Any longtime readers of this blog know I have little love for Facebook. However, I realize it is sometimes a necessary evil on the Web. Perhaps the day is coming when that won’t be true, but for now, we’re stuck with it. And if you’re on FB and have not checked out the new Timeline, you need to do it before it’s thrust on you next week. Yep, FB is once again making a major change which compromises privacy. Aren’t you weary of this? I am and was a long time ago. When I heard about this on Mashable yesterday, I groaned and decided I wasn’t even going to talk about it. But a FB post from Grati prompted me to say something.
In my original daft of this post, I started listing the issues with the new timeline and became so irritated, I chucked it. I’m going to cheat and let someone else tell you about it:
Facebook Timeline mandatory rollout: You have 7 days to scour your past
By Mike Wehner, Tecca | Today in Tech – 21 hrs ago
The time to edit your online persona is nowFacebook is the virtual home to more than 800 million active users, so any change to how the network operates is a big deal. And nothing could be bigger for the social hotspot than completely revamping everyone’s front-facing profile page, and that is exactly what is happening today. Starting this morning, the new Timeline feature — that up until now has been an optional switch — is now mandatory.
The Timeline differs from the default profile pages we know and love in several ways. Now, rather than showcasing only your most recent posts, your personal front page can be scrolled back months or years at a time. Most importantly, this change can offer visitors a glimpse at your entire social networking past, all the way back to the day that you joined up. The revamp can be both a blessing and a curse for seasoned social networkers, as it can produce a bit of pleasant nostalgia, but also drag up some of your less proud public moments.
Left untouched, your Timeline may remind of you of breakups, job troubles, or even a few unfortunate party photos that you have long since buried. Depending on your settings, these black marks on your digital past could allow new followers — including friends or business associates — to see a side of you that was better kept tucked away.
Read the rest here
Isn’t Facebook fun? But hey, if you really want some of the old stuff back, there is almost always a way. If you read that link and say, “But Frenz, I use Internet Explorer?!!” we need to talk.
Of course the usual comments will be made, “you shouldn’t have posted there in the first place,” “or I don’t use Facebook [with the implication being how smart they were to avoid it in the first place]“. No offense to those potential commenters, but this post is not for you, and those kinds of comments do nothing to repair someone’s timeline. Although I heartily agree with you, and it should be common sense by now that anything posted on the Web (no matter how secure it supposedly may be) is subject to being publicized. If someone doesn’t agree with this, you need to know that Mark Zuckerberg considers the age of privacy over (interesting how the video where he said that is no longer).
Do you think this might be one very good reason Richard Armitage has avoided social media? Smart boy.
