What becomes of Facebook when people start to value privacy?
From: engadget
We’ve learned to protect our online image, but that’s inconvenient for a site that wants every gory detail of our lives.
Facebook’s role in the world has changed though I didn’t expect to have an epiphany about that while sitting in the pews of a drafty, 11th-century church. It was at a wedding earlier this month, and the program handed out bore a disclaimer that would have been mystifying a few years ago. “Roger and Stephanie* would like to request that guests DO NOT post any photos of the ceremony, or share anything to social media relating to the day.” Instead of wanting to broadcast their special moments to the world, they were actively asking people to do the opposite. The truth is that Facebook was designed for people to spill their guts, but now more people are deciding that their privacy is more important.
Facebook is rumored to be having a crisis behind the scenes, centered around something called “original sharing.” It’s the technical term for the sort of personal, from-the-heart updates that people make about their own lives. For instance, a piece of original sharing content would be a written status update, a selfie or a video of a newborn puppy doing a trick. But people haven’t been posting these as frequently, at least according to a detailed report published by The Information earlier this month. The news site claims to have seen confidential documents showing a 21 percent drop in original sharing over the last year.
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