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Comment by unreal37 | Hacker News Reader

The sky is always falling to some people.

I love the new profile, and love the idea of timeline. I have wished for some time that I can easily go back in time and see what I posted 6 months ago, a year ago, 2 years ago..,. my life was so different then. Can't wait for this to be active.

If you add people as Facebook friends who you think "it would be creepy" if they know things about you from a year ago, that's your fault. You're using it wrong.

I put my friends into lists long ago, and don't share anything with people I only met once or twice. Facebook, keep going! This is awesome!

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It's not creepy to me, because Facebook is where I share only the Facebook part of my life. Occasional jocular insights and unusual occurrences, mobile photos of things I thought people I know might be amused by – it's not the story of my life by any means.

What is creepy, and perhaps more depressing than anything, is the idea of a Facebook timeline actually passing for the story of your life. When used to the extent pitched at F8, it becomes Cliff's Notes for a human relationship – instead of having known someone for seven years, you can just read their timeline and call it catching up.

I suppose a lot of people don't see this as a bad thing. I can't help but see it as a gradual cheapening and trivialization of the human experience.

This is a classic "get off my lawn"/"everything was better before" argument. There will always be time for real human interaction. To the extent that technology has changed the way we interact with other people, it has always been possible to go backwards and live the way you want. As an example, I prefer to live with housemates instead of living on my own, even though the latter is what society "expects" me to do in a time where most of us can afford to live in our own apartments.

There has always been criticism of new communications systems and claims that they will destroy normal human relationships. Things may change slightly, but in a free and democratic society you always have the option of going your own way. And unless your views are completely esoteric, there will be others who do the same. If your "friends" are happy with catching up by reading your Facebook profile, would you really get anything out of talking to them in the first place?

You are assuming that only people that you have friended will be able to see your stuff. How long before facebook changes their polices again, so that all information is viewable by default to the public? Or before they sell it all to markters? Or before another app developer finds an exploit in the API to let them access anyone's information? When beacon came out, the outcry was loud enough to make Facebook back off. But that doesn't mean they won't try something similarly bold again.

> Or before they sell it all to markters

They do this now...

No we don't.

So you're saying as an official comment from a Facebook employee that Facebook at no time sell personal data? Not even marketing profiles as composites? This is/would be big news to me.

In a way one could argue that allowing targeting of ads so tightly, using personal data, is commercial gain through that personal data. Not sure I'd personally push it that far though.

> So you're saying as an official comment from a Facebook employee...

I come to, and comment on, this site because I believe it is filled largely with people of an above-average sophistication when it comes to these kinds of issues. Don't make me reconsider with this kind of inanity.

I'm just trying to clarify - sorry if you think certainty is not sophisticated enough for you.

If you can't make the statement for legal reasons then say that. If you can't make the statement for other reasons say that. If you don't want to comment officially then say that. I don't think it's that inane - either they (you) do sell data or don't; just strikes me that if you can't make such a statement officially then you're not likely in a position to really know if it's true or not.

TBH I'd just assumed that FB do sell such data, to know that they don't sell any personal data (as I indicated) is a big result IMO and one that I don't feel I've seen championed. Pretty much I assume any website with a large subscriber base sells such data unless they explicitly tell me they don't; even then I'm rarely convinced.

No I am not assuming anything - I am speaking about the way privacy currently works on FB. You are assuming that at some point in the future FB will change their privacy settings and everyone can see your posts. In which case, FB may not be for you.

As a sci fi geek I like to imagine that these new technologies will propel us into to a world where there are those that share everything, and those who live completely anonymously. A polarization of introverts and extroverts.

One group of people who automatically share everything they do on the internet and write status updates for every emotion or thought the have.

The other group of people a mysterious, silent, black hole to the advertisers and others who seek to profit from knowing our activities.

Currently playing about with the timeline, I can't see any easy way to choose which list sees your past posts, unless you want to manually go through every single one and change it.

True, that would be a great feature to have as I mentioned in another thread post, you can _at least_ set any public posts you made to friends only. In privacy settings > Limit the Audience for Past Posts http://cl.ly/AMpv

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