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You’ve probably seen the deeply silly Randi Zuckerberg photo privacy story going around. But the lesson learned might be more about how little everyone knows about Facebook itself, like these goons on the USA’s Today show.
Here’s a clip from this morning’s Today show:
Just to really drive that home, here’s a partial transcript:
“Show of hands if you understand how the photo got onto Twitter. I don’t quite get it myself.”
“Well, apparently something, th— b— … privacy settings is the—the issue. You know, it’s created some confusion, but I guess the sister posted it, then it got—she thought she was posting it with the privacy setting, then it got published to like 40,000 people. It was sent out, somehow.”
“It was tweeted out.”
“It was tweeted out, yeah.”
So here’s the thing. It’s not a crime for people to not know how Facebook works. Lots of people don’t know what the hell Facebook does. But these dufuses are ostensibly reporting about Facebook privacy, which actually does concern people, yet clearly know nothing about it. And worse, they’re proud of that. While that likely puts them in company with their audience, the Today show being what it is, it’s also explicitly negligent. That audience is probably made up of exactly the kind of people who would actually benefit from being informed by people who know what they’re talking about. Instead, “privacy settings” is just brandied about as a scary buzzword, like when 60 Minutes decides to talk about “hacking.”
Is it the worst journalistic oversight/laziness in the world? No, not really. And it’s not like the daytime media’s ever really been informed. But it’s just staggering how aggressively you have to try to remain uninformed about something as simple and pervasive as Facebook, when occasionally talking about Facebook is part of your very visible job. Today’s host sums it up pretty well: “What’s the takeaway here? We don’t know either.” [MSNBC]
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Seriously, how do giz ‘journalists’ not know how the media works? I mean at the most basic level, like the distinction between a host and a reporter?
“these dufuses are ostensibly reporting about Facebook privacy”.
No, they are not reporting about anything. They are the hosts. Their job is to look pretty and say vacuous things. The audience – who would like to look pretty and thinks some pretty vacuous things – is supposed to identify with them. The reporter is the journalist who voices the clip, who may or may not know anything about Facebook. Got it?
did you get coal in your stocking or something? you are awfully aggressive over a pretty meh article.
Fair call. Still, when someone accuses others of not knowing that they’re talking about, they leave themselves wide open when they don’t know what they’re talking about.
I had a great Xmas, thanks, and an even better NYE.
I don’t see what’s wrong with not knowing exactly how nerdy Facebook social mobile sites work. I mean, I accidentally deleted the Internet Explorer icon from my desktop and my Internet was completely cut off!
Ive been tapping the mouse on the screen, but it still wont double click! (Friend of mine worked in tech support, and this really happened, he only worked it out because he could hear it against the old CRT)
Facebook piracy is actually easy, I don’t understand what people find difficult about it.
there are thee settings.
1) Friends only
2) Friends of friends
3) public
Friends only will only show your content to friends, that is it. if any of your friends are togged in your content, their friends can see this content as well but will not be able to comment or like the content.
Friends of friends allows your friends’ friends to see your content.
public means that any one who happens to be on your Facebook page can see all your content.
I am sure this info can be found by a quick Google search, I am not a Facebook addict but visited the privacy settings once and learnt all this info.
guessing you meant ‘privacy’ rather than ‘piracy’ unless you know something I don’t
I was going to say, I was wondering about pirates, galleons and rum on FB! Or was that just a Christmas party gone wrong?
woops I did mean Privacy, sorry all.
actually spelt most words wrong, sore throat and head ache is the cause!
If you have any doubt that the media doesn’t know what it’s talking about on any issue look no further than Peirs Morgan shooting his mouth off, disparately trying to keep his job in the states.
The Media will twist any story to try gain views, posts, views etc. Pretty much like this site…..
And in other news, that main image of the news anchor NEEDS a caption. My first reaction was “this is my happy face” but I’m sure people could do better.
“This is my poo face”
The author of this article is, in his own words, a dufus and a goon. On behalf of everyone who has not the time nor the poor self esteem to worry about living our lives through facebook, and being in the know of how every aspect of facebook works, I apologise. The people in the video are probably just too busy being successful and living their real lives (no, not their timelines, their REAL lives) to bother with a website that actually provides almost nothing useful.
Also, when it comes to the media reporting on things without having a clue what they are talking about, that’s just the media. Gizmodo does it every single day.