I’ve had 3 Facebook accounts. As I write this, I only have one active account remaining – and it’s hanging by a thread. I’ve started, built, activated, deactivated, and deleted multiple Facebook “pages” for businesses or the like. I had a MySpace account before anyone around me did. I was a little later to the show with Facebook. Currently, I use Twitter to connect to everything in my social media world, including Facebook – but more on that later.
Facebook and I have never really had a good relationship. It never was bad, per say, but it never was good. It was a lot like that person you dated because it was convenient to do so. The relationship was nothing special, but until something better came along, there was no really good reason to end it either.
When Facebook showed up, shortly after MySpace became the craze, I was leery. The elitist attitude that boldly proclaimed, “you can’t join our network unless you are a part of this group or that group,” was not one that I really took fondly to. I was a part of multiple social circles, many of which had nothing to do with the schools or groups that were “allowed” on Facebook. If I was going to take the time to join a social network, I wanted it to be one where everyone I knew could take part.
A shifting attitude about your privacy (and not in a good way)
Eventually, as most people know, that all changed. The elitist attitude, however, has not. It is still running rampant, making Steve Jobs and Apple look like a tepid child. This is clearly understood by a quick look at the sweeping changes in their approach to privacy as outlined here by the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2005:
No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.
Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2006:
We understand you may not want everyone in the world to have the information you share on Facebook; that is why we give you control of your information. Our default privacy settings limit the information displayed in your profile to your school, your specified local area, and other reasonable community limitations that we tell you about.
Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2007:
Profile information you submit to Facebook will be available to users of Facebook who belong to at least one of the networks you allow to access the information through your privacy settings (e.g., school, geography, friends of friends). Your name, school name, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results across the Facebook network unless you alter your privacy settings.
Facebook Privacy Policy circa November 2009:
Facebook is designed to make it easy for you to share your information with anyone you want. You decide how much information you feel comfortable sharing on Facebook and you control how it is distributed through your privacy settings. You should review the default privacy settings and change them if necessary to reflect your preferences. You should also consider your settings whenever you share information. …
Information set to “everyone” is publicly available information, may be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), is subject to indexing by third party search engines, may be associated with you outside of Facebook (such as when you visit other sites on the internet), and may be imported and exported by us and others without privacy limitations. The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” You can review and change the default settings in your privacy settings.
Facebook Privacy Policy circa December 2009:
Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings.
Current Facebook Privacy Policy, as of April 2010:
When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. … The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” … Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.
Your data on Facebook (status updates, pictures, etc) is not really yours
The most recent action by Zuckerberg was to make access to your information on the site publicly available, whether you like it or not. The new privacy controls do 6 major things with regard to connections you make using the Facebook “connect” feature (that should piss most people off, though it won’t because they are probably oblivious to them):
- Facebook will not let you share any of this information without using Connections. You cannot opt-out of Connections. If you refuse to play ball, Facebook will remove all unlinked information from your profile.
- Facebook will not respect your old privacy settings in this transition. For example, if you had previously sought to share your Interests with “Only Friends,” Facebook will now ignore this and share your Connections with “Everyone.”
- Facebook has removed your ability to restrict its use of this information. The new privacy controls only affect your information’s “Visibility,” not whether it is “publicly available.”
Explaining what “publicly available” means, Facebook writes:
“Such information may, for example, be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), be indexed by third party search engines, and be imported, exported, distributed, and redistributed by us and others without privacy limitations.”
- Facebook will continue to store and use your Connections even after you delete them. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there. Even after you “delete” profile information, Facebook will remember it. We’ve also received reports that Facebook continues to use deleted profile information to help people find you through Facebook’s search engine.
- Facebook sometimes creates a Connection when you “Like” something. That “Like” button you see all over Facebook, and now all over the web? It too can sometimes add a Connection to your profile, without you even knowing it.
- Your posts may show up on a Connection page even if you do not opt in to the Connection. If you use the name of a Connection in a post on your wall, it may show up on the Connection page, without you even knowing it. (For example, if you use the word “FBI” in a post).
Zuckerberg’s offer that you can’t refuse
Facebook has become so interconnected with our daily lives (the 400 million of us that are on the site anyway) that the leverage they have to keep us on the site is overwhelming. People are using the site for a lot more than just catching up with old high school friends. They are playing games with their friends, sharing pictures of their life, and so on.
