The New (Non)Privacy Policy
I just read teh policy, after alerts from housepet and wild_irises. I haven't even tried to wade through 140+ pages of comments (LJ got 2000 comments/day until they maxed out at the 10,000 comment limit). But I just have to ask a question of the folks doing the programming at LJ:
What in the name of all that's reasonable were you thinking??
Seriously, it appears as though someone in the office really thought one day, "Gee, it would be great if people who comment on my FRIENDS ONLY posts could crosspost their comments to their own Facebook feeds without my permission. Let's make that happen." What the hell? Did someone just forget what "Friends Only" means?
My first thought was that this had to be some kind of mistake - I mean clearly it was SOME kind of mistake, but I thought it must have been the "We didn't plan for it to do this" sort, or the "Someone has misunderstood what this feature does" sort of mistake. I didn't think it could really be the "We did this stupid thing on purpose" kind of mistake. But indeed it does seem to have been that sort of mistake. The announcement proudly declares:
If you set your default to cross-post comments, ALL of your comments, including screened and Friends Only comments, can be cross-posted whenever you choose. Only public comments, however, will be preselected to cross-post. If you wish to cross-post a Friends Only or screened comment, you will need to select the cross-posting option manually when you post the comment.
Not only did you do it on purpose, you seriously thought that it was a feature, and not a massive bug. How?
To be sure, there has been some backtracking. The "update" to the announcement claims, "We understand and appreciate your desire for privacy. We share your concerns. Most of us would not want to publish our LiveJournal usernames or FO comments to Facebook or Twitter either..."
But, guys, if you wouldn't want to do that then why did you deliberately set your system up to make it possible?
What in the name of all that's reasonable were you thinking??
Seriously, it appears as though someone in the office really thought one day, "Gee, it would be great if people who comment on my FRIENDS ONLY posts could crosspost their comments to their own Facebook feeds without my permission. Let's make that happen." What the hell? Did someone just forget what "Friends Only" means?
My first thought was that this had to be some kind of mistake - I mean clearly it was SOME kind of mistake, but I thought it must have been the "We didn't plan for it to do this" sort, or the "Someone has misunderstood what this feature does" sort of mistake. I didn't think it could really be the "We did this stupid thing on purpose" kind of mistake. But indeed it does seem to have been that sort of mistake. The announcement proudly declares:
If you set your default to cross-post comments, ALL of your comments, including screened and Friends Only comments, can be cross-posted whenever you choose. Only public comments, however, will be preselected to cross-post. If you wish to cross-post a Friends Only or screened comment, you will need to select the cross-posting option manually when you post the comment.
Not only did you do it on purpose, you seriously thought that it was a feature, and not a massive bug. How?
To be sure, there has been some backtracking. The "update" to the announcement claims, "We understand and appreciate your desire for privacy. We share your concerns. Most of us would not want to publish our LiveJournal usernames or FO comments to Facebook or Twitter either..."
But, guys, if you wouldn't want to do that then why did you deliberately set your system up to make it possible?