Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has denounced privacy as a ‘social norm’ of the past as social networking's popularity continues to grow.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg says privacy is no longer a 'social norm'
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has denounced privacy as a ‘social norm’ of the past as social networking's popularity continues to grow.

By Emma Barnett, Technology and Digital Media Correspondent
Published: 12:55PM GMT 11 Jan 2010

Comments 52 | Comment on this article


Facebook announced controversial changes to its privacy settings in December 2009 via its 'notifications' tab. Talking in San Francisco over the weekend at the Crunchie Awards, which recognise technological achievements, the 25 year-old web entrepreneur said: “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people.”

He went on to say that privacy was no longer a ‘social norm’ and had just evolved over time.



Facebook fund adds friends to find technology talent"When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was, 'why would I want to put any information on the internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?'."

"Then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way, and just all these different services that have people sharing all this information,” he explained.

Mr Zuckerberg's statements about privacy chime in with the latest changes made to Facebook’s own privacy settings - which caused controversy and has affected the network’s 350 million user base.

From last December onwards, all Facebook users’ status updates are made publicly available unless the user actively opts to change the settings and make its private. Users were alerted to changes via a ‘Notification’ posted in the bottom right hand corner of the site.

The sites’ users were also given the opportunity to change settings on things like photographs and videos they upload to the site. However, the changes sparked criticism from internet users’ rights groups who said the move was a way for Facebook to facilitate more people making more personal information publicly available without realising it.

The changes also followed agreements Facebook signed with both Google and Microsoft’s Bing, to allow people’s status updates (which are not set to private) to be indexed by both search engines in order to enable the search giants to provide real-time results.

Facebook chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, publicly said in September 2009 that Facebook was making no money from the search arrangement with Microsoft – unlike Twitter – which has signed similar deals and understood to be generating cash from both arrangements with Google and Microsoft. Although all three parties – Twitter, Microsoft and Google – have declined to comment.

Mr Zuckerberg defended the changes made by Facebook to its privacy settings, saying it was in line with the new social norms. “A lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they've built," he said. "Doing a privacy change for 350 million users is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies would do.

"But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner's mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it," he explained.


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More on
Facebook Get feed updatesTechnology Get feed updatesNews Get feed updatesMedia and Telecoms Get feed updatesMedia Get feed updatesDigital Media Get feed updatesTechnology News Get feed updatesEmma Barnett Get feed updatesComments: 52

I had a Facebook account for a once, but I cancelled it (with much difficulty) after a very short time. After reading this article I can say I am very glad I did.
I don't need this crap. My real friends phone me, me email me, and sometimes even knock on my door.
Andrew
on January 12, 2010
at 08:03 PM
Report this commentThis child, Zuckerberg, is obviously too young to understand that he doesn't know much and that that which he perceives as a 'social norm' is actually the building block of individuals.
Forgive him, he knows not what he speaks.
RaFasGul
on January 12, 2010
at 07:30 PM
Report this commentI think that facebook is getting a little to happy with how they run their site. They think just because they are starting to pass myspace in terms of users that they can change things without the users opinion first. That is one good thing i can say about myspace is that they ask the user before they do anything. i have really started considering just sticking with myspace.
Tommy Callahan
on January 12, 2010
at 06:50 PM
Report this commentSimple solution,
Don't use the stupid system!
Bruce Hastings
on January 12, 2010
at 06:05 PM
Report this commentPrivacy is a basic human right and that will not change. People expect control over the information they choose put on the internet.

The "right to be left alone" is, in the words of the late Supreme Court
Justice Louis Brandeis "the most comprehensive of rights and the
right most valued by civilized men."
sally sue
on January 12, 2010
at 05:39 PM
Report this comment@Mike
on January 11, 2010
at 05:32 PM

Well perish the thought that anyone might have different tastes to yours you pompous idiot.
Alex
on January 12, 2010
at 04:31 PM
Report this commentSince the Facebook "privacy" rules changed a couple of months ago I have been receiving hundreds of unwanted e-mails forwarded from an internet gay dating website (to which I have not subscribed).
I find this both inappropriate and offensive.
Nick R
on January 12, 2010
at 03:53 PM
Report this commentIt's the lack of "privacy" that is part of the culture on Twitter (where all but the very few, who don't seem to "get it", share everything with the world) that means it's starting to be my preferred social networking application.

What are people so desperate to hide? Sure, data that is truely private (DOB, address, phone numbers) should always be so unless you decide otherwise, but otherwise for the majority of people the more that's in the open the more useful the Internet is for everyone.
Steve
on January 12, 2010
at 03:23 PM
Report this commentHe's like the Pied Piper, leading the children away into the magic mountain.

If despising privacy is normal, then it is normal to be insane.

