To Be or Not to Facebook, That is the Question
Word of the day: App-less over Hapless
Back from the dead, my Facebook profile.
Along with a few million of my closest friends (of friends), I contemplated dropping Facebook this past week. I temporarily deleted my page, but since I logged in again within two weeks, my data had been saved in a way accessible to me, and I’m resurrected. Of course Facebook would have stored my data anyway, and apps can now store my personal data as long as they damned well please.
It dawned on me about five days in that I was going to have to sit down in interviews this summer and throughout next year and say, “Yes, my research and teaching both focus on socially-networked capabilities in news, and in the newsroom. But, no, I don’t have a Facebook page.”
It would have seems ridiculous, even if I went into my soliloquy about control over personal privacy (however fleeting) and my concerns over Facebook sharing my data with several websites, friends of friends and anyone who can create a quiz application.
Mark Poepsel became a fan of “Not Inadvertently Giving Your Data to Too Many People”.
Facebook responded, well, Zuckface responded on NPR and in other venues, by pointing out that they serve 400 million people and that at any given time if a million people are mad at you, that’s just part of the game.
The recent addition of simplified privacy settings begs the question: “Why were they so needlessly difficult to manage in the first place?” The answer is most likely that you are not supposed to be aware of your lack of privacy on Facebook, and you’re not supposed to care about it.
The age-old argument that if you’re doing nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about would make sense except for the fact that a certain level of privacy is assumed by Faebook’s very nature.
You go on Facebook and you share information knowing, or expecting, that only your friends can see it (or perhaps you’re aware friends of friends can access most of your information if you bother to look into your privacy settings).
But privacy between users, mucky as it is to try to deconstruct and examine is not even the issue.
You can do nothing wrong. You can share only happy memories, good vibes and zero drunken party photos and still be screwed by Facebook because it will share your information with third parties.
So what? So what if they use your data to try to advertise to you? Isn’t that all we’re really talking about? It depends. App developers or friends might be collecting your data, including message and chat information, which are presumed to be more private than they really are. (TechCrunch Europe). And they might have reasons to gather that data about you other than to place a display ad on your profile. They could relatively easily compile lists based on political leanings, work habits and/or your online shopping tendencies that you would never expect to be made available to so many people.
I don’t care if you try to sell me a digital SLR. I do care if you snoop into my health history. Facebook probably knows more about the number of days I was sick last year and why than I can even remember. I don’t care if my wife or my best friends can figure that out, but I don’t particularly want the world to know. I also don’t want thieves to know when I’m out of town or when my car is in the shop.
So you say, “Just don’t share as much, dummy.” That argument is starting to make a lot of sense.
My best option thus far has been to drastically cut back on Facebook status updating and commenting and to read up on privacy concerns. The more I read the less safe I feel about everything: my data being collected, any health information being divulged, what my friends of friends can see, what Facebook apps can see, what third party websites can see.
I was becoming quite open with my Facebook “friends” and with Facebook itself. I was getting used to sharing quite a bit and being kind of a smartass whenever possible. Zuckface made me feel stupid for thinking that’s all I was doing.
What it comes down to is Facebook expecting me to be “radically transparent” but the company itself being anything but. I’ll quote Danah Boyd (apophenia of zephoria.org) one of the world’s experts on the subject:
If you don’t know where your data are going, and the news media have a hard time being fully aware of the issues at hand, it’s time to cut ties or at least cut back.
I have deleted (one-by-freaking-one) my Facebook apps. I rarely post status updates or post to my profile at all but to share links. In short, I’m making every effort to be as limited in my transparency as Zuckface and Facebook (as its own entity) are.
And I’m waiting for someone to get it right, so I can jump the train at the next social-networking boomtown.
If ever there was a time to launch a Facebook competitor, the public’s concern for privacy has created the atmosphere. Let me know if you find a better option. You can even write it on my wall. Call it the last brick.
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Hey Mark,
I’m glad you are back on Facebook!
This is a good, thoughtful discussion. I don’t have time to share all my thoughts on this issue. In general, though, I have a hard time sympathizing with those who have all these privacy concerns regarding Facebook.
Here is my thought, in brief — Facebook doesn’t sneak into your house and collect information you haven’t freely chosen to post on Facebook.
But to expand a bit, Facebook the medium is almost the opposite of privacy to begin with. By being a user of Facebook you choose to post information about yourself on the internet — the in-ter-net. If you don’t want everyone to see your info, user-friendly tools have long been in place to limit what people have access to your information.
I can understand the fear of these third-party apps collecting information, but when you choose to install one of these to your account, it clearly states what kind of information it is going to collect.
Now, I don’t particularly like that Facebook itself is collecting your information to help sell ads on the site. But really this is par for the course in today’s world. My gmail account also does this. Heck, even the Kroger store we go to does this. That store tracks all our purchases. When we check out, the cash register spits out coupons based on our purchases over the previous months and years. They’ve even somehow found out we’re having a baby and we now sometimes get diaper coupons.
This is a bit creepy, but I would go elsewhere if it really bothered me.
I guess my main feeling is that your personal privacy is really your personal responsibility. If being private is a central concern, why are people posting their private information on a social sharing internet website to begin with?
OK, I’ll stop.
Take care, Mark!
-Jacob
Jacob,
It is good to be back, and I think you’re absolutely right. Most of the sharing Facebook does is totally up to me. If I don’t like apps, I shouldn’t sign up for them.
I don’t have empirical evidence, but it’s my concern that many people don’t know what they’re signing up for when they approve an app, and that Facebook isn’t really concerned with letting users know just what 3rd parties they will share information with…even in the future after you have posted quite a bit of info expecting it to be between you, your friends and the apps you actively approve.
The conclusion I think we share is that Facebook is useful, almost indispensable and that it’s up to me how much crap I decide to post about myself, so…user beware.
Hey Mark,
I’m glad you are back on Facebook!
This is a good, thoughtful discussion. I don’t have time to share all my thoughts on this issue. In general, though, I have a hard time sympathizing with those who have all these privacy concerns regarding Facebook.
Here is my thought, in brief — Facebook doesn’t sneak into your house and collect information you haven’t freely chosen to post on Facebook.
But to expand a bit, Facebook the medium is almost the opposite of privacy to begin with. By being a user of Facebook you choose to post information about yourself on the internet — the in-ter-net. If you don’t want everyone to see your info, user-friendly tools have long been in place to limit what people have access to your information.
I can understand the fear of these third-party apps collecting information, but when you choose to install one of these to your account, it clearly states what kind of information it is going to collect.
Now, I don’t particularly like that Facebook itself is collecting your information to help sell ads on the site. But really this is par for the course in today’s world. My gmail account also does this. Heck, even the Kroger store we go to does this. That store tracks all our purchases. When we check out, the cash register spits out coupons based on our purchases over the previous months and years. They’ve even somehow found out we’re having a baby and we now sometimes get diaper coupons.
This is a bit creepy, but I would go elsewhere if it really bothered me.
I guess my main feeling is that your personal privacy is really your personal responsibility. If being private is a central concern, why are people posting their private information on a social sharing internet website to begin with?
OK, I’ll stop.
Take care, Mark!
-Jacob