Has there been even a week gone by where some internet news source or other has not taken it upon themselves to castigate Facebook for their apparent abuses to privacy law? Many users have complained about such things as sharing private information with advertisers and market researchers (without user consent), the seeming impossibility of permanently deleting an account, their scanning and censoring of private messages and a swathe of other offences – some minor, some not. What makes these especially concerning is the significance of Facebook even to those who do not have an account, due to its notable impact on how modern businesses are being run. As with many such situations, it has given rise to prolonged debates, which tend to be highly polarised. Unfortunately, as is also typical of such controversies, both sides are prone to hyperbole and shallow, unsupported claims, making development of an informed position difficult. Nonetheless, I will attempt to sift out some of the more plausible points in an effort to clarify things.
The real genesis of much of the controversy came in December of 2009 when Facebook introduced their now infamous policy of setting all private profiles to public by default, requiring an opt-out for users who object. This in itself may not have been a problem; other formerly popular social networking sites such as Myspace had been doing this since their inception. There is, however, a crucial difference: this represented a nearly complete reversal of Facebook’s stance on privacy that occurred, apparently, overnight. Over the previous two years Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had been vocal in his belief that user privacy was and would continue to be a top priority, a stance which was instrumental in the site’s unprecedented growth during this time. Indeed, one of Facebook’s key selling points was that its (usually) user-friendly interface allowed a great deal of control over exactly what was published and to whom, helping it avoid the damning controversies over slander, fake profiles and sexual predation that had plagued Myspace. For some users the 2009 change made little difference and went by largely unnoticed, excepting a few brief gripes over minor cosmetic changes to the interface. For others, however, it seemed to come out of nowhere and represented a betrayal of trust.
Even this may not have resulted in the kind of controversy that has since arisen. It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of online social networking that suspect policies and design changes had resulted in mass user migration, and Facebook is never short on competitors more than willing to take advantage of such an exodus. However, unlike any other that came before it, Facebook has made itself indispensable to millions. Zuckerberg has been very keen since the beginning to prevent the migration of information away from Facebook’s own control, going so far as to shut down any websites attempting to gather it for particular purposes. It is one of the few parts of Facebook’s privacy policies to have seen very little change recently and, in an ironic twist, aided in forming their monopoly. One notable victim was a service geared towards gathering and deleting information stored on particular users in order to allow them to easily manage their online identity across various sites (known as a ‘web 2.0 suicide machine’). This meant that leaving Facebook would result in the loss of all the information users have often spent several years gathering, as it had been made, intentionally, as difficult as possible to transfer. This, combined with the fact that Facebook had developed a monopoly in social networking, meant that those who did decide to move elsewhere found themselves in an extreme minority, the lack of users rendering them unable to use any other service for the same networking tasks.
Facebook’s solid grip on what is arguably the most socially important innovation in modern communication has allowed them then to make some unpopular moves, firm in the knowledge that they have a captive market. In an interview Zuckerberg claimed, in response to the controversy, that Facebook was merely reflecting changing social standards and that privacy was simply no longer a priority to most of their users. Detractors argue, however, that Facebook’s uniquely powerful cultural status makes it instrumental in directing that sort of social change and to dismiss his company’s actions as reflective of society was at best naïve, at worst arrogant and irresponsible. When taking into account its aforementioned impact on modern business culture, a worrying picture is revealed. Like many of the online giants of recent times, Facebook has thrived in the legal grey area of the internet. Legal threats and challenges directed at the sites policy changes have been forthcoming from numerous sources since February 2010 but have yet to have any discernible impact. This is despite the involvement of US government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), historically the point at which even seemingly untouchable corporations like Microsoft or Apple would begin to consider compromises.
In the interests of open information, this is a link to a webpage detailing the only (rather convoluted) way of permanently deleting all Facebook information. I would encourage users to think more about the ways in which even something as seemingly harmless as Facebook affects their lives and to make an informed decision themselves about just how much it takes from them in exchange for its service:
http://www.groovypost.com/howto/security/permanently-delete-your-facebook-profile-account
References :
http://epic.org/2010/05/new-facebook-privacy-complaint.html
http://gigaom.com/2010/05/06/the-relationship-between-facebook-and-privacy-its-really-complicated/
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2006/02/70254?currentPage=3
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/09/71739#previouspost
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_pushes_people_to_go_public.php
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_zuckerberg_says_the_age_of_privacy_is_ov.php
http://www.pcc.org.uk/advice/index.html