ReadWriteWeb has coverage of Zuckerberg's talk with Arrington at the Crunchies. According to him, the age of Privacy is Over. This is the quote that is just STUNNING:
..we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it.
When I first heard it in the interview in the video I did a major double take - "we decided" ?? seriously? The we in that sentence is Facebook and clearly with Zuckerburg is at the helm - He could have said "I decided" and he as the CEO of a social network has the power to "decide" the fate of the privately shared amongst friends in the context of this particular social network for millions of people (see my post about the privacy move violating the contract with users). It makes you wonder if this one platform has too much power and in this example makes the case for a distributed social network where people have their own autonomy to share their information on their own terms and not trust that the company running a platform will not expose their information.
It is clear that Zuckerberg and his team don't get social norms and how they work - people create social norms with their usage and practices in social space (both online and off).
It is "possible" to change what is available publicly and there for making it normal by flipping a switch and making things that were private public for millions of people, but it is unethical and undermines the trust people have in the network.
I will agree there is an emerging norm that young men working building tools in Silicon Valley have a social norm of "being public about everything", but they are not everyone. I am looking forward to seeing social tools developed by women and actual community organizers rather then just techno geeks.
I will have more to say on this later this week - I was quite busy Saturday - I ran the Community Leadership Summit, yesterday I flew to DC and today I am running the Open Government Directive Workshop. While I am here I hope to meet with folks about Identity in DC over the next 2 days.
Related posts:
Unconference.net
I'm afraid this does rather reinforce my view that "you can have social interaction, or networked interaction - but if you assume that they are the same, you're fooling yourself" (Catalyst 2009)
In "normal" social interaction, no single individual is put in a place where they are able to exercise that extent of control over the other participants.
Also, have a look at this interesting article about how "the assumed norms of the crowd are to the detriment of individuals' privacy"...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8446649.stm
I have to agree with Robin... when others volunteer your privacy... even by default... the end results... you have to live with. Whatever happened to the 'social contract?'