I joined FB almost two years ago because I found it to be more respectable and private than other social networks. I did like the freedom of design found on MySpace, and while Multiply was my favorite choice, I couldn’t get anyone to get an acct and maintain it.
The popular choice was MySpace. While you could get an impressive group of friends on there (most you’ve never met) it seemed like a haven for people to act out in a fashion that they wouldn’t otherwise. It seemed to remove that little voice inside your head that informed you, “Hey mother of 4- do you really want your children to see you acting like a complete drunken skank?” (or father, it really didn’t seem to be gender specific) MySpace became cluttered, tainted, and nothing good for me came from it. People used it as a free dating service and hook-up site and soon I felt myself caught up in the drama adults create when they’re free to do as they will in the private world that is beneath the keyboard.
The appeal of Facebook for me was the professionalism. I ran into more work contacts initially than anything else, soon to follow were alumni and then family. Harmless. Someone, at one point, actually had to know you before they could add you and I appreciated that function. In time I had added ‘friends’ mistakenly because the reigns on privacy began to lift some what and I couldn’t get to the settings fast enough, and then the familiarity of the old social network began to seep in.
Not long after the MS defectors made their way I heard about the drama behind the scenes of various accounts being deleted because so and so caught so and so cheating on their wife/husband after hooking up with an old flame found on the site. Other friends were placed in rumor knitting circles over things they didn’t do and ostracized for things that happened a generation again. The drama came back. Not only did the drama come back, but the little clique of people who began to run the site in order to keep college mates in contact- turned it MySpace on acid.
While I never write anything I don’t mind if the world reads, and my messages for the most part are rare and nothing to gossip about, I don’t like the attitude of the company now where our privacy is concerned. Things you mark as ‘private’ should be just that. Options you previously wished to keep out of public viewing should just be that.
I’ve no influence to cattle people to another site and I’ve no other way to really keep in contact with those I can’t see in person in one area… so I’m not sure where I’m going to go with my account. Dissipate into cyberspace and have people ‘find me’ or create my own social network (tried and failed)?
If people wish to remain on the site knowing that your profiles are reading material for the bored, your private messages might be snickered at by staff if they haven’t already and every move you make on there is being recorded then that’s fine. I for one might stay on there, but merely as an observer to see how friends and family are doing, but my participation will remain scarce.
-Dawn
The abuse of private data by Facebook employees was pretty much inevitable; the simple act of amassing data tends to lead to corruption. What’s sad is how lightly the social network reportedly controls its employees.
There’s a great interview on TheRumpus.net with an anonymous Facebook employee. Here are some of the things she divulges:
- As of a few months ago, Facebook records and archives information on whose profile you view. (Apparently this was already publicly known.)
- Facebook has 200-220 million active users, and more than 300 million total accounts, including disabled accounts and potential fakes.
- At one point, Facebook staff widely used a “master password” that unlocked access to anyone’s account. Use of this password has been “deprecated,” i.e. discouraged, implying the password might still exist and work. What was the password? “With upper and lower case, symbols, numbers, all of the above, it spelled out ‘Chuck Norris,’ more or less. It was pretty fantastic.”
- The Facebook employee is aware of at least two coworkers being fired for abusing their access to profiles; the employee herself also inappropriately access profiles.
- Facebook employees can “just query the database” to find your Facebook messages.
The picture that emerges is one of loose internal controls on private data access. Sure, the master password has been replaced by a system in which Facebook staff must log a justification when they view users’ private profile data. But the employee said managers aren’t “on your ass about it,” leaving the door open for situations like this one:
When I first started working there, yes — I used it to view other people’s profiles which I didn’t have permission to visit. I never manipulated their data in any way; however, I did abuse the profile viewing permission at several initial points when I started at Facebook.
It also sounds like controls are lax on Facebook’s backend database:
Your messages are stored in a database, whether deleted or not. So we can just query the database, and easily look at it without every logging into your account. That’s what most people don’t understand.
It seems safe to assume that if this particular employee obtained unauthorized account data, and knows of two other people who did, the practice has been reasonably widespread at Facebook, recent “crackdown” or not.
Sensitive data hoards inevitably attract attempts at unauthorized access. Whether it’s hospital employees peaking at celebrity medical records or federal workers abusing their wiretap access 100 times in two tears (dubiously claiming it was an “accident”), people confronted with a pile of information feel compelled to start digging.
The best protection for a user: Throw as little as possible onto the pile.
(Pic: Facebook office by Matthew McDonald)
Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at ryan@gawker.com.
