I’ve heard of Facebook getting people in trouble for the stupid stuff that’s on their page. Most of the time, it’s the people’s own fault. College admissions officers denying students acceptance because of inappropriate pictures. Supervisors firing employees over evidence of sick days spent in good health. Prospective bosses not liking “boobs” listed as an interest. However, it appears Facebook’s new settings can get you in trouble even without you even doing something stupid.

I started a new job on Monday, and have been consequently avoiding Facebook; I logged on tonight to change my work information and maybe friend some of my new coworkers. However, I accidentally activated the horrid new feature that links to things. My first activity, the highlighted one: “graffiti.”

Clearly, it had parsed some word or phrase incorrectly– I don’t go around tagging buildings, and it seems obvious to me that I do not support defacing property with spray paint. But it may not be obvious to others. My new boss is a social media guy– what if he had viewed my profile and passed judgment on me without my realizing? Because when Facebook made my #1 activity graffiti, they also removed my privacy settings so that everyone could see my interests.

This is what happens when you take the social out of social media and let the machines do the thinking. The functions of a well-designed website are never so poorly hidden– such as how to undo the linking– that they hinder the user’s ability to actually use the site. However, Facebook doesn’t care. Their customer service is notoriously poor, and it can afford to be– we are going to tolerate a lot of crap from Facebook because it is so ingrained in our lives. However, on a site any smaller than Facebook, this sort of authoritarianism would not be tolerated.

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