What if the federal government demanded that Facebook adequately demonstrate it is safeguarding our privacy? That's happening, but not in our country.
Canada has two main concerns:
-- An overarching dissatisfaction with Facebook's privacy policies.
-- A protest of Facebook's belief that it still owns your information, photos, wall posts, etc. -- even after you terminate your account.
Others have voiced concern about the latter, including Mashable columnist Stan Schroeder, who eloquently sounded an alarm in February.
All of this was brought into a new focus last week when Facebook acquired social media aggregator FriendFeed, which was a little like McDonald's buying the entire Food Court. The Washington Post's Chadwick Matlin wrote today that this purchase raises concerning questions about a monopoly -- of two huge companies effectively owning our lives online. Are Google and Facebook gobbling us up in ways we won't really discover until after it's too late?
The are very real reasons to be concerned. I use Facebook as much as anyone I know. It is an important and wonderful way to connect. But as much as we use and like it, we should also be aware of how our information can be used. And as a culture, we might need more safeguards.
I would periodically purge your Facebook photos, keeping them on your computer, or on an online photo-sharing site, but not on Facebook. And I never take part in those "lists" in which you bare all kinds of detailed personal information to a pyramid of people. Facebook owns that information, and the more you bare in those games, the more they keep and can give or sell. Why list a detailed work history on Facebook, when LinkedIn is so much more effective as a work networking tool? In short, Facebook should not be your one-stop social network.
However, I do feel relieved on one count:
-- Facebook is as overloaded as a one-hour all-you-can-eat buffet plate. Its interface has become cluttered, its user controls complicated. It seems in danger of imploding, at least to the extent that it bottoms out under the weight of its expansion, and loses some popularity.
It has been said that Google is the new Microsoft, Facebook is the new Google, and Twitter is the new Facebook. I would agree that Facebook is making some of the same mistakes Google has made. Namely, loss of its mission, and a kind of greed concerning its users' lives.
But I don't see Twitter making those same mistakes. Twitter has invited collaboration without imposing exploitative practices on users. Twitter remains a gift economy, and it keeps on giving. There has not yet been a rush to monetize. Evan Williams and Biz Stone should be commended for that.
If Facebook has taken us down the wrong path, we may look back some time in the future and wonder how we trusted so much of our lives to a company where the average age of employees is 26. It is vital to understand Facebook's privacy settings. But a larger question is, how can we protect our privacy from Facebook?
And why does Canada have such a pro-active privacy commissioner, and we don't?
And why does Canada have such a pro-active privacy commissioner, and we don't?
ReplyDeleteCanada also has so-called "Human Rights Commissions" where private citizens are censored and threatened with fines and/or jail time if they say or do anything that a minority objects to, Jeff.
Let's not worship Canada too much.
The best point is the last point -- why don't we?
ReplyDeleteHow can you compare Facebook to Google? One turns in a profit, the other doesn't.
ReplyDeleteGood article. I have always been leery of putting a lot of personal information on Facebook, and have refused to play the "games" where you give up so much information about yourself. As you said (and as I've done) you can put professional information on LinkedIn. Facebook is just a tool, and what one does with it can either put you in at privacy risk or not. When it comes right down to it don't post anything online that you wouldn't want the entire world seeing. And that goes for emails and IMs as well. Everything leaves traces and can be recovered.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm...let's see...
ReplyDeleteWe get Google and Facebook and Walmart together electronically and in a matter of minutes, someone can know every little detail about YOUR life and those connected to you...
and YOU made it all possible! Don't trust that which you have no control over.
there's no such thing as a free lunch, then, is there? obviously, all of us who use facebook and its much-less intrusive advertising are paying for it, with information about ourselves and our friends. and what, exactly, is that worth? i'm sure we'll find out in the next 5-10 years, as social networking matures. i'm betting, though, that like myspace and friendster, we will move on.
ReplyDeletehowever, that doesn't answer the real underlying question, which is: how much information do we want complete strangers knowing about us at what point should we protect ourselves from the (near inevitable) moment that someone abuses the thin veil of trust we have w/ companies like google, facebook, twitter, blogger, etc? And then the second question would be: how do keep the protection from destroying everything that is amazing about social networking...