Complicated Privacy Policy Bites Former Facebook Marketing Director Zuckerberg

In an exchange captured by Buzzfeed, Mark Zuckerberg’s sister and former marketing director Randi Zuckerberg posted a candid family photo on Facebook about “the family’s reaction to the site’s new ‘Poke’ app.”

Vox Media’s Callie Schweitzer saw the photo in her Facebook newsfeed and tweeted it. Zuckerberg objected.

@randizuckerberg I’m just your subscriber and this was top of my newsfeed. Genuinely sorry but it came up in my feed and seemed public.

— Callie Schweitzer (@cschweitz) December 26, 2012

Subsequently, the two had an extended conversation on Twitter … Schweitzer deleted the tweet with the photo and Zuckerberg deleted all of her tweets in the conversation.

How did Schweitzer see the photo? She’s a friend of Zuckerberg’s sister (is the hypothesis). When Zuckerberg tagged her sister in the photo, her sister’s friends got to see it.

I bring this to your attention for a few reasons.

First, Facebook’s privacy policy is not only complicated, it is designed to push information sharing. If you don’t want information to make it to the outside world, don’t share it on Facebook. If you share it anyway, to do so “safely” you would tneed to know the sharing settings — and friends — of everyone you share it with and tag.

Second, I think Zuckerberg’s decision to delete the tweets was shortsighted and wrong, especially given the attention on the Facebook “Poke” app. What was that

Third, screen captures are your friend, whether or not you’re getting “poked.”