Here, Facebook, Zuckerberg, listen up.
I’m angry. And it’s your fault.
I know how this game works. I sign up. You collect as much data on me as you can possibly get your money-filled hands on and then use that to sell access to me and my mates to advertisers.
Then you give me the option to choose exactly what updates I see from each of my friends so it seems like it's actually for my benefit that you're making all these changes.
I get that. Welcome to 21st Century internet, please leave your privacy at the door. I’m not totally cool with it but I don’t lose sleep over it.
And I’m still a Facebook user so I obviously don’t have too much of a problem with it.
But where I do have a problem, Mr. Zee, is when you make me miss out on cool shit. Cool shit like this:
I don't understand exactly how you’re doing it but you’re only showing me the things YOU think I’LL be interested in.
How do you know what I’m interested in? All your delicious data tells you everything you need to know about what I like, doesn't it?
Sure it does.
My brother posted that video by funny Ozzie Tim Minchin to Facebook a few days ago. It didn’t appear in my timeline because I’m automatically subscribed to most of his updates instead of all of them. Facebook decided that this was one I wouldn’t like so it kept it hidden from me (or maybe they decided I’d be offended by the repeated use of the most vulgar of words – boobies). When my brother asked had I seen it I went to find it on his page – no sign of it. So I signed out, my brother signed in and lo and behold the video was there.
Back the truck up a bit. Now you’re not even showing me everything on someone’s own profile page? What the hell is going on here? What's the point in posting anything if you get to decide who sees it and who doesn't? Are you only showing me what you think I’ll like or are you only showing me what you want me to like?
The thing is Mark (do you mind if I call you Mark? Mr. Zuckerberg is so formal), you can gather all the data you want on someone but it’s very bloody difficult to predict what they’re gonna like and not like. Start doing that and you might start pissing people off. Sometimes we only know what we do or don't like after we've seen it.
If I'm friends with someone I generally have something in common with them and want to see what they share. If I don't like it I'll unfriend them or else I'll comment and tell them that their tastes are far inferior to mine could they please stop wasting my time with mindless links and updates.
I don't need you to do it for me.
I know, I know. I can go and change the settings for each of my friends so that I see ALL of their updates instead of just MOST, but why make it so complicated? How about you just let me choose who to be friends with and who not to?
The thing is, you're hiding genuinely funny and interesting content from me (there were about four other posts on my brother's wall that were hidden to me) but I'm still seeing all those stupid posts about how someone had cold beans for dinner or how someone’s cat just winked at their frog and the frog smiled back.
You're doing a job I don't want you to do and you're not even doing it well.
Jeez, I’m a hard man to please, eh?
