Facebook added you as a victim

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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Facebook has more than 500 million members each of whom generate on average more than 70 pieces of content a month.  In exchange for fuelling one of the biggest websites on the planet, Facebook continues to exploit its denizens.

Once again Facebook is at the forefront of internet privacy concerns amidst the internet behemoth’s latest move to force user information into the public sphere. For those that simply clicked through the May changes or have yet to face them, Facebook has recently forced users to publically admit their interest groups or leave them. 

This is just one in a long history of privacy violations that have taken place since its precarious start in 2003, but it is significant in that it is finally drawing laymen attention to what is best described as ulterior motives.

Source code and ownership issues aside, the wildly popular Facebook started its major privacy descent in 2007.

It was a year marked by the launch of a laudable new plugin called Beacon which in simple terms was scripting for 3rd party sites that would actively display user habits, products purchased and other involuntary information on people’s Facebook profile. Beacon later became an opt-in rather than opt-out service but regardless of user choice, Facebook continued to mine the data.

2008 brought about Facebook 3.0 and significant privacy controls after several successful lawsuits against Beacon and Facebook in general.  Sadly the privacy controls were complicated and overly specific and over the years that followed an interface refresh usually meant a privacy setting reset along with the addition of more deceptive options.

Last year Facebook subtly made further changes to privacy settings and newsfeed management that made friend lists and ‘fans of’ objects open to the internet. Since then the attacks on privacy have been far more aggressive.

At this year’s annual Facebook summit (F8) Zuckerburg dictated to the masses: “we are building a Web where the default is social”. This was amidst concerns of Facebook openly admitting to selling profile information to third parties.

Facebook’s network of connections (dubbed the Social Graph) is the key to Facebook’s model.  Social Graph has been sold to and utilised by many third parties allowing them full access to the precious connections and interactions between people. In future, third parties will also be able to create and manipulate connections – the legalities of which are all neatly disposed of by the mandatory exposure of your friend lists.

The company is also punting a new API linked to what is called Open Graph.

Fuelled by devices such as the “like” button littering sites everywhere, Facebook will now be able to sell its members’ internet behaviour outside of Facebook to companies such as Microsoft. Convenient when you need a music store to recommend tunes, not so much fun when Governments start coding.

Facebook is evolving. It is becoming a capitalist driven entity that is fuelled by socialist mechanics.  Users are trapped by the simplicity with which the site allows for social connections and many would more than happily sacrifice their privacy for the interaction it provides. Those who try to cancel are forced to delete every contribution they have ever made one-by-one and only after multiple requests will their account be suspended but never deleted.

The cancelation process alone is a strong deterrent rife with emotionally charged activities. The strong legal action taken against third party applications that automate the process are indicative of Facebook’s contradictory approach to human rights.

Facebook’s policies form a clear pattern of intent. Since inception, everything uploaded to and every action committed on Facebook belongs to the company and suddenly people are starting to appreciate exactly what that means.

Are you a Facebook victim?

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not represent those of MyBroadband.