Me, you know where:
Parents of young children can spot an insincere apology from miles away.
“Sorry,” your tot mumbles, after you find the dog half-shaved and your Xbox full of jam.
“Sorry for what?” you’ll say. “Sorry for shaving the dog and putting jam in your Xbox,” he’ll say, looking at the floor. But he’s lying. He’s only sorry that he didn’t get away with it.
Facebook’s much-reported apology in the Washington Post is a bit like that. “Sorry,” says Mark Zuckerberg. “Sorry for what?” the internet asks.
“Sorry for invading your privacy and making things confusing and stuff,” Zuckerberg says. “Can I have an ice cream now?”
Read more:Â http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/why-you-shouldn-t-trust-facebook-s-apology-691803#ixzz0owXMawMm
Comments
0 responses to “Can you trust Facebook’s privacy apology? Hint: no”
Always good to see a FaceSpace privacy fup story… I like this bit that I read on http://www.theregister.co.uk...
Recently unearthed IM transcripts from the early days of Facebook showing Zuckerberg describing early adopters at Harvard “dumb fucks” for trusting him with their data have hardly helped Facebook’s cause.
There’s quite a lot of that kind of stuff. There’s a big new book coming out that doesn’t paint Mr Z in the most flattering light.
When I read his five principles the other day, I laughed out loud. In a bitter tone.
Facebook’s like Ikea: fantastic product at a bargain price, but the only way to get it is from utter utter bastards.
A lot of the privacy invasion relies on good old-fashioned human instinct. When we get a new thing of our own, we like to customise it, to put our stamp on it. And we get a new Facebook account, and there’s loads of spaces to list things like our favourite bands and our favourite films, so we fill them in. But the only point of Facebook (for sane people) is to keep in touch with people who already know us, and who therefore either already know that stuff or would find it out via the miracle of conversation. I find Facebook’s convoluted demonic settings changes OK now, because all they do is try to make public a load of stuff I deleted months ago. But most people keep it up there.