Tuesday, June 26, 2012

We Know What You’re Doing: Website Exposes Facebook Stupidity


A new website "experiment," WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com, seeks to teach people why Facebook privacy settings matter.


For all the uproar you hear in the tech press about online privacy, it’s remarkable how many people violate their own privacies on a regular basis. And now a new website called “We Know What You’re Doing” seeks to expose just how foolish many people are about what they post publicly on the Web.
A brief look at We Know What You’re Doing (aka WKWYD), which was launched by 18-year-old British Web designer Callum Haywood, shows just how many absurd, ridiculous, and downright idiotic things people say — publicly — on Facebook.


The site uses Facebook’s Graph API, as well as publicly available Foursquare check-ins, to automatically generate streams of brainlessness, vitriol, and over-sharing from publicly available Facebook posts. These posts are categorized into four columns: Who wants to get fired? (people ranting about their job, bosses); Who’s hungover?; Who’s taking drugs?; and Who’s got a new phone number? Each post includes the user’s profile picture, and lists their first name and last initial. In other words, there’s nothing anonymous about this — that’s the point.


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