^^ Not at all, Alpha Romeo, this has only just begun. FB's categorical denial is the position of a lawyer, the fact is these messages were written privately, it is FB's categorizing them as public to save face is the big problem. The media outlets, for now, seem to accept this story.
"Private messages" vs. "Messages sent in private"
I believe this article best explains what happened:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/tech...are-also-its-biggest-weakness/article4567358/
Here's an excerpt:
"This week, the world’s most popular social network faced a small revolt from some users who complained Facebook had suddenly made some of their old private messages public. According to myriad complaints on Twitter and other sites, Facebook users believed the new Timeline feature – which lists a user’s public interactions on one page dating back to whenever they joined the network – now included direct messages that were initially sent in private. Facebook has slowly been replacing the traditional Facebook wall with the Timeline feature over the past few months.
Consider the implications of what seems to have happened here: A significantly large number of users saw their messages from a few years ago in the new Timeline format – messages that were posted, relatively publicly, on their friends’ and their own Facebook walls – and couldn’t believe that there was a time when they would have posted such things publicly. Instead, these users thought, the messages must have always been private correspondence, and it must be Facebook that screwed up and made them public.
Even after Facebook issued a categorical denial, plenty of users were still swearing up and down that their previously private messages had erroneously been made public. This means one of two things: either Facebook did indeed mess up and is denying it anyway (which is possible), or a lot of users have become so much more cautious with their privacy settings over these past few years that they can’t even fathom they ever made these kind of messages public in the first place.
If that latter scenario is true, it should scare every Facebook executive and investor."
It won't be long until someone digs up a old smack-talking private-made-public email about co-workers or the like and it'll be fodder for litigation. I have read some really squirmy-uncomfortable ones while digging for my own... an unpleasant practice because it involves seeing many messages not intended for public view. A longtime couple very close to me (who aren't really at all publicly affectionate towards each other) - I saw a couple of sappy postings between them that felt very out of character. Because they were written privately. And that's where the skin crawls over this whole stink.
It takes some digging to find these kinds of posts... they're not terribly easy to find, but they are there. And I really feel this story hasn't really even started yet.
"Private messages" vs. "Messages sent in private"
I believe this article best explains what happened:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/tech...are-also-its-biggest-weakness/article4567358/
Here's an excerpt:
"This week, the world’s most popular social network faced a small revolt from some users who complained Facebook had suddenly made some of their old private messages public. According to myriad complaints on Twitter and other sites, Facebook users believed the new Timeline feature – which lists a user’s public interactions on one page dating back to whenever they joined the network – now included direct messages that were initially sent in private. Facebook has slowly been replacing the traditional Facebook wall with the Timeline feature over the past few months.
Consider the implications of what seems to have happened here: A significantly large number of users saw their messages from a few years ago in the new Timeline format – messages that were posted, relatively publicly, on their friends’ and their own Facebook walls – and couldn’t believe that there was a time when they would have posted such things publicly. Instead, these users thought, the messages must have always been private correspondence, and it must be Facebook that screwed up and made them public.
Even after Facebook issued a categorical denial, plenty of users were still swearing up and down that their previously private messages had erroneously been made public. This means one of two things: either Facebook did indeed mess up and is denying it anyway (which is possible), or a lot of users have become so much more cautious with their privacy settings over these past few years that they can’t even fathom they ever made these kind of messages public in the first place.
If that latter scenario is true, it should scare every Facebook executive and investor."
It won't be long until someone digs up a old smack-talking private-made-public email about co-workers or the like and it'll be fodder for litigation. I have read some really squirmy-uncomfortable ones while digging for my own... an unpleasant practice because it involves seeing many messages not intended for public view. A longtime couple very close to me (who aren't really at all publicly affectionate towards each other) - I saw a couple of sappy postings between them that felt very out of character. Because they were written privately. And that's where the skin crawls over this whole stink.
It takes some digging to find these kinds of posts... they're not terribly easy to find, but they are there. And I really feel this story hasn't really even started yet.
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