The End of Facebook?

“Facebook users flock to delete accounts”, “10 Reasons To Delete Your Facebook Account”, Peter Rojas—Endgaget  founder—deleting his profile! Cue Friendster sitting on the sidelines snickering about the death of its slayer.

Like the abandonment of Friendster and MySpace (which I think, will find its niche and come back a leaner, meaner, machine) this trend hasn’t happened overnight.  Searches surrounding the deletion of Facebook accounts have been trending for quite some time. The more popular Facebook became, the more people looked for ways to exit its clutches.

(As a guide, in 2007 there were around 50 million Facebookers, by end 2008 it hit 100 million and doubled again in 2009.)

As the discussion heats up about the nefarious designs Facebook has on us, I can’t help but think that the “end” of Facebook seems a long time coming. At the same time as users are becoming more and more aware of their privacy within the social sphere (remember when you first started to use Facebook? Ah, those days of fancy free sharing and stalking) Facebook seems to be moving in the opposite direction.

Privacy, or rather the lack of it, has been a hot topic for Facebook of late. Last year during the review of their policies many users, like myself, were confronted for the first time with how much access to our lives Mark Zuckerberg, and by proxy his clients, had. Post that, their track record hasn’t been gleaming. Privacy settings have become increasingly difficult to control, buried within the website and shrouded by legalese.  Their policies on privacy have evolved from:

“No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.” (2005)

To

“When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. … The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” … Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.”

The truth is that Facebook as it was first envisioned ceased to exist a long time ago. As social networks expanded and continue to do so, our concepts of privacy and what can be shared vs. should be shared online are evolving too.  Facebook needs to find a balance between its needs to monetize and the needs of its users. If they continue to veer hard on the monetize lane their end may come sooner than they think.

Personally I think deleting your Facebook to punish the big bad Facebook machine may be jumping the gun a little.  It seems counter-intuitive to delete your Facebook when the world is increasingly relying on social networks. The onus of your privacy is on you not some tweedy legal expert who could not care less that your future employer can see your current musings about your boss or how much you love your cat. (see: failbook). Google or Profile Watch yourself and make your choice.

If there is anything I’ve learnt over my years as an internet user its this: as long as the service a company provides proves to be useful, I’m more than prepared to turn a blind eye to the information they’re leeching from me. Remember when Google started Adwords and contextual advertising? Still worry about it? Didn’t think so.

For more  detailed timeline on how the privacy policy of Facebook has changed see: Facebook’s Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline