So I have rejoined Facebook. Now why would I do such a thing after successfully deleting my Facebook profile before? And yes, I did say “delete” not “disable”. Well, I've come to terms with the beast that is the western world's favourite social media network and I've come to terms with how I expect to use it and how I expect it to use me.
You see one critical thing you need to remember with Facebook, and I can't remember the source of this quote, but its a good one: With Facebook you are not the customer you are the product. Snappy, huh?
Facebook exists not to provide you and I with an outlet for sharing our photos and reconnecting with people we haven't seen in 10 years and then ignoring them but it exists to make money for Mark Zukkerberg and his investors. How it does this is through targeted advertising and selling off your “personal” data to carefully selected third parties. And “carefully selected” means anyone who pays for it. Why is it you cannot delete your profile now, nor even your photos? Because Facebook own these not you.
If you approach Facebook with eyes wide open to what is going on then you can't really complain about Facebook then doing exactly what Facebook does. I started out in life from a IT Security perspective as that’s been a big chunk of my job for the last five or more years. However when Facebook hits back at privacy campaigners this week saying “well what the heck do you expect when you plaster this so-called private data all over the flippin' internet you numpties” (or words to that effect) I have to admit a certain level of sympathy for the devil on this matter. The Register has neat coverage.
You also have to be a bit savvy. Facebook would like you to use your real contact details, but they can't force you to. I understand you have to confirm you are at least 14 years old to comply with various rules on child safeguarding but no, I don't want them to have my real date of birth as much as I don't want them to have my real bank account number and mother's maiden name. Meh, maybe I'm paranoid but that doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Again The Register covers why I'm twitchy about this, giving unspecified third parties access to my address and phone number etc. And you wonder why Facebook are so damn keen to get you to register your mobile with them? You wonder why I registered on Facebook with a “burner” mobile? Ha. And guess what, despite me marking this (my email address and my gender, which is “male”) as “Private” some odd glitch in the machine means my public profile has my gender displayed as female and there for the world to see is my mobile number and email address. Oh, you shouldn't be surprised I registered with a “disposable” email address...
To be honest this was not the reason I dropped off Facebook last time around though.
Now with all this paranoia about Facebook you'd be forgiven for thinking they are the only awesome power for supreme evil in the world. And you would be wrong. You see I have reconciled myself to Facebook in part because I am already reconciled to Google. See we've known Google is an evil leviathan of data snaffling and privacy abuse well before the court rulings against the theft and retention of Wi-Fi data (The Register has a ton of articles on this here, and here, and here, and here - you get the idea, there is a ton of this) with these articles on Google privacy concerns going back to '06 and '04...
Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Search and Google Tool Bar are all spy tools when it comes down to it and most of us are fully acclimatised to that. I'm a fairly careful person with my “private” data yet during a short Skype session my brother was able to demonstrate how easy it is to pull private data on specific people out of Google. As I say, I'm careful and I watch my digital footprint but just working from my name and location he was able to get my home address, wife's name and that I have a preschool child at home. Next up was my work address, work phone number, my boss' name, and a couple of company related documents in which I was named. My work email address, one of my home email addresses, and more.
I think there are two main groups of people. Those who don't realise how privacy is a myth and those who either flat don't care or have resigned and accepted it. The noise is made by the people transitioning from the first group to the second.
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