I defaced myself from Facebook, after my last of three experiments with it. I am on Google’s Buzz and also on Twitter, which seem to be much less burdened by the complexities of Facebook’s structure, and geared much more to my purposes for a social network venue, which is to publicize my web site and web logs. As far as I can see, Twitter seems to much more easily connect people by interest or topic, without the multi-layered profiles and multi-layered privacy settings of Facebook. Also, there are not the myriads of apps and games on either of them that seem to overwhelm the space of one’s wall on Facebook with “friends” of “friends” games popping up all over it.
You can find my essays at my Cyberian Reflections web log at http://mhpathfinder.wordpress.com and at http://michaelhovey.wordpress.com.
Facebook is good for sharing photos, which can also be done through Buzz, and Facebook, with many family members involved in it, it is easy to make a general announcement for an event or activity to the family, albeit not a direct communication with people, just a note on a wall. However, Facebook has had some recent problems, and some of those–through my online data–could contaminate some confidentiality and legal client privilege issues down the road. As for photos, I can share them via email, and Google’s Picasa makes this process very easy.
As recently as a few days ago, the executives of Facebook were holding an emergency “all-hands-on-board” meeting to discuss some serious problems with their privacy policies, when it was reported in the news that Facebook members’ personal profiles–no matter if set to “only me” or “everyone”–were being sold in lists to third-party marketing firms. This explains why within days of my recent subscription to Facebook, I was suddenly overwhelmed with text messages on my cell phone and email messages from companies I had never done business with, nor desired to. The American Civil Liberties Union, of which I am a member, sent me an email about the Facebook profile list marketing issues.
Most of us take it for granted that such a widely-used social networking venue is good for keeping in touch with family and frineds, and it is. But, we do so without thinking about how all of the personal information about us that is aired is used, blocked or not. When one “unsubscribes” from Facebook, the company keeps all of the profile, identity, addresses, phone numbers, interests, backlog of messages and posts, and other data that one puts on their Facebook pages. Most people would assume that if he or she left Facebook, cancelled their subscription, that their data would be deleted. Not so. I discovered on a user forum that the information was being retained and sold to marketing firms. One does have the option to have their Facebook data completely deleted, but not unless you do an intense search on the help page topics and Facebook user forums to find what that process is. It is NOT readily available on the Facebook user’s Account settings or options, nor is it readily available on the Facebook help page. There was not a single HELP topic that addressed deleting one’s page. I put it in the HELP search window, and came up with a list of deleting one’s data topics. When I clicked on any of them, NOTHING HAPPENED! This was curious. I went to the Facebook User Forum, and found the issue being kicked around by a number of users trying to leave Facebook and ensure that their data was deleted. Eventually I found a user who posted the particular web page for deleting one’s data. Even when I clicked to the site and clicked on the “submit” button to delete my Facebook pages, Facebook told me it would not be deleted for fourteen days. Why? Who knows?
The social networking venues of Facebook, Buzz, MySpace, Twitter and others are relatively new–only a couple of years old–and as they continue to evolve, ethics and etiquette for them will evolve as well. I don’t think I want to be considered a “friend,” or “friend of a friend” to all that I network with, and Facebook is unique in using these terms. Twitter or Buzz just say “people” without all of the ramification of the term “friend.” Semantics and meanings may not seem so important to many, especially in this age of cell phone texting where acronyms and other linguistic shortcuts are threatening the richness of language. Also there are issues of TMI, to use an acronym, or “too much information” that people provide, even the most trivial of communications, deemed appropriate or not, on Facebook to their “friends” and “friends of friends” who might also turn out to be their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, minister or priest, work associates or employers, or…as the web of “friends” of “friends” of “friends” of “friends” deepens…who knows who else? As Facebook sells off lists of personal profiles to third party marketing companies, it would be best to assume that any and all information posted on Facebook is in the public domain, no matter the privacy settings.
For more on the most recent privacy issues plaguing FACEBOOK users, and prompting an emergency meeting of Facebook execs, read this article:
http://www.aclunc.org/issues/technology/blog/facebook_execs_meeting_today_on_your_privacy.shtml
At any rate, let’s keep in touch…by phone or email.
Amen.
Mike
a.k.a. M. H. Pathfinder
