Criticism of Facebook

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Facebook's growth as an Internet social networking site has met criticism, on a range of issues including the privacy of users and unmoderated content affecting advertising.



Contents

[edit] Privacy concerns

There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining. Theories have been written about the possible misuse of Facebook[1] and privacy proponents have criticised the site's current privacy agreement.[2] According to the policy, "We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile." However, some features—such as AIM away-message harvesting and campus newspaper monitoring—have been dropped and Facebook has since responded to the concerns.[citation needed] Facebook has assured worried users the next privacy policy will not include the clause about information collection and has denied any data mining is being done "for the CIA or any other group."[3] However, the possibility of data mining by private individuals unaffiliated with Facebook remains open, as evidenced by the fact that two MIT students were able to download, using an automated script, over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, the University of Oklahoma, and Harvard) as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14th, 2005.[4]

Third party applications have access to almost all user information and "Facebook does not screen or approve Platform Developers and cannot control how such Platform Developers use any personal information." [2]

[edit] Issues during 2007

In August 2007 the code used to dynamically generate Facebook's home and search page as visitors browse the site was accidentally made public, according to leading internet news sites.[5] [6] A configuration problem on a Facebook server caused the PHP code to be displayed instead of the web page the code should have created, raising concerns about how secure private data on the site was. A visitor to the site copied, published and later removed the code from his web forum, claiming he had been served legal notice by Facebook[7]. Facebook's response was quoted by the site that broke the story[8]

“ A small fraction of the code that displays Facebook web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. Because the code that was released powers only Facebook user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of Facebook. The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further. ”

In November 2007, Facebook launched Beacon, a system where third-party websites can include a script by Facebook on their sites, and use it to send information about the actions of Facebook users on their site to Facebook, prompting serious privacy concerns. Information such as purchases made and games played are published in the user's news feed. An informative notice about this action appears on the third party site and gives the user the opportunity to cancel it, and the user can also cancel it on Facebook. Originally if no action was taken, the information was automatically published. On November 29th this was changed to require confirmation from the user before publishing each story gathered by Beacon. However, there is still no option to prevent Facebook from storing and using information sent by Beacon. [9]

On Dec. 1, 2007 Facebook's credibility in regard to the Beacon program was further tested when it was reported that the New York Times "essentially accuses" Mark Zuckerberg of lying to the paper and leaving Coca-Cola, which is reversing course on the program, a similar impression.[10] A security engineer at CA, Inc. also claimed that Facebook is collecting data from affiliate sites even when the consumer opts out and even when not logged into the Facebook site, a contradiction of Facebook public claims and email correspondence.[11]

[edit] January 2008: “Secret Crush” widget scam

In early 2008, a Facebook application named “Secret Crush” was used to trick users into installing Zango, an ad-delivery application and to recruit new victims for the same scam. In addition, Facebook was criticized for passing on an abuse report to the actual malware operator instead of acting on it itself.[12]

[edit] May 2008: "Stalker" list feature

In May 2008, news surfaced through blog circles that hitting the down arrow key or entering a period in the search prompt would bring up a list of five "important people" according to Facebook's own release.[13] The algorithm seems to have been based on both the number of views of those individuals profiles on behalf of the user and the number of times the user had viewed said individuals on their own.

[edit] Lawsuit from CIPPC

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, per Director Phillipa Lawson, filed a 35-page complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner against Facebook on May 31, 2008, based on 22 breaches of the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Pipeda). Facebook's Chris Kelly contradicted the claims, saying that: "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors — most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users."[14] 4 University of Ottawa law students initiated the "minefield of privacy invasion" suit which was investigated by Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, who will submit the report and recommendations within a year. She will utilize negotiation to resolve privacy disputes, but can ask for court injunctions.[15]

[edit] Removal of advertising

On 3 August 2007, British companies including First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, The Automobile Association, Halifax and the Prudential removed their advertisements from Facebook. A Virgin Media spokeswoman said "We want to advertise on social networks but we have to protect our brand". The companies found that their services were being advertised on pages of the British National Party, a far-right political party in the UK. New Media Age magazine was first to alert the companies that their ads were coming up on BNP's Facebook page. The AA also pulled its advertising from YouTube when a BBC documentary showed that videos of school children fighting were available on that site. [16]

[edit] Breastfeeding photos suppressed, accounts canceled, alleged Terms of Use violations

On 7 September 2007, the Sydney Morning Herald[17] reported that Facebook had begun removing photos uploaded by mothers of themselves breastfeeding their babies, and also cancelling their Facebook accounts. While claiming that these photos violate their decency code by showing an exposed breast, even when the baby covered the nipple, Facebook took several days to respond to calls to deactivate a paid advertisement for a dating service that used a photo of a topless model.

