In the context of Facebook they are absurd, but your claim was about society at large, not Facebook.
> In the context of things people typically share on Facebook, public-by-default is perfectly appropriate.
The problem is changing from private-by-default to public-by-default and forcing people to opt-out. Facebook is effectively making the decision about what individuals share using a bait-and-switch.
Put another way, it's grow on the backs of their users, then screw them.
> Out of all the things people share on Facebook, a small fraction of posts actually need to be private in the eyes of their authors.
You mean, in your eyes a small fraction of your posts actually need to be private.
[1] http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/12/how-to-use-facebooks-new-...
> You mean, in your eyes a small fraction of your posts actually need to be private.
That's not what I meant at all. Choose a random Facebook friend who doesn't share posts with everyone. Pick a random post. Ask if she would mind if it were made public. I think the vast majority of the time, the author won't mind. Add that to the people who already share their posts with everyone and don't care.
Myspace was public by default. Twitter is public by default. The general public values privacy less than you do, and in my opinion, rightly so.
That's the point - "your" = "Facebook". Their desired behavior (most data is public) doesn't serve their users' needs. This is one of the key reasons there's such a hue and cry about this - they haven't been able to justify why having this data public is better for their users.
> given the clarity of Facebook's presentation of the options during the transition
Clarity? Much of this thread is about how poorly Facebook educated its users on what impact its new privacy settings would actually have. Clear as mud, maybe...
> That's not what I meant at all. Choose a random Facebook friend who doesn't share posts with everyone. Pick a random post. Ask if she would mind if it were made public.
Opinion. We're talking about who makes the decisions about what's "public", where "public" is defined as "available to anybody, searchable by anybody in the world, and archived forever and ever, amen".
> Myspace was public by default. Twitter is public by default.
That's my point. They were always public by default. Facebook wasn't, and went public without asking users to opt-in. That's a bait and switch.
> The general public values privacy less than you do
Source?
I believe the general public doesn't understand the value of privacy online until it blows up in her face.
Yes.
I share some of those things you mentioned, and I think our society would be better off if it were more acceptable to do so. However, those are absurd examples to bring up in this discussion. Few shared those things on Facebook even when it was friends-only. In the context of things people typically share on Facebook, public-by-default is perfectly appropriate.
Even if people did share those things privately on Facebook, we're talking about defaults. Out of all the things people share on Facebook, a small fraction of posts actually need to be private in the eyes of their authors. The default settings should reflect that, and people should restrict privacy when they need to.
"...recognize that the decision to share that information belongs to the individual, not anybody else."
No one has suggested otherwise.