Lately I’ve been very surprised at the number of people who are sharing with the “public” setting on Facebook. I personally share a lot with the world (subscribe here!), which is a conscious choice I made years ago and have rarely regretted since. But along the way, I’ve seen a lot of outbursts by friends and colleagues how Facebook is exposing personal information in a way that violates their privacy.
I’ve always disagreed, arguing that if you don’t want people to see something, don’t put it online, and that while the privacy settings on Facebook aren’t the most intuitive, they do work. I’ve gotten burned a few times when I haven’t followed my own good advice, but for the most part those two rules have held true for me.
With all that in mind, it’s surprising to me the amount that I see the “globe” icon (indicating a post is visible to everyone) appear in my news feed. I’m inclined to think it’s user error and not intentional. Thoughts?
Greg Palmer 
I agree. I think it’s user error and unintentional. Most things I post on FB I have no problem with being public to anyone. But I remember the day I realized that though I have particular privacy settings established for FB, when I saw that little globe, ie that what I was about to post would be wide open to the public – I remember realizing – well well, interesting that that is a default and not a choice – especially given my particular privacy settings on Facebook. But as I said above, what I post is usually not something I want/need to remain “private” so I kind of forgot about it.
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