Death of the Network

When I logged onto my Facebook account this morning I noticed a message from founder Mark Zuckerberg above my news feed. Because of its prominent placement, I decided to see what the 'open letter' had to say. In the letter, Zuckerberg acknowledges the ever growing and changing population of Facebook. In order to comply with the needs and privacy desires of this population, Zuckerberg has decided to carry out a number of changes with the site.

Zuckerberg first acknowledges the shift the site has seen in its population from being dominated by students to a population now encompassing many different demographics. When the site was first created it was used primarily students. Its division by 'networks' (i.e. Harvard or Stanford) was useful to users who wanted to share their profile, information, and pictures with those in their network, under the notion that they would be familiar with this relatively small group of people. The group was comprised of only other users with an email address from that institution to ensure the composition of the network.

As Facebook grew and users who were not students started becoming more and more relevant, regional networks started popping up so that these new users could also join a network, but one determined by their location rather than their learning institution. As time went by and Facebook continued to expand these networks became larger and larger and their purpose in terms of privacy became worthless. Networks like New York City contained hundreds of thousands of users. Many users would leave their profile, information and pictures open to their entire network, creating many privacy issues.

Facebook is now in the process of dismembering most of its large regional networks while at the same time adding more privacy settings so that users have even more control over the information they share with friends and others. Networks like New York City have already been taken down. As these networks are being removed, groups are being created to serve similar purposes as the regional networks once did, purposes that some users still enjoyed. This indicates that this removal of regional networks is not being welcomed with open arms by all Facebook users.

Facebook is taking a strong stance on the issue of privacy as it becomes more and more relevant with its continuously growing and changing population. If Facebook continues to grow it will be interesting to observe the other changes they enforce to conform with the wishes of its new members.