Oh wow. I know how we discussed in class that employees like to hear things straight from management, but I never thought I'd be to "tickled" to get this. I'm not even an employee of this organization!!
I was looking at my Facebook homepage, when at the very top I see a link for a note titles "An Open Letter from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg"
I thought it might be important, or it might be fake, or it might be telling me that Facebook has decided to changes its formatting AGAIN, but nevertheless, I clicked on it and found this:
An Open Letter from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg
It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online.
To make this possible, we have focused on giving you the tools you need to share and control your information. Starting with the very first version of Facebook five years ago, we've built tools that help you control what you share with which individuals and groups of people. Our work to improve privacy continues today.
Facebook's current privacy model revolves around "networks" — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.
Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.
However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.
The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.
We're adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we'll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.
Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we'll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You'll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you're finished, we'll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you're done you'll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.
We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone's needs are different. We'll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you're sharing with online.
Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.
Mark Zuckerberg
How nice! Thanking ME for using Facebook, from the founder himself? Feeling that I'M important enough to notify about a system change? Of course, with my PR knowledge, I take into account that Zuckerberg might have had some PR professional writing or editing this. But, my initial reactions show that this note was probably a very smart, successful, pathos and logos appealing strategy. I, like probably so many others, am happy that the Facebook Founder felt that all the members were important enough to "personally" talk to about these new system changes.
Plus, security and privacy. These are issues that are current and everyone is starting to be aware of them. As the daughter of a parent who has had identity theft, I was told as a high school teen that social media such as Facebook, myspace, etc. were risky and not worth it because of potential identity theft, predators, etc. This letter gives me the impression that Facebook is doing more to ensure the privacy of its users and give them more control over their information.
Other observations:
At the bottom of this note, 21802 people said that they "like" this message. Repeat, 21,802 people like it. While all things on Facebook have the opportunity to be "liked," I would say the "like" feature in this case is an excellent evaluation technique.
Comments on the notes included more things that people would like to see on the website. The main request I saw was a "Dislike" button.
Another fair point was made with this comment: "I don't see anything about assuring people that you won't share their personal information with the CIA and the NSA. After all, maybe anyone dumb enough to think the internet has true privacy settings deserves to have their sordid details of mundane life exposed."
Interestingly enough, people began to comment this note in the form of advertising, such as for steroids. While annoying, this idea is actually pretty smart. If you comment on a note in Facebook, you will be notified of all other comments that are posted on the same note after yours. As there are 20,535 comments as of 11:16 am Central Time on Dec 2, 1009, anyone who advertises after this time can potentially reach 20,535 or more people.
Anyway, good job, Facebook, for this strategic move and showing your users that you care about their security.
