Stop Wasting my Time on Facebook (and yours as well)

May 4, 2010 by     61 Comments    Posted under: Featured, Social Media

Facebook is under close scrutiny lately, especially due to the company’s privacy policies that have been eroding users’ rights since 2005 (see this excellent EFF timeline) and apparently someone in Washington is taking notice. User privacy is very important and should be on the top of the list for everyone that has an account with any online service.

Recently my Facebook account was deactivated, and later I found it had been cloned.  I believe that this was due to an activism action I took part in but that is not really the point of this post. No matter why it happened, the fact is I had to restart my Facebook life all over again. I had to start finding my contacts, browsing through friends of friends to spot those ones that I know, hiding all the silly applications, uploading pictures, you name it. The worse of it all was when Facebook started to make friend suggestions. Recommendations for “friends” of friends in common with me: Banks, mobile phones, bookstores, fashion stores, supermarkets, famous dead people, not so famous dead people, brands, more brands, services, more brands, more services… This pissed me off but what really made me upset and keeps pissing me off is that not only Facebook suggested these “friends” but my real friends were suggesting I become a “friend” of a bank, product, fashion agency, etc. I do not mean suggesting I join a group or like a page (formerly called “fan”), I mean suggesting that I actually become a “friend” of a brand.

Not only does it waste my time ignoring the requests and reporting the false accounts to Facebook, but it concerns me that people I interact with on Facebook are friends with a brand.

There are two fundamental things wrong with this:

1. Privacy

There is something fundamentally wrong in being friends with a financial institution. What is next? Becoming friends with a robot and poking it all day long? (Ok, that is probably not the best example.)

Allowing a brand to be a part of your friends list gives those behind that brand (and believe me there are people behind it) access beyond your privacy features.  You might as well make a copy of your house keys and send them by snail mail.

The brand or product Facebook account administrators will have access to your contact information, which most users have under the “Friends Only” privacy setting, moods, shopping habits, what and where you have eaten (Foursquare and geolocation apps integration is a growing trend), when you showered (yes, there are extreme Facebook users that share everything), and all other personal information meant for real friends. You are giving total strangers an open door to your life.

2. Such profiles are against Facebook Terms of Service (ToS)

Facebook privacy policy is scary as it is. Accepting these companies as friends condones the illegal behavior of those in charge of their social media department and you have lost all rights to complain about Facebook’s privacy policy.

I still have something to address in this post that relates to the aforementioned social media jocks responsible for expanding and communicating their brands (or the brands of their clients) on Facebook.

What the fuck are you thinking? Really, what the fuck are you thinking?

Why are you spending your company’s or your client’s money (and your resources) in creating profiles that will disappear as soon as the Facebook police finds them or a user reports you? Have you heard of Facebook pages? That is what you should be creating for your business or your client’s business. Pages are what you are entitled to and provide more than enough information. If you do a good job in promoting the page, you can gather a community around it that will be vibrant and will take your brand to news streams.

Finally I would also like to leave a piece of advice to those that already have these kinds of friends on Facebook: DELETE THEM and while you’re at it, REPORT THEM as well. All you have to do is this:

Easy, isn’t it? You will be making Facebook a safer place for you and your friends.

Picture Credits: Brandon Christopher under a CC License

Also posted in Portuguese here

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