Facebook – Fun or Fraud?

On July 16, 2009, David Gelles from Financial Times reported that for “the first time a government has found Facebook in direct violation of its laws, and comes as the world’s largest social network with 250m users, is pushing its users to share more of their information with everyone on the Web.”  Personally I think this is a bit scary.  Even though I jumped on the Facebook bandwagon in 2004, I have a hard time accepting the fact that I am being shared with 250 million people.  To me this is absurd—but if you were to monitor my social media activity, you would question the above statement because I find myself logging into Facebook every time I re-open a Web browser.  It has become as habitual for me as checking my e-mail.

In my defense, this past weekend I was more concerned with Facebook than I had been previously.  Last week, both Jill and my friend Dave brought to my attention something suspicious when they logged on to their accounts.  Under “Suggestions,” Jill and Dave had an icon named Chrissy Buckley.  This concerned me because we were already friends, and I do not have multiple accounts.

I did some research, Googled myself, looked up my profile privacy settings—everything seemed to be fine and very secure.  Long story short, somebody had cloned my account.  This means someone or something had copied my account and privacy settings and set up an identical Facebook page.  After a few days, back and forth with what seemed like a machine automated e-mailer named “Will,” I was finally able to get this cloned account deleted.

This ordeal got me thinking: how secure am I when I log in to my account?  Who’s to say my privacy settings are even working? I felt violated.  I felt as though someone had taken a piece of me and taunted and teased me.  In a way, isn’t it a form of identity theft?  If I found out who did this, could I press charges? Unfortunately, the answer is probably not.  I do, however, think that Facebook needs to reform its privacy settings now that this tool is available to 250 million people.  It’s just a thought.

Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said it right when she stated: “Facebook has to be more transparent about telling people what they do with their personal information, how long they keep it, and who is able to use it.”  Isn’t that already a standard practice when it comes to collecting and utilizing personal information such as credit cards, birthdays and other such important details?

I’m not sure what to do or how to solve this problem; however, I do think that Facebook could come up with a system that checks on new accounts. Maybe it is the idealist in me that thinks employing actual humans to monitor the activity could fix the problem of offensive and cloned accounts.  Not only would you be setting up some sort of justice system within a social networking program, but you would also be providing more jobs for people to fill.  It seems like a win-win situation.  What do you think?

A Revolutionary Tweet

On Fourth of July we read the Declaration of Independence at the dinner table. It is filled with passion and conviction, and I now think that the beauty of the document can only be fully experienced when read aloud.

The most important part is at the beginning, as it should be:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The founding fathers’ premise is only 176 characters long (210 with spaces), the equivalent of one-and-a-half tweets. The rest of the document goes on to defend this position and offers a long list of “abuses and usurpations.” All of the evidence supports the original thesis: men are created equal and deserve certain rights. It is short and to the point. Kind of like the communication on Twitter. I know that my habits have changed with the advent of Twitter: I read tweets about the day’s news by following media outlets and journalists. For more in-depth coverage, I check out nytimes.com and cnn.com or follow the links that are shared through social media outlets.

I think that Twitter is doing it right: letting us know (in brief) what we need to know. It is our responsibility to dig further and read more if we so choose. It is putting a customized and time-saving tool in our hands and giving us the freedom and individuality to select who will serve as filters for the information that bombards us each day and who will, in part, shape our world view.

When Matthew Bishop tweeted about Gideon Rachman’s article “A categorical imperative to twitter” in the Financial Times, I identified with Gideon’s reasoning:  although he originally thought tweeting to be moronic, he later agreed with the importance of extreme brevity. For instance, he encapsulated the Bible in a tweet, “God made the world in seven days. Respect.”

I think that the best communication has always been short, impactful messaging, like the most important sentence in the Declaration of Independence. A communications vehicle that forces us to work with only 140 characters gives us the opportunity to write succinct messages that others will find relevant, interesting or perhaps revolutionary…or to be moronic. I challenge myself to choose the former and find those I follow tend to do the same.