Is it time to close my Facebook account?
A few weeks ago I wrote an article entitled The dark side of Facebook, how social marketing will go wrong. but this morning while surfing through a web article about nude Malaysian nurses (it’s not what you think, I swear … I read it for the article) I came across an article by Peter Mychalcewycz about a Teen who Blackmails Classmates With Nude Pics on Facebook. There’s a similar story about it on Fox News website which just begs the question, has the negative aspects of being on Facebook finally out weighted the benefits?
This question may seem a little crazy in light of the fact that Facebook now boasts 175 million users but when the top celebrates can’t change their profile without it making news and Facebook considers itself worth $3.7 billion, it raises the question, who am I worth $21 to? If the conspiracy theories are right, it’s the CIA (Facebook’s CIA ties, Facebook, the CIA, and You, Facebook – the CIA conspiracy) or the great video here:
I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, so I don’t believe Facebook is evil or part of some great inter governmental X Files project, I think it’s most likely even worse … it’s about giving us something that we want (contact with our friends) in return for everything marketers want … access to our data, which I’m actually OK with but it leads me to the inevitable conclusion that Facebook does have some negatives which I have to be more careful with.
ps, this morning Frank Reed posted a piece on the Marketing Pilgrim about Facebook’s TOS … Facebook Terms of Service Switcheroo?
Frankly, I do not have the time for Facebook or any other activities like twitter etc. I really cannot imagine how people could spend so much time on these. I do not think that I shall ever get involved.
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This sounds a little too conspiracy theory-esque to me. Frankly, I haven’t seen any problems with using Facebook and the best rationale is, only put on it what you’re willing to have other people see. Then, it’s not a big deal.
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Well its a known fact that employers search sites like facebook and myspace for dirt on potential hires before extending an offer. And I know way too many people who’ve gotten themselves in hot water by posting something inapproriate. To me its just not worth the trouble.
@Mike, you’re right. One of the first things that many employers do when they hire a new employee is add them as a friend via Facebook, or search them beforehand. There have been countless stories of people getting fired for what they do ‘on the book’
An interesting article in the NYT throws some light on the latest developments http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technology/internet/17facebook.html?th&emc=th
I quote “Amid the evolution, at least a few members are showing their uneasiness about the stance that Facebook is taking.
Some members, including Sasha Frere-Jones, the pop critic and staff writer for The New Yorker, said they had deleted their accounts to show their opposition to the new terms.
“Zuckerberg’s response to the protest is just the modern version of ‘Ignore the fine print, ma’am, just sign here,’ ” Mr. Frere-Jones wrote in an e-mail message. “Why would anyone trust a company with his or her personal information, especially when that company’s explicit legal language claims eternal rights to exploit that information, and there is good reason to expect that they will?”
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Wow! Nice find Christopher. With the movement towards cloud computing, I wonder how much of our live will remain private.
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I’ve heard that most big social networks around the world are secret services projects. I think that is truth because they will get the access anyway when they really need it.
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Facebook withdraws data changes!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7896309.stm
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I don’t believe that the government is using facebook to gain vital information….but it is entirely possible that facebook is selling it’s database to the highest bidders.
I share the opinion of being accurate using Facebook,it’s the spies’ world.
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When people abuse a system then the owners should find a way of cautioning the users. Such was the case with blogrush and the owners removed it. If something is not done with this social sites, it may turn out to become what the founders did not plan for. Nice post as usual. Keep the fire burning.
Facebook is a public form. Don’t do or show anything on there that you don’t want the world to see. I delete any comments on my wall that I feel should be sent in a private message. Even if you only add real friends it’s possible that these images or words get out there. True of Twitter too.
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@Gennaro, completely! I just don’t think a lot of people give thought to the fact that their private messages are also property of FB
In the end, facebook and many of the other social networking sites will prove to have been more trouble to us as a society than they’ve ever been worth. I have neither the time nor the inclination to bother with facebook, myspace, etc., but my children do and there are dangers that constantly have to be monitored.
The situation or concern if you will is essentially no different then the popular search engine giant google. I have heard that they do not discard any information pertaining to user related searches under any given IP address. Law enforcement agency often times get court orders to access search related records, email records from all of the big email locations, etc. to gain access to critical information that may help proves one guilt in a given case.
Recently google announce behavorial advertising in which I am not yet familiar with but suspect you will receive certain advertisements based on your online behaviors. At some point they can collect enough information to make such information extremely valuable from a marketing perspective on any given user. If you search for coupons you might like savings and be more likely to purchase an item after getting a coupon, if you search auto insurance 5 times in a year you might be more likely to switch insurance companies, so on and so on. The opportunity to organize such information into a sellable format to major corporations is there. Likely would not occur but since google is publically traded company the board of directors and shareholders could force the company in this direction.
Point…Nothing at all your information is everywhere any how.
I don’t think that it is still time to ditch Facebook. It is a great tool in my opinion to stay connected with my friends
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Yeah, it is kinda sketchy that advertisers have access to so much of your info on facebook, but like you, I don’t really care. For now I can just ignore the downside of facebook just so I can stay in touch with people. We’ll see how it goes in the future.
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I know somebody who got fired because of their comments on the Facebook Wall, which was open for everyone to see. It was a costly mistake.
I’m kinda getting sick of the whole facebook scene anyway. I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist either, but I still don’t like how available info is. Don’t know if I’ll have the guts to actually delete mine though.
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