Welcome to Facebook.
Texas State University
October 17, 2006
What is our idea of Facebook?
Facebook is a social utility that allows people to share
information with their real world community
What is important to us:
– User Control: people should have control over their information
– Authenticity: ability to interact with others as themselves
– Accessibility: Facebook is becoming part of peoples’ daily lives
Mission:
Provide people with the information that matters to them
most
How does it work?
• Users are strongly encouraged to validate identity
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College: school issued .edu email address
High School: school issued email address or invited by validated member
Work Networks: company or organization issued .com/.net/.org
Regional Networks: unaffiliated users have special rules restricting
connections and are strongly pushed to validate into communities
• Nearly all users join a primary community
• College, high school, company or organization
• Profile views are by default restricted to those within validated
communities
• Facebook Groups & Events provide additional affinities
• Facebook is a core part of millions of young peoples’ lives
• Authentication and connection with real world community leads to deeper
bonds and trust
Four Levels of Protection
• Authentication:
• Strong promotion of validated email addresses/invitation system means
reasonable confirmation of membership in particular communities and
connection to real identity
• Retains social norms and fosters sense of accountability, deterring misuse
• Segmented Communities
• Validation in communities lets users easily identify who doesn’t belong
• Built-in Neighborhood Watch
• Innovative Privacy Controls & Technical Protections
• Users have extensive power to decide who can see their profile
• Facebook technical protections constantly measuring anomalous usage
• Outstanding Customer Service
• 30+ experts on the site (recent college graduates) headed by the former
worldwide director of customer support for Palm Computing
• Specialized investigations staff within Customer Service
• Work directly with law enforcement on rare problems and require proper
legal process for all information inquiries
How do you use Facebook responsibly?
• Don’t post anything that you don’t want someone to know
• The universe of who might see your information, even though
constrained by network and Facebook privacy controls, may be
broader than you want.
• That being said, Facebook is different from most networking sites
in that there are default controls on who can see your information.
• Add friends responsibly
• Information sharing is about reflecting and building trust.
• Use your My Privacy settings to reflect your comfort level
• Facebook is the industry leader in providing you control over who
sees your information. Use our tools.
• For more information view our recent collaboration with the
Ontario, Canada Information Privacy Commissioner at
http://www.ipc.on.ca/docs/facebook-ipc.pdf
What is your idea of Facebook?
• Facebook listens extensively to its user base
• Feed update happened within 72 hours of launch.
• Implementation of additional search privacy preceded launch of
expanded registration because of user suggestions.
• Future directions are regularly drawn from the suggestion
queue (and some product visionaries on staff)
• Use your voice!