Facebook, I can’t quit you?
I am this close to closing my Facebook account. They continue to make incomprehensible changes to their privacy policy and settings, so that it’s completely unclear to me which of my actions will be observable by whom.
A while back there was an app making the rounds that published to the world who visited your profile most frequently. I was identified as a frequent visitor of some friends profiles, and some people were revealed as frequent visitors to my profile. I’m not sure how they determined frequency, but it certainly shattered any conception of anonymous browsing I might have had.
Yesterday I logged in after not having done so in quite a while and was soon presented with a screen that asked me to link my profile with “pages” related to things I had listed in my profile (e.g. my high school’s page, band pages, TV show pages, etc.). There were only two choices given to me: accept “linking” my profile to the dozens of pages Facebook had chosen for me, or choose which pages I wanted to link individually. Not wanting to link to any damn thing, I chose the latter option. I was taken to a screen where all the pages were listed with a pre-checked box next to each one. In order to link to none I would have had to painstakingly uncheck all those boxes. Defaults matter and this was incredibly presumptuous. I closed the window without doing anything and I have no idea if I’m linked to any pages or not.
Now comes word from TechCrunch that a security flaw in Facebook allows anyone to see any of their friend’s live chats as they happen. Unbelievable.
Government regulation is not needed to discipline Facebook. Consumers will grow tired of being jerked around by such an insensitive and juvenile company and will find better service elsewhere. Twitter, for example, has incredibly simple and respectful privacy options.
So what’s keeping me from quitting? I don’t know really. A sneaking suspicion that I’ll miss out on something if I do. An invitation or the ability to easily look up an acquaintance’s email address. But I think I might just be exaggerating. Perhaps like James Sturn has done with the whole Internet, I should quit Facebook for at least a while and report back the consequences. Is there anything valuable I’d be giving up?
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