that you have friended will be able to see your stuff. How long before facebook changes their polices again, so that all information is viewable by default to the public? Or before they sell it all to markters? Or before another app developer finds an exploit in the API to let them access anyone's information? When beacon came out, the outcry was loud enough to make Facebook back off. But that doesn't mean they won't try something similarly bold again.
- djackson 15y ago
  > Or before they sell it all to markters They do this now...
  - lbrandy 15y ago
    No we don't.
    - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
      So you're saying as an official comment from a Facebook employee that Facebook at no time sell personal data? Not even marketing profiles as composites? This is/would be big news to me. In a way one could argue that allowing targeting of ads so tightly, using personal data, is commercial gain through that personal data. Not sure I'd personally push it that far though.

mkramlich 15y ago

put stuff voluntarily on the Internet later not happy people can see it uhhh

markgarity 15y ago

I guess you could say it's innovative for Facebook to try to continue to push the boundaries of social media and online identities, but I tend to agree with the majority: this is pushing it a little too hard. Facebook is what you make of it. Just as I choose to almost never view my 'News Feed,' I'll similarly opt out wherever possible from using these new timeline features.

esutton 15y ago

Maintaining our privacy on facebook is like eating healthy. We all say we want to do it, but eventually we all eat a hamburger and fries.

endlessvoid94 15y ago

The biggest issue for me is the following. When I post something on facebook, there's a personal context of who I'm friends with at the time. Three years ago, I was a different person. I was friends with different people. And I've never before had the access to old data. Now, I (and others) are able to browse those posts in a different context from when they were posted. It's a pretty radical shift. For example, I've grown more and more guarded about posting things like "this job sucks" or something. But I used to do it years ago, because it was much more private than it is now. Now others can go back and see my posts. It's opt-out instead of opt-in on my part. It's very different, and it's unclear to me what the ramification are. Might be bad, might be good. Like everything else: "we'll see".

voyou 15y ago
>Now others can go back and see my posts. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "now" here, but this isn't a recent change - for as long as I can remember, Facebook has let you see past posts by your friends. If anything, the Timeline feature limits the visibility of past posts, because, if I understand it, it lets you choose what stuff is emphasized on your timeline.
- endlessvoid94 15y ago
  It has never been easy for me to see status updates and wall posts from 2006 without clicking back hundreds of times. Perhaps I'm overlooking something though. I'd love to know if this is the case.
  - rythie 15y ago
    However, Facebook did show random old status updates on right hand side next to other content by them.

narrator 15y ago

I think a pay for facebook where invasion of your privacy wasn't the product might be an interesting idea.

Retreads 15y ago

When I read about FB Timeline (and watched the trailer), I was concurrently impressed and uneasy. Impressed because it's an elegant way to deal with a problem that didn't exist until recently...how to make old user info useful and re-relevant. Until they had so many multi-year users there was no need to revisit old data. Uneasy because I've seen this before. Essentially, they've created a version of the Officer/Enlisted Record Brief (ie - US Army personnel dossier). Surely, there's nothing wrong with creating a consistent, repeatable format for understanding people and their experiences. It saves time and reduces effort required to pass judgment. In two specific ways, though, I found dossiers inadequate undesirable: (1) A record brief never accurately captured the skills and experiences of the person being considered. A life is so vast (and variable!) that it can't possibly be captured in a proscribed format. I guess this abuts my general unease with FB as a whole. I felt that I would never be able to capture myself through my profile/pics/etc and didn't want to be judged by a poor facsimile. Status updates and the increased ability to interact with friends and family tempered this unease. Now they've gone a step further towards formalizing a life's structure. (2) The ouputs could drive the inputs. Because FB inevitably has to be selective on what can be recorded in any type of dossier (standardization being the key), FBer behavior might be modified to match those fields. Army dossiers drive Army people to focus on activities and experiences that look impressive on the dossier (awards, deployments, schools). FB Timeline is an order of magnitude removed, but if it catches on and becomes the de facto way that users are judged by family/friends/employers, the possibility of driving user behavior certainly exists. Yes, I know that FB is voluntary.

sandieman 15y ago

What does being a white male have to do with anything?

reso 15y ago

"Creepy" is a personal and cultural term that is constantly changing. Ten years ago, having a feed of the conversations and locations of all your friends was "creepy", but now its normal. To make a meaningful negative statement about Timeline or any new technology, you need to argue that it hurts human society on some measurable level. This is not impossible to do, but its much harder than saying "That creeps me out".

sili 15y ago

Most of us nowadays are well aware that you shouldn't post any information on FB that you don't want to be shared with broad range of people. We now know how flippant FB is about privacy. However that was not the case when we just started using it years ago. Back than, many people saw FB posts as something private shareable only with a tight circle of friends. Now these old posts will be coming back into the light for all to see.

tryitnow 15y ago

Oddly enough I am considering using Facebook because of this feature and I never use FB now. What I like about it is that it makes sharing more convenient, almost mindless (if it actually works the way its been hyped).

Stwerner 15y ago

I don't know if creepy is the right word, but I get a weird feeling about it. It isn't that I feel like I'm losing my privacy by people seeing things I posted on facebook years ago, it is more that I am not that person anymore - I liked that my facebook profile was a current snapshot of who I am. I actually enjoyed going through the timeline on my own, reliving some of the memories, and for personal use I think having the timeline available will be really neat to check every couple years or so, but beyond that, I don't know if I want to manage my 'current' image actively enough to keep it open or not.

quattrofan 15y ago

To me this is even more of a reason to post less stuff to Facebook and engage with other platforms, photos go on Flickr, email is via Gmail, business networking is on Linkedin and Google+ is for the close friends. For me Facebook is about tracking down old friends and acquaintances and thats where it will stay. I just don't trust the company and I don't trust Zuckerberg.

altrego99 15y ago

Somehow when I saw the trailer, I had a creepy sensation that distinction between humans and sims are getting blurred.

jarek 15y ago

Stuff like this is why a while back I went all the way back to the beginning of my Facebook activity, when status updates first got introduced and trimmed out anything too embarrassing. It was always there, and someone determined enough could have seen it. Perhaps now that it's easier, people will start to reconsider. Anyway, this is good impetus for rethinking publication settings of some of my not-yet-embarrassing photo albums.

melbel 15y ago

I don't think it's creepy at all. I share a lot on FB but I know who is on my friend's list and I trust them. For a lot of people, it's just a good way to get things off your chest. For me, I am sooooh busy with work, school, raising a 4-year old and countless volunteer activities, I have zero time to interact with anyone outside of the computer when it comes to personal issues. I don't air all of my dirty laundry but if someone is sick, etc., I might post something vague about it just so I feel better. I usually hope my vague posts will trigger a private email where I can go into more detail. Is that weird? I don't think so.