Thanks to Mopflite for the link to the following article about the problems with Facebook
Now, ignore the Luddite bashing at the opening and the unsubstantiated, pejorative use of the phrase neo-con, when I suspect, at most, he means neo-liberal.
The issue is about privacy. There is something very insidious and disturbing about Facebook. Prof. Moglen, whose course I took last semester, explained it very well and unfortunately, I am not eloquent enough to replay his comments, and unfortunately neither does this article, whose tone is a little too knee jerk. But the author does pick up on the unsettling, disquieting issue that some of us feel about Facebook.
As Prof. Moglen said the parasite when it lands on you, sends a mild, brief anaesthetic so you don’t notice the next step, which is the extraction of blood. As with the Beacon service, push the proboscis in too quickly, and the host reacts.
Social networking is wonderful, one of the great activities the internet has delivered us. However, there is a right way to do it and a wrong way. The right way, such as file sharing, works when it is properly distributed, decentralised and truly autonomous. Facebook is none of these things. Peel away the Web 2.0 pseudo-openness and the fun of interacting with friends, and there is still someone there controlling it, no different to Microsoft or Google, and getting something out of your using it.
Hopefully, some other new wonder will come along and take away everyone’s attention from Facebook, as with MySpace before it, but there will still be a lingering sense that the majority of users, and this includes geeks, are still not really cognisant of the issues of online privacy. Being such a new medium, users still suffer from cognitive dissonance when it comes to privacy of data.
The default setting is “I have nothing to hide and there is no cost to my giving my personal information away freely.” Yet you absolutely do not know how your data is going to be used and once you submit your data, there is no way of getting it back. We assume there is no cost to giving away our data because we do not, currently, directly feel the cost. Yet to assume there is not, never will be and can’t be one is erroneous. And herein lies the cognitive dissonance. The default setting should be “I will give no data except for a limited, controlled set when I know exactly how it will be used”.
There is a large experiment going on with users and their data, and the usual code of ethics surrounding experiments is subjugated when users click on “I agree to the Terms and Conditions and have read the privacy policy” when they haven’t.
Update: Just found this blog entry by a fellow who was in the Moglen class I audited. I remember asking Tim O’Reilly in 2002 whether a GPL for user contributed data was needed, to which he replied “no”. I seem to remember thinking that he had not understood my question.
4 Comments so far
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Is Facebook’s Beacon service any worse then DVLA loosing private records in the UK that were to be kept private?
Facebook’s privacy policy may be bad, but fundamentally you do consent to it and you input the data about yourself that can then be mined. Zuckerberg does come out and say there is no such thing as a free lunch. Beacon was to be the payment. So socially interacting on Web 2.0 sites must be paid for by you, not in direct money but in private details. I suppose that should you come to harm as a result mis-use of this personal data, the consent you give by using the site should mitigate the damages against companies like Facebook, but certainly not indemnify them.
Fundamentally, the DVLA’s screw up is a privacy issue that is much more damaging to individuals. (Data that is private and sensitive and not consented to be released by individuals). This should be a greater scandal then that of Beacon on Facebook. (Data that is published about yourself, by you, on the internet, thus judged by you not to be private and sensitve.) Ok you didn’t consent to this data being mined and analysed etc, but there is a distinction is there not?
By Andrew on 01.17.08 8:29 am
Why is an accidental loss of information by the DVLA less worrying than Facebook?
The issue is one of inference, not whether a leak was accidental or not.
Facebook containts lots of disparate information about you which when joined up can be damaging.
Let’s compare:
DVLA have your name, address and driving license details.
Facebook has who your friends are, what you buy, what you read, where you have travelled, what you like to do, what your political opinions are, photographs of you and your friends, messages sent between you and your friends.
Which one do you think is more Big Brother? Yes, people give this information voluntarily because they think the costs are low and they get a good service in return. I am suggesting that they are underestimating the cost and not thinking about -potential- uses to which this data can be used.
By levine on 01.17.08 4:57 pm
The issue is consent. I consent to putting all of my friends, online purchases, etc onto Facebook. I may not have thought through the potential personal costs of all this information, but then it is my personal judgement call. DVLA’s accidental publication of private data is a far greater issue. I in no way consented for that data to be made public and yet now it is. What if it was not DVLA, but the NHS and detailed patient records. I do not consent to these records being put on a computer, but they are. What about criminal records, voter records. The issue is consent, in using facebook you publish facts about yourself, which in effect makes this data public, not private and thus you consent to its use in public ways. If you think the data you provide is valueless, more fool you. Beacon was an opt-out service which should have been an opt-in service. However that is perhaps more of a moral/philosophical question.
By Andrew on 01.19.08 1:07 am
Yes it is one of consent. And my point is that people’s consent is NOT informed as they are woefully ignorant about what they are consenting too. See this
By levine on 01.19.08 1:09 am
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