For Zuckerbergs, Facebook Privacy is Complicated

By Gilbert Falso :: 2:48 PM

The Zuckerberg family discovered that Facebook privacy settings can be confusing and complicated last night, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s sister Randi accidentally had a personal family photo leaked.

The photo showed the Zuckerberg family using Facebook’s new Snapchat-like Poke application on their phones around the kitchen island, and was posted on Randi’s Facebook page. However, because Randi also tagged other people in the photo, including another Zuckerberg sister, the photo ended up in News streams of the other sister’s friends, where it was spotted by The Verge’s Callie Schweitzer.

Schweitzer innocently posted it to her Twitter feed, thinking it had appeared on the public newsfeed of Randi Zuckerberg, a newsfeed that Schweitzer subscribes to, and thus assumed the photo was more public in nature. Randi quickly attacked Schweitzer for outing what she considered to be a private family moment.

On Twitter, Schweitzer explained why she posted it, Tweeting, “I thought the photo was incredibly endearing which is why I liked it. We never see humans on the Internet!”

Randi most likely drew more attention to the picture by publicly attacking Schweitzer for the photo gaffe than if she had just ignored it. It doesn’t seem like Schweitzer was in the wrong in this case.

The botom line out of this fray is that Facebook privacy settings and controls remain incredibly confusing, especially if the CEO’s sister (who is a former Facebook employee herself!) doesn’t understand them, and can’t comprehend why a “private” photo suddenly turned public.

Below – The Zuckerberg’s play with Facebook’s new Poke application. Link goes to larger BuzzFeed version.