This morning, Cerise and I slept late and had a scrumptious brunch (or so she told me). But afterward, I had to head for the den and work. It wasn’t so bad, really. Brunch involved some lovely chilled strawberries and whole wheat bread, and before sitting down and pounding away at the world’s problems, I tossed the strawberry tops, some of that bread and pieces of sliced carrot into the back yard. So, while toiling away, I got to watch the local forest critters enjoy a brunch of their own. As the afternoon wore on, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits and deer came to visit; all amid a constant traffic of birds – jays, cardinals, catbirds, bluebirds, robins, doves, juncos, orioles, grackles, tufted titmice, ravens, yellow bellied sap suckers and two different species of woodpecker. Funny thing about those woodpeckers. In the midst of a reverie about why it turns out they are unexpectedly fond of carrots, my telephone rang. It was my dear sister Rose’s husband’s brother’s wife, Shannon.
Shannon: Tom? I’m not interrupting you, am I?
Tom: No, not really. I’m just getting caught up on some stuff from the office. What’s up?
Shannon: I have this problem, and I told Rose about it, and she suggested I talk to you. She says you’re known all over Washington as the smartest person inside the Beltway.
Tom: Which is a lot like being the tallest building in Baltimore.
Shannon: Well, being from Chicago, I guess I know a tall building when I see one.
Tom: No doubt.
Shannon: What I called about is… um, my Facebook account.
Tom: Okay, what about it?
Shannon: I… I’ve been on Facebook for a couple of years, and I put all kinds of things in there – all about my favorite books, music and movies; my address and home phone number, my e-mail address, the clubs I belong to, my hobbies, my job, my education history, my birth date; all my children’s pictures…
Tom: You did? All of your kids?
Shannon: Uh-huh. I posted their names and birthdays along with their pictures.
Tom: Really?
Shannon: Yeah, I mean, it was very nice of Hank and Rose to invite us to move in when the bank foreclosed on the house, but you know, what with Hank looking so much like my husband, a lot of their kids look a lot like ours, so posting mine’s names and birthdays next to their pictures helped me keep them straight, you know…
Tom: Sure. You’d see them every time you logged in to Facebook.
Shannon: Exactly.
Tom: What else have you got posted there?
Shannon: All my interests, activities, my political affiliation, the various causes I donate to… gee, nearly everything about me, I guess. Facebook has all that information.
Tom: And more.
Shannon: What?
Tom: You are aware, I assume, that Facebook also collects information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs and instant messaging services, in addition to what you tell them.
Shannon: They do?
Tom: Yes, and they gather it regardless of how much or how little you use Facebook.
Shannon: Oh, great. So Facebook might know stuff about me that I don’t even know about myself.
Tom: Probably.
Shannon: So look, Tom, when I signed up for Facebook, I thought it was private, or at least I could say who got to read about which kids I take to ballet lessons and soccer games on what days of the week, and who would know how old I am, and that I like vampire novels, take tango lessons or… that I’m pregnant again. I mean, why does the whole world need to know stuff like that, you know, about me, that is?
Tom: You mean, when you signed up, you didn’t read the Facebook Terms of Service Agreement?
Shannon: That thing? Well, no, I just sort assumed that they were going to be honest and decent about stuff…
Tom: That, unfortunately, depends on your definition of “honest” and “decent.” Their TOS says, and I quote, “By posting member content, to any part of the Web site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, world-wide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, perform, display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such information and content, and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.”
Shannon: Your photographic memory never ceases to amaze me.
Tom: Thanks, I’m flattered, but actually, I’m reading that from a hard copy I printed off on Tuesday.
Shannon: It was just lying there on your desk?
Tom: Yep. A lot of people have been calling me about Facebook this week.
Shannon: So I’m not alone?
Tom: Not since Facebook went to the Open Graph paradigm without telling anyone.
Shannon: Is that what they call it, “Open Graph?” What the hell does that mean?
Tom: It means that unless you explicitly tell Facebook otherwise, they act like they own everything about you and go around selling every scrap of it to the highest bidder.
Shannon: Sounds like they should have called it “User Rape” instead.
Tom: I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what they call it at Facebook. Did you know that the Facebook Pulse feature collects statistical information on the habits, political views, cultural preferences and activities of Facebook members at every American college and university, which Facebook subsequently sells to various major corporations? So, for example, even if, in the unlikely case a college student doesn’t have a Facebook page…
Shannon: A college student without a Facebook page? Is there such a thing?
Tom: Our nephew Hank Jr. doesn’t have one.
Shannon: He doesn’t?
Tom: Says he’s got privacy issues with Facebook.
Shannon: That Junior, I always did figure he’s smarter than the average bear.
Tom: Me, too. But I bet you’ve probably posted somewhere on your Facebook account that somebody named Henry Palikowski, Jr. is attending Brown University studying fine arts, haven’t you?
Shannon: Uh… yeah, as a matter of fact, I have.
Tom: And there you go – Facebook sells the fact that he’s attending Brown to marketers. Later on, that information, which Facebook is, right now, selling to Junior’s prospective employers and lenders, not to mention various corporations with sundry social and political agendas, will be used to make crucial future decisions about him, based on a statistical model of the Brown University graduate compiled by Facebook Pulse.
Shannon: Oh, Christ! So Junior can’t escape Facebook, even if he never joined!
Tom: Not if he’s pursuing a higher education in the United States, that’s for sure.
Shannon: Oh, I’m so sorry. Anyway, I recently found out that when I do stuff and post about it on Facebook, my name and the fact that I did it show up on Facebook advertisements that other people see – I’m talking about total strangers here, Tom.
Tom: That’s certainly consistent with general Facebook policies. Like the one where entering personal information on Facebook automatically makes it available to users on other Web sites, like Yelp and Pandora. What’s more, your Facebook friends can share your personal data with anyone, and Facebook doesn’t tell you about it. You, ah, visit Facebook a lot, then?
Shannon: Well, yes, I suppose so.
Tom: About how often do you update your status?
Shannon: I… ah, oh, I don’t know… once an hour or so.
Tom: I see. Ever wanted to access Facebook so bad you did it on your mobile phone?
Shannon: Why, sure, of course. Doesn’t everybody do that?
Tom: Not really. What apps do you have on your Facebook profile page?
Shannon: Uh, ah, let me see here… I’ve got… FriendHug, Stats About Me, Zombie, Texas HoldEm, Scramble, Scrabble, Farmville, Birthday Calendar, Birthday Cards, Caricature, Cafe World, Marketplace, TopFriends, IQ Test, Daily Horoscope, The Fortune Teller, Give Hearts, My Family, Family Tree, Funny Photos, Profile Song, Farkle, Uno, Drinks, Where I’ve Been, SuperPoke, LifeBox, Collect Roses, Picknic Photo… and… God Wants You to Know.
Tom: Shannon?
Shannon: Yes?
Tom: I think God wants you to know you need to quit Facebook.
Shannon: Well, damn it, Tom, that’s why I’m talking to you!
Tom: You mean, you want to quit Facebook?
Shannon: I don’t know, maybe not quit. Can’t I just fix Facebook so that only the people I want to see everything about my personal life can see it?
Tom: Theoretically, yes, but in reality, it’s about as easy as beating a computer grand master program at chess.
Shannon: What do you mean?
Tom: First of all, if a person starts a new Facebook account today and just accepts the existing defaults, then their life will be an open Facebook to the world. True, on May fourteenth, they added some opt-out controls and updated the Facebook privacy policy. But now, the current updated Facebook privacy policy is longer than the US Constitution. If you read it carefully, however, you will see that it gives third party Web sites access to Facebook users’ personal data. A user who wants complete privacy must click through over fifty privacy controls and correctly choose from more than one hundred and fifty options.
Shannon: I know. I’ve spent hours trying to make it so Facebook will only display my likes and interest data to my Facebook friends. But I can’t do it. No matter what I try, I still get e-mails and instant messages from strangers referencing information on Facebook that I thought I’d made private.
Tom: That’s because you joined Facebook before the new privacy policy and privacy interface were deployed.
Shannon: What – you mean Facebook has grandfathered me into their user rape program?
