[Infographic]: A Short History of Facebook’s Privacy Failures

A lot of the people who claim that Online Privacy is dead point to Facebook as an example. After all, Zuckerberg and his boys haven’t exactly proven adept at handling the personal information of other people with a great deal of integrity. Facebook’s got a long, colored history of privacy failures under its belt; one which seems to become more colorful with each passing day.

They’re not all that great at being personable, ironically enough.

Of course, most Facebook users are more concerned about changes to the interface than they are with where their personal information’s going. Hey, everyone’s gotta have their priorities, right? Some people care about privacy; others care about chatting and playing Farmville. Not that I’m knocking Facebook here; more just poking some fun at it.

It is, after all, as difficult to get by without Facebook as it is to get by without a mobile phone. Some people still manage to pull it off, but for the rest of us; it’s become an integral part of our day to day life. Its integration into our personal lives is such that a few more extreme psychologists (and employers) have, in a rather ham-handed fashion; claimed that anyone not using the social network must be a psychopath of some kind (the fact that excessive Facebook use has been linked to narcissism notwithstanding). At the very least, they must be hiding something, right?

But we’re getting off track. Today, we’ve got a rather embarrassing little infographic, which chronicles Facebook’s privacy failings, flubs, cock-ups, and head-scratchers. From the recent Instagram scandal to the abomination that is Timeline all the way back to accidentally resetting people’s privacy settings, Facebook’s made some pretty big goofs over the years – ones which are thrown into stark perspective when you look at them side by side.

Coincidentally, the infographic also reports that Facebook is in the bottom out of 230 companies ranked in a Huffington Post Customer Satisfaction Survey. Reasons cited included privacy concerns, a constantly changing product, and large amounts of irrelevant advertising.

Anyway, the infographic is below. Click for a larger version, as always.