We are all social creatures. We like to be popular, we like to have friends, we like to be able to reach out and connect with someone when we are lonely. This nature of connectivity in humans is a foundational principle on which Facebook’s success is built. And right now, the closest thing to providing a better solution is Twitter – which almost everyone has heard of, but almost no one understands how to use. Because of this, there are 10 main reasons, according to Nicholas Carlson at Business Insider, that you’ll never quit Facebook even if you think you want to:
- You’re not going to go back to waiting an hour to send an email to 30 people with 40 photos attached.
- How will you remember anybody’s birthday?
- How will you stalk your college boyfriend’s new fiancé?
- Without Facebook what are you going to do when you don’t have a friend’s email address or phone number? Facebook messaging blows. But at least you know you can reach anybody who has a Facebook account.
- Forget Facebook. 80 million of you are addicted to Zygna’s Facebook game, FarmVille.
- It takes 2 seconds to “join” a new site through Facebook Connect. It can take a good 10 minutes doing it the old way.
- How will you hear about parties? How will you remember where and when those parties are? Evite?
- You don’t care about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg’s sometimes sketchy past.
- Sure, Facebook has privacy issues, but you don’t care about privacy anymore. Remember when you wouldn’t use your real name on the Internet?
- You’ve never quit before. Remember News Feed? Beacon? You didn’t quit then and won’t now, either. Not even if you want to.
You may balk at some of the above suggestions, though I’m pretty sure you won’t say you disagree with all of them. On the chance that you do, and you decide, screw this, I’m going to leave Facebook just in spite, know this: Facebook doesn’t like to be dumped, as a matter of fact, they are kind of Super Ex-girlfriend psycho about it. Read this article describing what happens when you deactivate your Facebook Account.
Oh, and by the way, deactivating your account is not the same thing as deleting it. Your information is still on the site, all you have to do is simply login and it is like you never even left. They don’t make that very clear, and I don’t think many people even realize this fact. If you have decided you really do want to delete your account, use this link to do so, not the “deactivate” link provided by Facebook. Note: even when deleting your account, Facebook, to further portray it’s elitist attitude, tells you that your account will not be completely deleted for 14 days, basically saying, “we know you don’t really want to delete your account, you’ll be back.”
Zuckerberg thinks you’re a moron, and he’s probably right
Ironically, a private IM conversation between a friend and Zuckerberg reveals Zuckerberg’s mentality about the users of Facebook. The naivity of people online is the reason Facebook continues to swell. People simply do not know that they are revealing their information to the world. Take the following story:
I have a close friend who just bought a house. Before he bought the house, he decided to research the seller. He had never met the seller, and all he had to go on was a name. Using that name, he was able to find the seller’s wife’s Facebook profile, which was publicly displaying multiple details regarding their lifestyle and the luxuries they maintained.
Now, my friend is a decent person, and would never use his advanced computing skills (he’s a very talented programmer, with his name on a few software patents) for evil, but he was able to learn more than enough about the person he was buying his house from to feel comfortable with the transaction.
At the closing, my friend did the good deed of informing the seller that he was able to find out many details of his life through his wife’s Facebook profile. Noticeably shocked at the information my friend had about him, the seller was a little more than annoyed that my friend knew so much about him.
People demand privacy, but they don’t even know when their privacy is being violated it. They are oblivious to how openly revealing they are through their own actions. No one really reads privacy policies (Facebook’s is now longer than the United States Constitution). And who would want to? We just want to get online, share some pictures, write some witty ‘status’ updates and stay as permanently connected to our friends, loved ones, and complete strangers as possible.
Marketing is the root of Facebook’s evil
Companies are realizing the massive marketing potential that Facebook provides (which is, of course, where all of this really stems from). They are increasingly gaining insight on how using Facebook for business and marketing is a low-cost, and in most cases, incredibly effective tool.
But, and this is important, we saw this happen with MySpace. Companies were using MySpace URLs in their advertising instead of their own websites. The same thing is happening with Facebook. The difference? Facebook has provided businesses with a platform for interactivity – something MySpace didn’t really ever figure out.
Something will change. The question is what/who?
Facebook has very publicly called an “all hands on deck” meeting to discuss the recent backlash to their privacy policy changes. I doubt anything is really going to change, however. The vast majority of people are not even aware of the fact that Facebook has changed their privacy policies, much less how the changes really affect them, personally.
Some users have organized a “Quit Facebook Day” for May 31, 2010 in an attempt to both educate people about the negative privacy policies Facebook has implemented, as well as to encourage people to boycott the service.
Where do you stand?
Will you keep your Facebook profile? Will you make adjustments to your privacy settings? Will you remove your account all together?
Do you believe that you have a right to privacy when using a free service online? Do you believe those that reveal too much personal information on social networks are the ones that should be blamed for their own information being put out there? Tell me what you think in the comments.