Tom: I suppose you could put it that way. Have you heard that users can now also configure Facebook to notify them when a computer or mobile device other than those they specify through a registration process accesses their Facebook data? In addition, you can arrange for Facebook to challenge users of unregistered devices with security questions before granting access to your profile page, you know.
Shannon: Fat lot of good that feature’s going to do me if everybody can still see all my personal information without visiting my profile page!
Tom: I don’t know, maybe Facebook will address that problem sometime soon. Let’s hope they do, I guess.
Shannon: I don’t get it, Tom! Why the hell don’t they default everything to the highest privacy settings and then let people opt-in for the other stuff?
Tom: Oh, you mean, such as, “Would you like Facebook to start selling your personal information to third parties and not give you a cent for it?” Come on, Shannon, what person in their right mind would make a conscious decision to opt-in for all the abuse Facebook has surreptitiously heaped on them all this time?
Shannon: But how can they justify behaving like that? It stinks out loud in three-dimensional high-definition Technicolor!
Tom: Facebook’s official take on that is, you opted in for all that information sharing when you chose to join Facebook. Like they say, and I quote, “Everything is opt-in on Facebook. Participating in the service is a choice.”
Shannon: So any information I add, like photos or status updates or my “Likes” – Facebook says those are all opt-in? They say I elected to have no privacy at all when I signed up for Facebook?
Tom: According to them, everything you put on your Facebook pages is automatically shared with “Everyone” by default; unless you go through that maze of buttons and options and manage to configure Facebook correctly to prevent it.
Shannon: Which nobody can do.
Tom: Okay, yeah, hardly anybody, anyway.
Shannon: Man, this really burns me up!
Tom: Well, you’re definitely not alone. Matt Cutts at Google and Peter Rojas at Engadget have both deactivated their Facebook accounts and called press conferences to announce doing so. The phrase “How do I delete my Facebook account?” is in the top twenty Google search phrases at the moment, and getting out of Facebook alive has been the hottest subject on Twitter for the last three days. Congress is convening hearings on Facebook, the FTC is investigating Facebook, and over in the European Union, the Article 29 Working Party has written Facebook a very, very nasty letter. Let’ see, I think I have a copy here somewhere, oh, yeah, here it is: “It is unacceptable that the company fundamentally changed the default settings on its social-networking platform to the detriment of a user. Furthermore, it is particularly outrageous that Facebook made these changes only days after the company and other social networking site providers participated at a hearing during the Article 29 Working Party’s plenary meeting… Users who accepted Facebook’s new defaults found that much more of their information was available to everyone or to members of very large networks than before. They found that details of their family, relationships and employer were available to the whole Internet. Accepting Facebook’s changes would also make their birthdays and religious views available to any Facebook user who is a friend with one of their friends, and their phone numbers, physical addresses and e-mail addresses available to all their friends.” Then there’s this comment from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who say that Facebook has created, and I quote, “…new and serious privacy problems… clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before,” and, “Even worse, the recent changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data.” Plus, there’s the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which was the organization that filed the first complaint about Facebook with the FTC, who say, and again, I quote: “These changes violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook’s own representations and constitute unfair and deceptive trade practices.” Also, there is now a Quit Face Book Day, May thirty-first, 2010, and a new Web site dedicated to it at http://www.quitfacebookday.com which started today, on the morning of May fifteenth. There’s also a Facebook Protest site, at http://facebookprotest.com that is organizing a protest for D-Day, June sixth. So, all in all, I’d say you’ve got plenty of good company here, and, as we all know, misery loves company. But tell me, Shannon; seriously, aside from just being annoying, what has little old Facebook done to you that’s so bad and awful, anyhow?
Shannon: Okay, it’s like this – I wrote on Facebook about how drunk everybody got at a sister’s wedding reception recently, and posted what I thought was a pretty funny video of one of our brothers making out with one of our cousins on the dance floor. Now the cousin’s husband has filed for divorce, and our brother, who’s married himself, you see, and a major in the Air Force, is facing a court martial. All that because other people on Facebook who I never even heard of told our cousin’s husband and our brother’s commanding officer where to see the two of them… well, I suppose I should have cut that part at the end, but it’s not like anybody was holding a gun to their heads, making him put his… well, anyway, my cousin only got married two months ago. If she had invited me to their wedding, like she should have, then I would have known! And why did my brother have to wear his dress uniform to the wedding in the first place?”
