Facebook’s Mea Culpa and New Privacy Policy

Kids asked for more privacy and Facebook gave it to them. Who would have believe that six months ago!

Published: September, 2006

Score points for Facebook for listening to their community and acting quickly. No sooner had I posted my thoughts on Facebook’s new tool for notifying friends about changes in each other’s profiles. (Dory Devlin gave her perspective as well ) when I received word that Facebook had modified the tool, offering more privacy controls.

In his blog, Mark Zuckerberg, creator of the site, gave an honest and passionate explanation to

Facebook users who felt Facebook had betrayed their trust with the news feed feature.

He said, “Somehow we missed this point with Feed and we didn’t build in the proper privacy controls right away. This was a big mistake on our part, and I’m sorry for it. But apologizing isn’t enough. I wanted to make sure we did something about it, and quickly. So we have been coding nonstop for two days to get you better privacy controls. This new privacy page will allow you to choose which types of stories go into your Mini-Feed and your friends’ News Feeds, and it also lists the type of actions Facebook will never let any other person know about. If you have more comments, please send them over.”

As a parent who’s watched Facebook since it was born, I’m a proud onlooker at how this situation played out. First of all, Facebook rallied to show that they’re not asleep at the wheel about their privacy. Hooray for you, kids! Second, Facebook showed that they listen and learn. What more could you ask for as a parent?