[edit] Hasty termination of accounts

As its popularity has grown, Facebook has become increasingly concerned about misuse of the site for data mining, harassment, and spam. Under their Terms of Use, a number of actions can lead to quick termination of an account without warning. While these policies help keep spammers at bay, unsuspecting users have gotten their accounts blocked simply by adding too many friends too quickly.[18] Facebook has responded to large numbers of complaints in part by instituting several different protection measures, such as a maximum limit of 5000 friends, and a requirement that users to type in words shown each time they add a friend, or verify their account via cell phone text message. Accounts can also be blocked for other potential forms of harassment and spam such as poking too many people, posting too many duplicate wall posts, posting in too many groups, or sending too many unsolicited messages to non-friends.[19] Although Facebook does handle appeals, they respond only with form emails and receptionists refuse to handle phone calls regarding the matter.[20] Although blocked users appeals are often rejected and their emails put on spam lists, some have managed to recover their accounts after several weeks.[19]

[edit] Account terminations

Facebook has also faced criticism for not allowing users to permanently terminate their accounts. The website used to give users only the option of "deactivating." However, once an account has been deactivated, all the personal information of users remained on Facebook's servers in case they wish to reactivate their account in the future. The website provided no means for users to permanently delete their account. A student from the University of British Columbia pursued the issue with Facebook. A Facebook representative responded by asking the student to "clear his account" before the termination process could begin. This included "415 wall posts, 126 friends, and 38 groups." The student subsequently gave up on terminating his account permanently as the process of deleting every wall post, friend, and group on his profile would require 1158 mouse clicks.[21]

This lack of functionality was the focus of a New York Times article in February 2008, which pointed out that Facebook did not actually provide a mechanism for users to close their accounts and thus raised the concern that private user data will remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers.[22]

Facebook now allows permanent deletion of accounts, on special request. [1]

[edit] News Feed and Mini-Feed

On September 5, 2006, Facebook introduced two new features called "News Feed" and "Mini-Feed". The first of the new features, News Feed, appears on every Facebook member's home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of a member's friends. The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member's profile page.[23] Members can manually delete items from their Mini-Feeds if they wish to do so, and through privacy settings are able to control what is actually published in their respective Mini-Feeds.

Some Facebook members still feel that the ability to opt-out of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary, as evidenced by a statement from the Students Against Facebook News Feed group, which peaked at over 740,000 members.[24] However, according to recent news articles, members have widely regarded the additional privacy options as an acceptable compromise.[25]

[edit] Concerns of higher education faculty and administrators

On January 23, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education continued an ongoing national debate on social networks with an opinion piece written by Michael Bugeja, director of the Journalism School at Iowa State University, entitled "Facing the Facebook".[26] Bugeja, author of the Oxford University Press text Interpersonal Divide (2005), quoted representatives of the American Association of University Professors and colleagues in higher education to document the distraction of students using Facebook and other social networks during class and at other venues in the wireless campus. Bugeja followed up on January 26, 2007 in The Chronicle with an article titled "Distractions in the Wireless Classroom,"[27] quoting several educators across the country who were banning laptops in the classroom. Similarly, organisations such as the National Association for Campus Activities,[28] the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,[29] and others have hosted seminars and presentations to discuss ramifications of students' use of Facebook and other social networking systems.

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative has also released a brief pamphlet entitled "7 Things You Should Know About Facebook" aimed at higher education professionals that "describes what [Facebook] is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning".[30]


[edit] Controversial groups

Facebook has also received criticism from both users and those outside the Facebook community[31]. British eating disorder charity B-EAT called on all social networking sites to curb "pro-ana" (anorexia) and "pro-mia" (bulimia) pages and groups, naming MySpace and Facebook specifically. [32]

[edit] Student privacy concerns

Due to the open nature of Facebook, students and professionals are at potential risk of public embarrassment. Students who post illegal or otherwise inappropriate material have faced disciplinary action from their Universities, including expulsion. [33] Students involved in sports and other school activities may jeopardize recruitment and advancement if potentially embarrassing material is published.