I've been an Internet worker for 20 years, and I wouldn't touch "social-networking" with a bargepole. Gift-horse / mouth.
antisocial norm
on January 12, 2010
at 03:23 PM
Report this comment"social norms" are not for private companies, NGO's, Charties, Religious or Community "leaders", celebs, media luvvies, dinner party spouters or such to decide upon.

Even if such a "norm" existed, nobody - and in particular none of those listed above - have any rights or expectations legal or otherwise to exert any coercion or pressure on anybody whatsoever to conform to said "norms".

i.e. "social norms" are meaningless in any concrete sense!

That will not stop ALL the above making a concerted attempt to acquire or bluff the appearance of rights or powers over us for those it wants to entrench.

We must be on our guard.
Roger Thornhill
on January 12, 2010
at 01:46 PM
Report this commentHa, privacy is still very much a "Social Norm"... It's just that Facebook doesnt have any... So they might as well tell you that you don't need it anyway.
Chris
on January 12, 2010
at 01:29 PM
Report this commentIt isn't normal to me. My Facebook privacy mechanisms are set to max. I don't want somebody else telling me what and how much information I have to put out into the world.
Valerie
on January 12, 2010
at 01:29 PM
Report this commentPrivacy is about what you choose to share, not about what you share.

Zuckerman has missed a rather obvious point: just because people choose to share more it does not follow that people don't care about having the basic right to choose for themselves what they share and what they do not.
MikeHypercube
on January 12, 2010
at 01:28 PM
Report this commentThis man is deranged and dangerous.
All he wants to do is create a new advertising paradigm, where friends take part in advertising companies' products to other friends.
Real techies have always avoided Facebook and its ilk.
Please, non-techie regular folk, avoid this man and his gutter company for your own sakes and that of the whole concept of privacy.
Rupert Dooper
on January 12, 2010
at 01:00 PM
Report this commentFacebook compresses time and space as I am now able to chat to friends from university decades ago that admittedly I had possibly lost contact with due to other priorities. However.
Privacy settings have been updated and it is possible to view how a random facebooker i.e. not a friend/friend of a friend etc can see your profile.
Complete anonymity from a google search requires a completely fabricated email address i.e. with no reference whatsoever to your legal name. Even then, if someone has that email address they can pull up your facebook profile by inputting it in search.
Agynes
on January 12, 2010
at 11:30 AM
Report this commentSocial networks such as facebook, are really nothing but yet another dinosaur.

Facebook has had no option but to make serious alterations to the way it works because it is leaking & sinking. The latest statements from their founder are just a PR spin on reality.

Many "curious" people still value their own privacy. Their privacy which is their own property and NOT the property of Facebook - needs to be protected. Even so called "friends" don't really need to know about everything that there is to know about anybody and everybody. At the end of the day, what is truth?

Truth is what everyone of us knows as being fact, not what we might "privately" choose put in the "public" domain - for others to read about us for some public relations purposes on facebook or elsewhere - to suit some particularly "private" purpose!

The best way to avoid all this nonsense is not to use "social networks" that are internet based - but to rely on and continue to use personal connections & recommendations. These work very well & have worked very successfully indeed for mankind from the beginning of time itself.


Henryk Matysiak
on January 12, 2010
at 11:13 AM
Report this commentComplete hogwash. And it's not like he's got an angle on this subject or anything.
Jim
on January 12, 2010
at 11:09 AM
Report this commentAs all our personal details have already been spread all over the rail network on laptops and memory sticks discarded by government employees, what's left to hide anymore?
L.Hillman
on January 12, 2010
at 10:48 AM
Report this commentSilly children!
john heppell
on January 12, 2010
at 10:48 AM
Report this commentMark Zuckerbergs is spouting mindless c**p.