Tom: My take on that is, these days, a person should never do anything they wouldn’t like to see in an Internet video with ten million views.
Shannon: That’s a very good point, I guess, Tom. Then, there was this post I did about how shocked and disappointed I was when our priest caught one of the ushers stealing from the collection plate at church.
Tom: What happened?
Shannon: Somebody on Facebook who knows the usher told him about what I said, and now he’s suing me for libel.
Tom: You’re kidding!
Shannon: My lawyer says he doesn’t have a case, because libel has to be something that isn’t true, and the guy did really get caught stealing from the collection plate, after all, but my lawyer also says it’s going to be a lot cheaper to settle with him out of court. And I guess that’s kind of relative, because it’s already cost us nearly five grand to deal with that guy.
Tom: Seeing how things are with you folks out there in Fairfax, that’s pretty inconvenient, what with Hank being out of a job all these months now, leaving only three people bringing home paychecks.
Shannon: Make that two.
Tom: Did your husband lose his job, then?
Shannon: No, I did. I posted about my boss on Facebook. I said, “He’s the kind of boob that only wants to hear good news and craps all over anybody who dares tell him the truth.”
Tom: Is that all?
Shannon: Not exactly. I posted a few quotes of him being a big, silly windbag, too: ”Our financials turnaround is the most impertinent and overweening issue facing us;” and “We’re limited time-wise, so I’m just going to touch on a few of the most salacious points;” and, “For any responsible corporate officer, the question of their integrity is paramour.”
Tom: No sense of humor, I take it?
Shannon: I also posted that he’s such an insufferable jerk, I was looking for another job.
Tom: And so someone told him where to find your Facebook posts, he read them and then fired you?
Shannon: That’s what he said, yeah.
Tom: Oh, that’s right – you work in Virginia, don’t you?
Shannon: The company’s headquartered there, too. So there’s nothing I can do about it – Virginia’s a right-to-work state and all.
Tom: My sympathies on all counts there, Shannon. Where do we go from here?
Shannon: I… I guess… I guess I want to quit Facebook.
Tom: Got a pen and paper?
Shannon: I have my new iPad.
Tom: Okay, then, listen up – the first thing you need to realize is that Facebook has made sure your account settings don’t have any option to permanently delete anything. All you can do within your account settings is deactivate your account. That means everything is saved for the day when Facebook thinks you will lose all your will power and come crawling back. So, to find the delete button you have to go into the Help Center and search for “delete account.” And forget about trying to find it with the usual Facebook search utility, because they’ve hidden it from that. The Help Center search brings you to the FAQs, and Frequently Asked Question Five is “I want to permanently delete my account. How do I delete my account?” They’ve hidden a link inside the answer. You have to click on that link to get to the page where you can delete your account. Once you get there, you open the Delete My Account form and click Submit. That will activate another window, which warns you that you’re about to delete your account. You will have to correctly respond to a CAPTCHA display to continue. If you get that far, then they show you another window which tells you that your account is now currently deactivated, but will not actually be deleted for fourteen days. Then you will get an e-mail telling you the same thing, and if you dare log back in to Facebook before those two weeks are up, you’re back in Facebook again. Finally, that e-mail has a link in it that will instantly restore your account if you click on it.
Shannon: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. You’re kidding.
Tom: Nope.
Shannon: What kind of twisted mind comes up with demented things like Facebook privacy policy, anyway?
Tom: Mark Zuckerberg started a prototype of Facebook at college by stealing university photo IDs off the campus computer network and using them to construct an illegal student directory. He is also currently being sued for ripping off the Facebook concept from two upperclassmen at the university from which he dropped out.
Shannon: Which was?
Tom: Harvard.
Shannon: You mean, this guy Zuckerberg started out by getting a bunch of students at Harvard to give him all their personal information so he could use it?
Tom: Yep. Later on, he called them “a bunch of dumb [expletive].”
Shannon: “Dumb [expletive]?”
Tom: Right. And if that’s what he thought of his classmates at Harvard, you can imagine his opinion concerning the rest of us.