[edit] Integration of high school users

Following the February 27, 2006 integration of the high school and college levels, some college users began creating groups critical of the decision.[34] Users from opposite branches could fully interact only if they were friends and some separation did remain. The site also released the Limited Profile privacy settings and advised students on how to hide pictures and other features from others. However, some college users felt that the site's former exclusivity had been key to their experience.[35] Some expressed concerns about the ability of unknown persons to create accounts on the high school version (since university addresses are not required) and use them to access the college version; by default, strangers can message and view users' friends through a simple global search. Some made predictions that the site would soon face issues with spammers, stalkers, or worse, and worried this would result in controversies similar to the bad publicity seen by MySpace.[36]

Adding to the controversy around opening Facebook to younger students, four high school students at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario were arrested in a Facebook-related protest on March 23, 2007. Earlier that week, five different students had been suspended for posting criticisms about a vice-principal of their school. About a dozen friends of the suspendees had decided to protest in front of the school, but that handful soon grew to over 100 students protesting for free speech. Local law enforcement authorities were called, and a scuffle ensued, resulting in the arrest of 4 students.[37]

[edit] Censorship

Facebook's search function has been accused of preventing users for searching for certain terms. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has written about Facebook's possible censorship of "Ron Paul" as well as the Beacon protest page (as well as the search term "privacy" altogether) set up on Facebook by MoveOn.org. [38] Facebook claimed that the Ron Paul problem was a bug, but has not yet supplied a reason for the MoveOn page being excluded from search results.

[edit] Politics of investors

Some have suggested that the overt politics of certain Facebook founders may have some influence on decisions regarding censorship. One of the three board members is Peter Thiel, who is openly conservative, and describes the politics of the thevanguard.org (of which he is a member) as "Reaganite/Thatcherite" and as a direct counter to moveon.org, even saying, "Today we'll teach MoveOn ... and the leftwing media some lessons they never imagined." [39] After it was noticed that the MoveOn Facebook group was omitted from a Facebook search of the term 'privacy' (when it had previously been included) Adam Green, of MoveOn, was quoted to say, "trust [in Facebook] will be undercut ... if it turned out our group was intentionally hidden from Facebook users — as opposed to it being an accident." [38]

[edit] Controversy

[edit] Responses

[edit] Schools blocking access

The University of New Mexico (UNM) in October 2005 blocked access to Facebook from UNM campus computers and networks, citing unsolicited e-mails and a similar site called UNM Facebook.[40] After a UNM user signed into Facebook from off campus, a message from Facebook said, "We are working with the UNM administration to lift the block and have explained that it was instituted based on erroneous information, but they have not yet committed to restore your access." UNM, in a message to students who tried to access the site from the UNM network, wrote, "This site is temporarily unavailable while UNM and the site owners work out procedural issues. The site is in violation of UNM's Acceptable Computer Use Policy for abusing computing resources (e.g., spamming, trademark infringement, etc.). The site forces use of UNM credentials (e.g., NetID or email address) for non-UNM business." However, after Facebook created an encrypted login and displayed a precautionary message not to use university passwords for access, UNM unblocked access the following spring semester.[41]

The Columbus Dispatch reported on June 22, 2006, that Kent State University's athletic director had planned to ban the use of Facebook by athletes and gave them until August 1 to delete their accounts.[42] On July 5, 2006, the Daily Kent Stater reported that the director reversed the decision after reviewing the privacy settings of Facebook.

Since it violates many school boards terms of use for the internet along with local and state laws, many school boards in North America and Europe that run elementary through high schools have access to Facebook blocked. Students caught using Facebook and other sites similar to that will be required to serve various punishments, ranging from temporary or permanent exclusion of computer privileges on campus to expulsion. Evading blocks using proxy servers in schools may also result in suspension or expulsion.

[edit] Organizations blocking access

Ontario government employees, MPPs, and cabinet ministers were blocked from access to Facebook on government computers in May 2007.[43] When the employees tried to access Facebook, a warning message "The Internet website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for government business purposes". This warning also appears when employees try to access YouTube, MySpace, gambling or pornographic websites.[44] However, innovative employees have found ways around such protocols, and many claim to use the site for political or work-related purposes.[45]

The New South Wales Department of Education and Training has also blocked all users (students and staff) from accessing Facebook, as have many other government departments in Australia. The City of New York Department of Health and Hospitals blocks Facebook from use at work.

