Facebook (Properly Pronounced FistFuck)
Just recently, I closed my Facebook account. I would give you my account info to look me up, but it doesn’t exist anymore. Honestly, much of social networking is getting scary and more than a little evil. I won’t go into a big tirade over Facebook and all the reasons I think they are a hazard to anyone who uses the service.
Today I came across a site called QuitFacebookDay. Surprise, surprise, the site is all about quitting Facebook on May 31, 2010. Below the information regarding reasons to quit, the official Quit Facebook Day and some other related bits and pieces, there is a comment section.
There are several comments agreeing with the statement “using Facebook jeopardizes your privacy online,” as well as the statement “Facebook jeopardizes the future of the internet as we would like to see it.” It’s hard to say I can agree or disagree with the second statement since I don’t know what each person sees for the internet. Especially since “we” is so nebulous that it could include Mark Zuckerberg. His vision of the future is one I would like to avoid, thanks.
Now, among all of the anti-Facebook sentiment, there are apologists in the crowd. “Facebook isn’t evil,” they say. “Change your privacy settings, stupid,” they say. “You’re not required to use Facebook,” they say. “Use it or don’t,” they say.
As far as I can see, Facebook is pretty damn evil. They share user information which may have been posted before the new privacy policy came into effect, which means people had no option but to share data they had intended to be private unless they change their privacy settings.
Funny the privacy settings came up as you CAN’T change your privacy settings to protect your information. Facebook aggregates your data and posts associations (which may be incorrect) about you for the world to see. This is a violation of trust as the user is counting on their private information remaining private.
Now, the requirement to use Facebook: To claim you are not required to use Facebook is much akin to saying “you aren’t required to use MySpace” at the height of the MySpace craze. Everyone was on MySpace and, if you did a search for anything, you were accosted by glittery animated images and pages full of videos. Ultimately, your browser would hang and your web surfing experience would be over.
In Facebook land, you are struck with the scent of antiseptic as you wander into a clinically sterile environment. Not so bad, by itself, though it’s a little boring. However, when your friends say, “go look at my photos! There’s one of you barfing on a cat!” You go, aghast at the thought of people witnessing the cat barfing incident third-hand. When you get to the site, you see a message: “sign up for Facebook to do [insert list of things here, including viewing said cat-barfing photo].”
You are either required to sign up for the service or live with the knowledge that there is a photo of you doing something disgraceful which you have never seen nor can do anything about. You’re left in the cold. So you go and admit yourself to the loony where every sorry sucker you ever tried to eliminate from your life comes flooding back to you as they look to “friend you.”
So, this brings us to the final statement. “Use it or don’t.” Funny, that was the point of the site. Don’t use Facebook. It should be apparent to anyone visiting and reading the comments that the mob has turned against the Dr. Mengele of private data. They have moved out of privacy Auschwitz and into the cold, comforting hands of the abyss which is staring back into you.*
So, where am I going with all of this? It all comes down to just a single thing: why are there Facebook apologists? I don’t understand the inclination at all. Best case scenario, you enjoy using Facebook and find it to be an entertaining toy. Worst case, you find it an offensive machine built to grind you like hamburger and destroy your sense of privacy.
To those of you who claim privacy isn’t a concern for you, I argue that it is more about a violation of trust than anything else. Regardless of whether privacy is valuable to you, the fact that Facebook is so willing and eager to compromise your privacy and share your information for a quick dollar violates the trust relationship they claim they are trying to build. The web is all about authority. Authority on the web comes only with trust. Facebook holds no authority anymore due to violating trust. THIS is why people are through with Facebook.
*Yes that is both Godwin’s Law via reductio ad Hitlerium and a Nietzschean nihilism reference in the same breath.
