Evolution of Facebook privacy policies

There’s been a lot of hullabaloo about Facebook’s newly installed privacy policies. It started out very closed, to just university students, and has expanded its reach, especially over the past year, to the more public Web. Matt McKeon, of the Visual Communication Lab, explores Facebook’s privacy policies, from 2005 to present.

Rings represent the audience, starting with you in the middle all the way out to the entire Internet. Slices represent bits and interactions you have on Facebook. Click on the image to see how the policies changed over the years for each bit.

Finally, you can also download the code (in the implementation section), which was written in Processing.js. I think I’m noticing a trend. Check it out here.

[via Ben Fry]

8 Comments