Facebook’s new privacy policy has been met with a fair degree of hostility, and rightly so. The changes are clearly designed to encourage users to open up more of their updates to the wider world.
So why the change?
Simple. Facebook is worried. It’s worried about the rise of Twitter and, in particular, it is worried about the impact that the recent addition of real-time results to Google searches.
As I’ve said already, the Google changes have the potential to have a big impact on the popularity of Twitter as Twitter updates are put front of mind for the general internet public in millions of searches.
This is a problem for Facebook, because by default, activity by their users is private and shielded from the search engines.
The dangers for Facebook
But the one thing that is worrying for Facebook is the thing that it’s users like and enjoy about the service. It’s the reason why so many of them prefer Facebook to Twitter, or at least use it in very different ways.
I use both services, but I wouldn’t share or reveal the sorts of things I reveal on Facebook on Twitter. I like that and it allows me to use the services in specific ways for certain audiences.
Facebook’s move potentially changes this and I wonder if it is in danger of diluting the key foundations of what it stands for and what it’s users want.
