Facebook is getting negative attention for (again) messing around with privacy. FB’s privacy policy exceeds the length of the US constitution, so it’s little wonder why people are confused. A small, but growing movement now calls for a Facebook exodus on May 13.
Valdis Krebs argues that Facebook is toast due to its structural model, invoking the increasingly popular AOL reference:
It is the structure of Facebook that foretells it a fate of AOL — a popular online site in the 1990s that grew quickly, with great promise and PR, and is now a much smaller collection of speciality sites. Back then AOL was also supposed to be the “new internet”, just as some are predicting now that Facebook will be the new WWW.
Facebook, and all other online social networking sites are structured wrong. They are places where we have to go to connect and communicate. That is not how we naturally connect and interact as humans! Their technology does not support our natural and inherent sociology.
danah boyd states that the current concern is not about privacy, but about control and consent:
The battle that is underway is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It’s a battle over choice and informed consent. It’s unfolding because people are being duped, tricked, coerced, and confused into doing things where they don’t understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely unfair. It gives users the illusion of choice and hides the details away from them “for their own good.”
The odd person, however, is coming to Facebook’s defence.