Everyone seems to be giving Mark Zuckerberg a hard time at the moment.
Like most companies that become incredibly successful and powerful in a short space of time we praise its innovation, growth and guts but inevitably sooner or later the backlash begins.
Privacy online is something i’ve wanted to write about since I took the picture above – mainly because I couldn’t understand why someone would want a person to ‘Facebook’ them. ‘Google’ yes – this will return things you have done but Facebook? Facebook is for friends right, it’s about private relationships you share with a network of people you choose to? Well maybe not for everyone plus how many friend requests do we accept from people we barely know, or like.
Zuckerberg stated that sharing is becoming the norm, and if Facebook were starting up today it would of been an open network. This struck a chord with me and reminded me of the picture I took at Southbank. People have become more open – back when Zuckerberg was starting out his friends asked him
‘why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?’
That almost feels like an obsolete question now. Yet I remember thinking those things before I set up my first MySpace account 5 years ago. Of course some people you speak to still question this but no change is ever agreed by every single person. However the fact that so many blog posts, tweets, photos and video diaries are uploaded each day proves Zuckerbergs point. We are becoming more open and the Web, tools and developments have allowed this to happen but we still need to produce the content in the first place and hit publish. We cannot have one without the other.
Back in 2007 at university Anthony Giddens reflexive project of the self featured heavily in my dissertation about Digital Natives and their use of the Web’s tools in the future. Facebook, blogging platforms and Twitter to name a few have provided easy to use tools that facilitate conversations. These conversations start relationships, connections and build your identity. Our online and offline identities are not really that different anymore. As technological advancements have progressed we have naturally adapted to them and this has transferred to a much linear identity both on and offline.
These tools allow us to construct our identity (even if we are not consciously aware that is what we are doing) just like we use stories, clothes, friends and jobs to say something about ourselves. It just so happens that online tools are much more open. And this openness is natural to ‘digital natives’ because they don’t know any different.
And so younger people are more open. You only have to look at the huge surge in personal blogs, video diaries and something like lookbook.nu. Some might call it over sharing – sometimes it is. However its something that has happened gradually over time. Facebook changing their privacy settings reflects the current Web and provides an opportunity for them to monetize and grow.
Of course there is strategic thinking behind this move. Facebook is a business it takes up a lot of Zuckerberg’s time of course he wants to monetize just like anyone else would. If you had a successful business wouldn’t you take all the steps to remain ahead of the market, make money and stay at the top of your game? Can we blame one person and one networking tool for the openness the Web has given us? And can we criticize that person for innovating constantly?
Maybe we should give individuals more credit – we can still control our settings and share what we want with who we like. If people are really that worried about certain information being shared just don’t say it. I hate people who flood my newsfeed with hourly updates on their day – but doesn’t that just highlight Zuckerberg’s statement that people are becoming more open and willing to share?