[edit] Memorials

A notable ancillary effect of social networking websites, particularly Facebook, is the ability for participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook, students often leave messages of sadness, grief, or hope on the individual's page, transforming it into a sort of public book of condolences. This particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools.[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55] Previously, Facebook had stated that its official policy on the matter was to remove the profile of the deceased one month after he or she has died,[56] preventing the profile from being used for communal mourning, citing privacy concerns. Due to user response, Facebook amended its policy. Its new policy is to place deceased members' profiles in a "memorialization state".[57]

Additional usage of Facebook as a tool of remembrance is expressed in group memberships on the site. Now that groups are community-wide and available among all networks, many users create Facebook groups not only to remember a deceased friend or individual but also as a source of support in response to an occurrence such as the September 11, 2001 attacks or the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007.

Such memorial groups have also raised legal issues. Notably, on January 1, 2008, one such memorial group posted the identities of murdered Toronto teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police Service their consent to release her name to the media, and her accused killers, in defiance of Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act which prohibits publishing the names of underage criminals.[58] While police and Facebook staff attempted to comply with the privacy regulations by deleting such posts, they noted that it was difficult to effectively police the individual users who repeatedly republished the deleted information.[59]

[edit] Customization and security

Facebook is often compared to MySpace but one significant difference between the two sites is the level of customization. MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and CSS while Facebook allows only plain text. However, a number of users have tweaked their profiles by using "hacks." On February 24, 2006, a pair of users exploited a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole on the profile page and created a fast-spreading worm, loading a custom CSS file on infected profiles that made them look like MySpace profiles.[60] On April 19, 2006, a user was able to embed an iframe into his profile and load a custom off-site page featuring a streaming video and a flash game from Drawball. He has since been banned from Facebook.[61] On March 26, 2006, a user was able to embed JavaScript in the "Hometown" field of his profile which imported his custom CSS.[62] In each case, Facebook quickly patched the holes, typically within hours of their discovery. In July 2007, Adrienne Felt, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole in the Facebook Platform that could inject JavaScript into profiles, which was used to import custom CSS and demonstrate how the platform could be used to violate privacy rules or create a worm.[63] This hole took Facebook two and a half weeks to fix.[64]

[edit] Censorship

In November of 2007, Facebook was blocked by the Syrian government on the premise that it promoted attacks on the authorities.[65][66] No comment was made from the government that blocked it, which has started a crackdown on online political activism in that period. Burma, Bhutan, United Arab Emirates, and Iran are among nations to have banned the website.

The internet, specifically Facebook, has left many individuals open to scrutiny based on their postings and personal profiles that are easily accessible online. Controversy has arisen based around the principles of the First Amendment. While certain online activities/postings that violate employer contracts, such as disclosing confidential company information, are legal grounds for termination of an employee, the issue is still up for debate. “In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334, 342 (1995), the United States Supreme Court recognized a qualified First Amendment right to anonymous speech: ‘[e]xpressing oneself anonymously is grounded within our constitution and historical tradition ... .’ Yet, ‘[p]rotection of anonymous speech is not absolute.’ New Jersey's State Constitution also affords protection to persons' rights to free speech, including on-line postings.”[67] Company policy dictates what is acceptable conduct for its employees online and in terms of blogging.

The issue surrounding the use of Facebook by employers is something for potential employees to consider. Facebook profiles are often the first impression and the grounds for which an employer judges on before even meeting a candidate. There is a thin line between personal life versus professional image when it comes to the internet and Facebook. If an employer proceeds to view a candidate’s profile prior to meeting them, it becomes questionable if the equal-opportunity-employment laws have been violated because his/her gender, race and even sexual preference can be exposed.[68]

[edit] Legal challenges over concept rights

[edit] Lawsuit from Connectu.com

 This article documents an ongoing legal case.
Information may change rapidly as the case progresses.

Founder of Facebook.com, Mark Zuckerberg, has been accused of illegally using both the concept and source code from competing site Connectu.com. In November 2003, ConnectU engaged Mark Zuckerberg, then a sophomore at Harvard, to complete the computer programming for their website. Upon joining the ConnectU team, Zuckerberg was given full access to the website source code. Allegedly, Zuckerberg intentionally hampered the development of ConnectU while using code originally intended for ConnectU in the development of Facebook.

