Facebook's user need doublethink (privacy, but also voyeurism) translates into a similar product subtext: feel private, but actually minimize user-on-user privacy while providing plausible deniability. Quell outrage with opt-in privacy tools, but default everyone into no privacy
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2006 Facebook employees could view anyone's profile + see stats like who viewed their profile Q. How do you create a company culture that embraces FB's privacy-voyeurism user doublethink? A. Let employees be God-tier voyeurs. Indulge their desires. Let em see user's true naturepic.twitter.com/oe58aOyvdE
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2009 HBR case study: 70% social networks = viewing pics / profiles. Breakdown (largest % first): • Men looking at women they don't know • Men → women they do • Women → women they know "Overall, women receive two-thirds of all page views."
https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/understanding-users-of-social-networks …pic.twitter.com/WIBFqNAEvU
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Hypothetical: Imagine an alt universe where FB's founder took privacy seriously. All else is equal. Product decision: By default, can users view pics of friends-of-friends? Effectively, can dudes stalk pics of women they don't know? Choose wisely. Huge impact on engagement!
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Hypothetical #2: Imagine a world w/ a less arrogant Zuck who viewed FaceMash (viral Harvard student hot-or-not, publicly denounced) as crossing the line. FB knew people were freaked out by the news feed. Tons of outrage post-launch. What would well-adjusted Zuck have done?pic.twitter.com/7rzaZTSk5z
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Many success stories have uncomfortable truths buried in their origin. We reduce them to factoids. Haters use them as weapons. Our _serious_ mental models forget them. Forgetting taboo makes us all less effective. I'll be writing about this, starting with Facebook. Stay tuned!
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They wanted information.. Symmetry, right?
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Nah. For example, Alice wants Bob to only know what she wants Bob to know but Alice would also like to learn a bit more about Bob than Bob may want her to know.
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Yup. Understanding the doublethink is critical to understanding Facebook’s product success though
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Interesting thread and wasn’t aware of this background. I remember when gaming the ‘message read’ feature was the casual assym play
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all I remember about early FB is you used to be able to search for Male Interested In: Men in like 2007 and then suddenly you couldn't and I got a lot less embarrassing
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There's a similar phenomenon in regards to Linkedin stalking, no?
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Control over how they specifically are perceived. "Who can see what?"
Power to internet stalk their friends way more than they'd ever admit