Ethan Frenchman
The Facebook has over 8.3 million users, 70% of which check the site at least daily. The site gets the ninth most traffic on the Internet, and owns millions of images of college students smoking, drinking, smiling and fucking around. I would like to pose the question: Why do we trust Facebook so much?
One need only surf the web for a few minutes to find dozens of stories of stalkers, employers, universities, police, market researchers, and the government using information posted on the Facebook for nefarious ends. Our generation has fully accepted published social networking without first debating its wisdom.
I will start with the most creepy, and least verifiable, concerns first. Venture capital firm Accel Partners just recently invested over $13 million in Facebook. While it is not unusual for a site of Facebook’s size to receive significant funding, the circumstances require some attention.
The magazine Private Equity Week reported, in an April 15, 2005 article titled “Accel Faces Social Networking,” that few other firms were interested in Facebook. Several social networking sites, like Friendster and Uconnect, have attracted large investments in recent years only to fizzle out. However, Accel, which rarely bets on Internet companies, found Facebook worthwhile. Accel’s gamble may be explained by the fact that their manager, Jim Breyer, has close connections with In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the CIA in 1999 to fund promising intelligence projects.
General concerns over the Internet have been aired for quite some time. A November 23, 2002 New York Times article titled “Many Tools of Big Brother Are Already Up and Running” stated the issue plainly, “Because of the inroads the Internet and other digital network technologies have made into everyday life, it is increasingly possible to amass Big Brother-like surveillance powers through Little Brother means. The basic components include everyday digital technologies... The civilian population, in other words, has willingly embraced the technical prerequisites for a national surveillance system.”
But the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial board staunchly defends the government’s right to domestic wiretapping without warrants, stated its concern about Facebook in a December 8, 2005 article titled “Too Much Information: Colleges Fear Student Postings on Popular Site Could Pose Security Risks.”
The University of Toledo, Ohio, the University of Virginia, and the University of New Mexico have all warned their students of the dangers of Facebook and some schools have taken steps towards kicking Facebook off of campus. Other schools are taking the opposite approach, however. Penn State University nabbed more than 50 students who stormed the football field after a game with rival Ohio State on October 8 by consulting photos and content on Facebook.
Even Facebook’s own motives warrant concern. Firstly, members trust Facebook with large quantities of personal information ranging from their photo albums to interests, voting preferences, sexual orientation, and friends. With advanced tools, Facebook can now outline how you know people and for how long you have known them. My entire social network and history is on Facebook. Other utilities, like Pulse, are nothing more than advanced market research tools to be used for companies. Expect a Big Lebowski 2 soon.
All of this information, stored on Facebook servers, is Facebook property. Facebook’s policy says that posting information is “an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide 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,” however Facebook wishes.