Since its original filing in Massachusetts in September 2004,[69] the lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice due to technicality on March 28, 2007, but was never ruled on. It was refiled soon thereafter in U.S. District Court in Boston, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for July 25, 2007.[70] Facebook asked the district court to dismiss the case. The attorneys representing Facebook referred to the allegations as "broad brush" with no evidence to support them.[71]

[edit] Aaron Greenspan and houseSYSTEM

Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg, claims that he created the original college social networking system, before either Facebook or ConnectU were founded.[72] He states that houseSYSTEM was launched a few months before Zuckerberg released his Web site and used the term "Face Book" prior to facebook.com. Greenspan also claims that the term Facebook has no right to be trademarked because it had been used generically at Harvard University to describe any paper or e-book that showed the faces of either students or faculty.[73]

[edit] Privacy concerns

There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining. Theories have been written about the possible misuse of Facebook[1] and privacy proponents have criticised the site's current privacy agreement.[2] According to the policy, "We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile." However, some features—such as AIM away-message harvesting and campus newspaper monitoring—have been dropped and Facebook has since responded to the concerns. Facebook has assured worried users the next privacy policy will not include the clause about information collection and has denied any data mining is being done "for the CIA or any other group."[3] However, the possibility of data mining by private individuals unaffiliated with Facebook remains open, as evidenced by the fact that two MIT students were able to download, using an automated script, over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, the University of Oklahoma, and Harvard) as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14, 2005.[4]

A second clause to warrant criticism from some users reserves the right to sell users' data to private companies, stating "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." This concern has also been addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes who said "Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to."[74] It is unclear if Facebook plans to remove that clause as well.

Third party applications have access to almost all user information and "Facebook does not screen or approve Platform Developers and cannot control how such Platform Developers use any personal information."[2]

In August 2007 the code used to dynamically generate Facebook's home and search page as visitors browse the site was accidentally made public, according to leading internet news sites.[5][6] A configuration problem on a Facebook server caused the PHP code to be displayed instead of the web page the code should have created, raising concerns about how secure private data on the site was. A visitor to the site copied, published and later removed the code from his web forum, claiming he had been served legal notice by Facebook.[7] Facebook's response was quoted by the site that broke the story:[8]

“ A small fraction of the code that displays Facebook web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. Because the code that was released only powers the Facebook user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of Facebook. The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further. ”

In the UK, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has encouraged employers to allow their staff to access Facebook and other social networking sites from work, provided they proceed with caution.[75]

In September 2007, Facebook drew a fresh round of criticism after it began allowing non-members to search for users, with the intent of opening limited "public profiles" up to search engines such as Google in the following months.[76]

In November 2007, Facebook launched a new part of its Ads system named Beacon that published Facebook users' activities on partner websites such as eBay, Fandango, Travelocity, and Blockbuster to their friends. Moveon.org created an online petition due to privacy concerns, and Facebook modified the service to some extent. However, privacy concerns have continued in the wake of a report by a security researcher at Computer Associates that noted that data on users' activities is often still sent to Facebook, even if a user has opted-out on the partner site and logged out of Facebook.

Concerns were also raised on the BBC's Watchdog programme in October 2007 when Facebook was shown to be an easy way in which to collect an individual's personal information in order to facilitate identity theft.[77]

In addition, a New York Times article in February 2008 pointed out that Facebook does not actually provide a mechanism for users to close their accounts, and thus raises the concern that private user data will remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers.[78] This college forum took it further and promoted a video which took an in depth look at the amount of data Facebook stores on its users, and who is able to view it.

On February 5, 2008, Fouad Mourtada, a citizen of Morocco, was arrested for the alleged creation of a faked Facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco.[79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88]

[edit] Use in investigations

Main article: Use of social network websites in investigations

The information students provide on Facebook has been used in investigations by colleges, universities, and local police. Facebook's Terms of Use specify that "the website is available for your personal, noncommercial use only",[89] misleading some to believe that college administrators and police may not use the site for conducting investigations.[citation needed] Furthermore, some employers look at Facebook profiles of prospective employees or interns. Information posted on Facebook is potentially accessible to any employer with an email address and in most cases, the potential employees permission.[90]

[edit] References

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