Facebook Facebook is not your friend. Its "real name" policy is enough reason to refuse to use it, but there is so much more nastiness in Facebook. I don't use it <http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html#facebook>, and you shouldn't either. --------------------------------------------------------------------
Facebook says that a user can't have Facebook's data <http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-releasing-your-personal-data-reveals-our-trade-secrets/4552> about him, because it's a trade secret. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Pages that contain Facebook "like" buttons enable Facebook to track visitors to those pages even if they don't use Facebook. The ACLU has a different way of enabling users to click a Facebook "like" button, which avoids this problem. Its pages have a link called "like us on Facebook" that leads to a Facebook page where it is possible to push a "like" button for the ACLU. But if you don't follow that link, Facebook gets no information about your visit to the ACLU page. Here's an example <http://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/predatory-lending-wall-street-profited-minority-families-paid-price> of the practice. Facebook tracks users <http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/facebooks-privacy-lie-aussie-exposes-tracking-as-new-patent-uncovered-20111004-1l61i.html> that see 'like' buttons, even users who never visited facebook.com and never click on those buttons. -------------------------------------------------------------------- A German regulator says that Facebook's face recognition is illegal. <http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15290120,00.html> -------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook has been sued for putting users' faces <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/12/facebook-lawsuit-like-ads-proceed.html> in ads. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook's latest exploitation of its users: conscripting them for ads <http://www.itworld.com/internet/134677/facebook-ads-use-your-face-free>. Facebook "Like" buttons are nasty things: they track even people who don't use Facebook. If a site you use has a Facebook "Like" button, complain to the people who run it. The ACLU came up with a safe way to handle them. Its pages have a link "Like us on Facebook" that takes you to a special ACLU page, which is where the "Like" button is. Thus, unless you ask to see that button, Facebook can't track you on the ACLU site. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't depend on Facebook to store any data that you might miss if Facebook takes it away from you <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/8278526/Facebook-suspends-Kate-Middletons-account.html>. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Social networks, for lonely people, may only show them how lonely they are <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/07/social-networking-friends-lonely>. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook blocked links to the humor site lamebook <http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/22/facebook-blocks-lamebook/> which facebook is trying to crush. This shows how it is a bad thing that so many people use facebook pages instead of setting up their own sites using many different providers. Facebook messaging further threatens user privacy <http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/554850/201011241909/Facebooks-New-Messaging-Plan-Worries-Some-Privacy-Advocates.htm#>. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Unfriend Facebook now <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2010/may/14/facebook-not-your-friend> -- you are its product, not its customer. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't use Facebook <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook>. Facebook permanently records everything you do <http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the-internet-5-anonymous-facebook-employee/?full=yes>, even what you look at, even items that are "deleted". And presumably gives them to the CIA. A timeline <http://w2.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-timeline> shows how Facebook has increasingly shown contempt for privacy. EFF says <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-further-reduces-control-over-personal-information> that "the answer" is to complain to Facebook. I suggest another answer: don't put your personal information in Facebook. If you use Facebook at all, just tell people how to contact you in other ways. A convicted blackmailer <http://craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/05/convicted_black/> who helped Putin crush independent media in Russia <http://craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/09/alisher_usmanov/> now owns a large stake in Facebook. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook deleted a photo of two men kissing <http://www.boingboing.net/2011/04/19/richard-metzger-how.html>, which was used to support a kiss-in in a pub that had shown bias against gays. The person who posted it thinks that Facebook is not anti-gay, but rather than it is quick to censor whatever someone complains about. While it might seem that the former would be worse, I think the latter makes facebook really dangerous. Don't use Facebook as a substitute for your own web site! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook has mysteriously closed several pages <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/29/facebook-activist-pages-purged> of anti-budget-cut activists in the UK. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook has turned on automatic face recognition on photos <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/08/facebook-privacy-facial-recognition>. Facebook says that it only suggests identifications for faces in photos for people who are the user's friends. However, it might run the algorithm over every photo posted and not publicly announce the results. I ask people not to post photos of me on Facebook. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Now Facebook tells your "friends" everything that you do using a large collection of other network services. This will at least give people an idea of how much information <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/facebook-new-apps-f8-conference_n_976966.html> those services tell Big Brother about all their users. -------------------------------------------------------------------- "Logging out" of Facebook does little to stop its surveillance <http://nikcub-static.appspot.com/logging-out-of-facebook-is-not-enough>. In particular, every page with a "like" button still knows who you are. Facebook made changes in response to this article, to delete one cookie that identified the users. It seems there are two other cookies which also identify the user, but Facebook says users should not object to them because they are made for benign purposes. If that is true, so what? They still track you, unless you stop using Facebook, and delete all its cookies for good and all. But Facebook can track you through your IP address too, if you don't use TOR to disguise that. To avoid being tracked by Facebook "like" buttons, you need to block your browser from showing them or accessing the Facebook page that generates them. This is necessary if you /ever/ used Facebook from that IP address, even if you stop using Facebook, and delete all its cookies for good and all. -------------------------------------------------------------------- This page gives details about how much facebook tracks users' browsing, which applies even to users that don't have facebook accounts. <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-11-15/facebook-privacy-tracking-data/51225112/1?loc=interstitialskip> -------------------------------------------------------------------- <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-11-15/facebook-privacy-tracking-data/51225112/1?loc=interstitialskip> Facebook tries to discourage users <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-11-15/facebook-privacy-tracking-data/51225112/1?loc=interstitialskip>from visiting other web sites. <http://dashes.com/anil/2011/11/facebook-is-gaslighting-the-web.html> (This article uses the word "content" to refer to published works. I think that is a bad practice since that term disparages the works. See <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html>.) -------------------------------------------------------------------- More on how much <https://www.eff.org/2011/october/facebook%E2%80%99s-hotel-california-cross-site-tracking-and-potential-impact-digital-privacy> facebook tracks users. -------------------------------------------------------------------- The US Federal Trade Commission ruled that Facebook's violation of its stated privacy policies was illegal <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/29/facebook-ftc-privacy-settlement>. It is proper to make Facebook keep its promises, but this does not go far enough to make Facebook acceptable to use. It does not limit Facebook's data collection --- for instance, it doesn't stop Facebook from collecting of data about browsing through "Like" buttons. It only limits what Facebook can do with that data, and certainly does not stop Facebook from handing it over to Big Brother under the U SAP AT RIOT act. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook in Europe may be required to discard some user data <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/21/facebook-advertising-data> after a time, without sending it to the US. This may reduce the harm that Facebook does, but is not even close to enough to make it ethically acceptable. Most of the criticisms reported in this site remain valid. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyone can get a Facebook user's personal information by buying ads <http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/about-those-facebook-privacy-settings> on Facebook. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook is not just surveillance. It also does censorship of photos based on prudish criteria. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/21/facebook-nudity-violence-censorship-guidelines> -------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of friends on Facebook measures narcissism <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/17/facebook-dark-side-study-aggressive-narcissism>. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook has put an outrageous trademark claim on the word "book" <http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/facebook-asserts-trademark-on-word-book-in-new-user-agreement.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss> into its terms of service. To be dependent on Facebook, or any other specific company you could not replace with another, is to make yourself vulnerable to unbounded legal aggression. Don't be a fool --- unfriend Facebook today rather than accept these terms. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2011 Richard Stallman released under Creative Commons Attribution Noderivs 3.0 unported
