It’s a bad day for the World’s #1 Website – it turns out that Facebook has been hemorrhaging personal data through third party apps.
The cynical reaction to this might be to blame the Facebook users – after all, if you join a website built to share personal information, then you will wind up sharing personal information. The analytical reaction might be to ask what harm was done – after all, the people harvesting Facebook info are really just trying to serve you ads that you will be interested in so that you will click on them and be introduced to a product/service/organization/cause/candidate you like.
Then there’s the reality-based reaction. And in reality, people who took all the steps Facebook prescribed for protecting private data still had their information out there.
And following that line of reality-based logic, it means changes for Facebook – changes which could range from fixing the glitch and letting everything else well enough alone to renovating how your Facebook account interacts with apps.
In other words, any organization with a Facebook presence should keep their eyes open for the next few weeks and months – and be ready in case they need to make any changes to keep interacting with their followers.
Jim Eltringham 