The lad needs to grow up.
Tony P
on January 12, 2010
at 10:48 AM
Report this commentWhat complete and utter rubbish! I would never write about my daily life every two minutes or post pictures of myself on the internet for the whole world to see! I love my privacy.
Lucy
on January 12, 2010
at 10:32 AM
Report this commentGood luck to those members trying to change their information, I have been trying to change my email address for months but Facebook can't seem to tell the difference between my son's address and my own, both having the same surname, which is not that common by the way. God knows how they deal with all the Smiths in the world. I tried one of my other email addresses, but despite keep informing me on the old one that they have sent an email to the new one confirming the change, nothing has appeared. I am winding up Facebook and going back to keeping in touch by email and from the address that I decide to use, not Facebook
carol ellington
on January 12, 2010
at 10:31 AM
Report this commentZuckerberg had a great idea in FB. But he does rather seem to have sold out wrt privacy. Something being private does NOT mean it is illegal, immoral, "dirty" or suchlike. As per the article, I am one of those "over 40s" - I use FB but it is tied down tighter than a duck's posterior ... my wife is in hear early 30s ... she, too, is a "lean publisher". SCREAM!
Headloq
on January 12, 2010
at 10:28 AM
Report this commentNo one has to comply with "social norms" if they don't wish to. Not everyone can see the point of facebook.
Bradley Sneddon
on January 12, 2010
at 10:28 AM
Report this commentJust say no.
Emma Grogan
on January 12, 2010
at 09:43 AM
Report this commentMaybe it's the norm for young people who are groomed in schools to accept the state knowing every detail of their lives, tracking them from the womb to the grave. It's NOT the norm for anyone over 40 who remembers the halcyon days when interaction with the state was minimal, there were no CCTV cameras, and all schools did was teach academic subjects. When todays 17 year olds hit the job market and find their would-be employer is put off by youthful indiscretions that would be better recorded in a private family photo album perhaps "a lesson will be learned"!
James
on January 12, 2010
at 08:30 AM
Report this commentThere's a bit of a difference between living in a world where it's easy to disclose as much personal information as you want to, and living in a world where there is no personal information that can be protected.
david
on January 12, 2010
at 07:00 AM
Report this commentMy friends and I all attend different school's across the state and even country (from the US) and they recently made a point to me (after I deleted my account) that this was the best way for ALL of us to stay in touch what with our busy schedules and all. So I think before people are so quick to judge on who is using and why they're using Facebook they should keep their mouths shut.

That's why so many of us are frustrated with these changes. Yes the internet isn't safe, but come on, FB wasn't like this before and if we knew what we were getting into we wouldn't have signed up. That's why we're mad. We had some sort of privacy and some info we could protect. Now he's putting it all out there? What gives him the right to assume that I want people to know where I'm attending and when my birthday is or what I wore that day. There's a reason we have friends lists! Those are the people we want to keep informed, not creepy internet stalkers. What a load.
Barbara
on January 12, 2010
at 06:43 AM
Report this commentwhat's YOUR home phone number and ATM PIN number, Mr Z?

private, is it?
ben arnulfssen
on January 12, 2010
at 06:38 AM
Report this commentThis upstart no matter how wealthy he is or thinks he is has not lived enough life to have much personal info or preach to the masses. Perhaps in a few years after he has sold out on his clients info to the highest bidder, facebook will just be another internet scam with a lot of dodgy info on a lot of people, most of whom new better than full disclosure, to this arrogant arsehole. "The Norm"? At least he has himself to kid along with and I wouldnt hold my breath waiting for his personal info, however he is welcome to hold his breath waiting for mine.
DQ
on January 12, 2010
at 06:37 AM
Report this commentWhen I got that notice, I found it VERY confusing, so much that it seemed deliberate to make you accidentally disclose as much private info as possible, if you didn't read and check each of the boxes carefully. Jerks.
Vita
on January 12, 2010
at 06:35 AM
Report this commentNow why don't we all go around naked too?
Joel
on January 12, 2010
at 06:34 AM
Report this commentJudging by the fact that almost all Facebook pages that I have looked at are only viewable in detail to selected friends, clearly he is talking crap.
private
on January 12, 2010
at 06:32 AM
Report this commentWhat a tosser
David Maund
on January 12, 2010
at 06:26 AM
Report this commentNot everyone wants to be famous or infamous, even those using these kinds of technologies and if we didn't have a sense of privacy we might not understand how to occasionally say and/or do nothing at all when it's most expedient. In my view privacy is utterly priceless. It's part of our wonderfully generous (largely unwritten) and therefore flexible constitutional liberty here in the UK - like personal dignity, autonomy, responsibility and accountability etc. Also, everyone's entitled to an opinion and to express it when and where we want - the choice is ours.

It's the "choice" bit of liberty which to me seems intimately associated with privacy and is part of the reason why we shouldn't take other people's privacy for granted - but how can we take better notice of privacy? It shouldn't be under-estimated, I think. ( Incidentally, in the real world cash and personal cheques are so useful because of privacy in my view - using these we don't have to explain or "share" what we're doing with anybody other than those who really count)

Thus said; in peace and tranquillity we are at liberty to stick our head above any kind of proverbial parapet in any market place (dare I say, regulated or unregulated?) and because we have privacy we can duck down again before we end up feeling shot at by people who may be just doing their "normal" job.

I just wonder whether people will ever truly understand the real value of privacy with all these trendy young things wanting to "share" everything they've got, or not got with the world.

Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley
on January 12, 2010
at 06:26 AM
Report this commentThis sounds like one of things we'll laugh-out loud about in 5 years time when identity theft has taught a few more people a lesson. Then everyone will be tweeting and face-booking to "shut-up"! Interesting comment about lying about critical information. So we'll distrust any person with a facebook account. How then to prove your integrity?
Malcolm
on January 11, 2010
at 11:25 PM
Report this commentNow that the age of privacy is ending, maybe the age of facebook is comming to an end as well.
Anon
on January 11, 2010
at 11:18 PM
Report this commentAs around 80 percent of the internet's users haven't bothered to create Facebook accounts, it's hardly the 'norm' to share personal information in this way, never mind the question of how much of what is shared is accurate.
cactus
on January 11, 2010
at 10:27 PM
Report this commentInteresting newspeak going on here by Zuckerberg. All information purposefully not shared, is defacto not private.

The notion that privacy is no longer a social norm, presupposes that there is nothing that individuals wish to keep private.

This is obviously untrue.
Dixie
on January 11, 2010
at 09:11 PM
Report this commentWhat a strange supposition, it may well be the case for that peculiar plagiarist but I still like to draw my curtains at night.
Jon Aston
on January 11, 2010
at 09:11 PM
Report this commentWhat an idiot - Personally, I like my privacy. I don't want people knowing my personal information... If people know stuff it is because I want them to know it.


Grant
on January 11, 2010
at 07:02 PM
Report this commentGo analogue now before it's too late.
paulW
on January 11, 2010
at 06:05 PM
Report this commentAndy Warhol had it in a nutshell with his "famous for fifteen minutes" comment. Unfortunately people seem to think posting information on social networking web sites gives them this fame - that they have been published.
Bricktop
on January 11, 2010
at 05:52 PM
Report this commentMy boss says "If someone wants to know something, then I don't want to tell them".

It is OK to reveal anything you want on Facebook, as long as the important stuff is all lies.
Putin's private secretary
on January 11, 2010
at 05:51 PM
Report this commentTo support his opinion Mr Zuckerberg will no doubt be fitting CCTV all over his house and broadcasting the images 24x7 on the net.
Captain Sensible
on January 11, 2010
at 05:41 PM
Report this commentZuckerberg is so full of shit - and he says it all with a completely straight face...
algernon
on January 11, 2010
at 05:37 PM
Report this commentSocial networking sites are a real joke!

They are used by individuals (better known as sheep) who are so frightened they may be excluded by others they feel compelled to interact inanely and constantly. The fear of someone saying something about them, or not saying something is too great for them to overcome.

These poor individuals need to get a life outside of cyber space!
Mike
on January 11, 2010
at 05:32 PM
Report this commentI had this debate with my cousin regarding how I thought it was crazy that people would divulge so much of their private lives on sites like Facebook. Most people even 5 years ago would have been horrified at the mere thought of signing up to something like Facebook but the herd mentality has convinced them that it is OK. You can bet your last dollar that over the next few years people will upload more of their private lives without giving it a second thought. Corporations and especially the media will convince them that it is the norm.
jack
on January 11, 2010
at 05:08 PM
Report this commentWell since quite allot of people dont rly know how much info they actually give away it rly cant be a "social norm" can it?
I was speaking to my cousin, that i hardly see, on msn and then i searched for her on facebook using her email and it came up with her school and birthday which she didnt know people could see, see was asking how i knew...
There isnt enough privacy options on facebook for privacy to be a "social norm", since the last update even more privacy options have been taken away, THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED, i stopped using facebook because of the last privacy update
Walker
on January 11, 2010
at 04:36 PM
Report this commentFor this generation of technoaddicts he may be right.
But there`s nothing so boring as listening to someone`s life story, when, really, you only want everyone to be interested in you`re own!
Therein lies the myth of facebook "freinds".
Darius
on January 11, 2010
at 04:07 PM
Report this commentMark Zuckerbergs' claims spring from the orifices of his vested interests and bear no relationship to actuality or truth.

His statements simply further the self-interests of big-government, big-brother and big-business - all of which have a need to deny individual privacy which remains in this country at least, a Common Law Right and preserved in the British Constitution ( yes - it still exists and remains the Law of this land ).

Just imagine how much easier life would be for those who seek to rule by diktat if they could freely access ALL your "Private" information whilst denying YOU the right to see who it is that is accessing and using your data without your knowledge or permission !

Of course "if you have nothing to hide" - you have even more to fear - as Big Brother will never accept your disclosure status as being 'complete and clean' !

Need a replacement Birth Certificate ? - "Just fill in the attached 600 page 'Enquiry Form' attach a cheque for £250 pounds, and certified samples of your Blood ( DNA ) and full fingerprints, and allow two years for "Processing" ".

Ring any bells ?

TechnoRat
on January 11, 2010
at 03:59 PM
Report this commentSo I'm abnormal