The chef's blog

Power to the people - virtually?

facebook, the warrior of web2 and one of the world’s largest social networking sites, is on a mission to restore its credentials  by giving a whole new meaning to the web2 roots it originated from.

In an unprecedented move (in the internet world terms), its owner Mark Zuckerberg told users last week that from 9 December, they will be responsible for their privacy policy settings. This means that users will be able to select exactly what content they want to be seen by whom (friends, friends of friends, or everyone).  facebook offer a transition tool to make the process easy for its members.

The move follows facebook’s controversial handling of users’ personal data earlier this summer – which was met with an outcry from many of its 320 million members and led facebook to better privacy policy transparency, and allowing users to deactivate their accounts.

The recent move has to be lauded as a further step towards the democratic-web ideals facebook stands for.  The raised expectations of a brand’s honesty and transparency and the powers it gives to the consumer are far and many and cannot be ignored by any self-respecting brand.