Facebook Faces Criticism Head On

The Washington Post had a surprise guest writer this morning in an article about Facebook. The CEO himself, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, wrote a short column addressing anyone who has ever complained about Facebook privacy in the past. That’s a lot of people to address at once, but Zuckerberg managed to do so with ease.

Facebook has been under fire quite a bit recently because of unsatisfactory privacy settings. If you remember Cheryl Smith’s story from last summer about Facebook’s misuse of her picture, then you know what I’m talking about. Facebook has been in the headlines day after day with the reoccurring theme of privacy (and today is no exception). In this case, Zuckerberg didn’t have to pull a Jesse James-size apology for Facebook’s flaws but he did acknowledge the mistakes Facebook made in its early years of development. He describes the privacy settings as “missing the mark” from the very beginning back in 2004. He tells how, originally, Facebook’s defining factor was its users’ control. Different from MySpace, Facebook allowed complete control over what information was shared and who that information was shared with. But now users want that same control (or even more) in a simpler fashion. Zuckerberg says, “The biggest message we have heard recently is that people want easier control over their information. Simply put, many of you thought our controls were too complex. Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark.”

Overall, Zuckerberg points out that Facebook has had quite a few struggles- like when they came out with a new privacy policy that allowed some third-party advertisers access to Facebook users’ information without their consent- and says they are addressing these problems openly. New, simpler control settings (including a feature that will allow a user the option to completely hide his or her information from all third-party advertisers) will hopefully be out by late summer. I’ve got to hand it to Mr. Zuckerberg for keeping his cool and addressing the criticisms so diplomatically. And I can’t wait to be able to hide my profile and pictures from all third-party Facebook partners!

Update May 26, 2010: New privacy settings launched today. Read about them here.