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Early FB users demanded privacy but _actually_ wanted an information asymmetry over their friends. Each user wants both…

🔐 Control over how they specifically are perceived. "Who can see what?"
🕵️ Power to internet stalk their friends way more than they'd ever admit
Facebook's user need doublethink (privacy, but also voyeurism) translates into a similar product subtext: feel private, but actually minimize user-on-user privacy while providing plausible deniability. Quell outrage with opt-in privacy tools, but default everyone into no privacy
2006 Facebook employees could view anyone's profile + see stats like who viewed their profile

Q. How do you create a company culture that embraces FB's privacy-voyeurism user doublethink?
A. Let employees be God-tier voyeurs. Indulge their desires. Let em see user's true nature
2009 HBR case study: 70% social networks = viewing pics / profiles. Breakdown (largest % first):

• Men looking at women they don't know
• Men → women they do
• Women → women they know

"Overall, women receive two-thirds of all page views." 😳 hbswk.hbs.edu/item/understan…
Hypothetical: Imagine an alt universe where FB's founder took privacy seriously. All else is equal.

Product decision: By default, can users view pics of friends-of-friends? Effectively, can dudes stalk pics of women they don't know?

Choose wisely. Huge impact on engagement!
Hypothetical #2: Imagine a world w/ a less arrogant Zuck who viewed FaceMash (viral Harvard student hot-or-not, publicly denounced) as crossing the line.

FB knew people were freaked out by the news feed. Tons of outrage post-launch. What would well-adjusted Zuck have done?
Many success stories have uncomfortable truths buried in their origin. We reduce them to factoids. Haters use them as weapons. Our _serious_ mental models forget them.

Forgetting taboo makes us all less effective. I'll be writing about this, starting with Facebook. Stay tuned!
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