Lately I have seen people in my friends list tell me to change some setting to prevent their life events leaking into the facebook social graph. Sigh.
It seems like every few months, there is some new way that Facebook abuses your personal information, making it harder for you to control who sees what that you post.
First, for those who expect me to change some setting to help you, or you are going to have to unfriend me, you better just unfriend me now, because I am not going to continually mess with settings in facebook.
Next, if you post anything to Facebook that you don’t want used to target you for ads, spam your inbox, or to determine how you behave to improve targeting, then you are an idiot. Facebook has consistently shit on your efforts to contain the information you share via Facebook. They are always ignoring their own settings for privacy, and who sees what. That isn’t ever going to change. Now that they are public, Facebook is trying to monetize their service. But the only real value that they offer is what you share, and what they can glean from that.
So, if you don’t want your “life events” (whatever the f*ck they are) spreading to the social graph, DON’T post them. But don’t expect your connections and friends to alter their settings to suit your paranoia. In fact, I have an even better piece of advice. Close and delete your facebook account (you can do it here). Because if you can’t grasp the concept of not sharing anything you aren’t happy for the whole friggin’ world to see, then you have no business messing around with Social Media (of any sort).
For the record. I don’t post anything super personal, and make a point of being as sarcastic of an asshole as I can be. And I am not going to jump through hoops to help you in your quest to control what you share with Facebook.
Had to get that off my chest.