Facebook’s privacy abuse in the name of a new social norm

Something is rotting in the kingdom of Facebook.

In a TechCrunch live interview two days ago Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, said that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public. Zuckerberg says that people have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information but more openly and with more people, and that privacy was no longer a ‘social norm’, it had just evolved over time.

At the same time, in the name of a new privacy policy, Facebook has reset its privacy settings in a way that exposes its users’ names, profiles, demographics, social graphs and pages they subscribe to, as publicly available information on Facebook, for everyone on the web to see or search.

 What does Facebook own today that they want to capitalize on?

• The profile information of 350 million people
• The social graph of their family and friends
• The content they put up – personal, social,
• The sharing path of content and people

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Sum total – the wet dream of every marketer, advertiser and data miner to tap into.

When a company can monetize the private data of 350 million users, sugarcoating it with philosophical claims of openness in sharing, reflecting social norms and feeling the pulse of current privacy related zeitgeist, calls for more than just raising an eyebrow.

Who gave Facebook the mandate to define what current social norms are? When a commercial company, in prey of  revenue streams, claims to be the canon of privacy related zeitgeist – you can take it at its face level or understand that you are watching  the sliding door to Heart of darkness.

Facebook started out on a trust platform. You place your information in their hands  and they provide you with the handles to share it at will with whoever you wish, according to your personal privacy inclinations – It is yours to expose or withhold.

The fact of the matter is that  Facebook has been toying with privacy related policies,  talking the talk but not walking the walk.  

Was it only two years ago that Facebook launched Beacon, a system that tracks activities from other web sites and  sends  information about the actions of Facebook users on their site to Facebook system. It raised such a turmoil over privacy concerns that Zuckerberg had to publicly apologize for the faux pas he did and change it into an opt-in feature. He said then “Facebook has succeeded so far in part because it gives people control over what and how they share information”

Now it seems that as the sounds of $  roar in Zuckerberrg’s ears, this understanding of what should lie at the heart of such a  trust based service, evaporates. Their latest move of opening users’ personal data , a treasure box for 3^rd party data mining companies and a targeted advertising platform, rather than an anthropological reflection of a no privacy culture.

Zuckerberg  is creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Disguising himself as just a trend spotter, he will impose open settings, will assume that the critical mass of users will not really be aware of what is being done, and even if they are, will not know how to go about it,  and then will be able to prove his claim that privacy is no longer a social norm. Therefore it is legitimate, and maybe even natural, to open all settings for the public to see, showings statistical data of 350 million users where the majority does not actively oppose such an exposure.

The situation where a capitalistic corporate keeps personal data and social graphs of 350 million people hostages of their flinging interests  of whether to respect or abuse their individual privacy choices must be reversed.

It is an offense to the basic contract between a serving company and the well being of the users it serves. Facebook is the leader of the web’s social revolution – 350 million users are the living proof. As such it should have a moral obligation to the millions who trusted their personal connectivity with that platform.

As for the debate over privacy.  Zuckerberg’s speech only shows the need for a paradigm shift in privacy management. The icentered privacy paradigm reverses the order and frees me, the user, from any dependence on the good will of providers to protect my interests. It rewrites the book, placing me, at the center, to take charge.

• My data, profile, social graph are mine – nobody owns me
•  The only one who knows all about me is me
•  I will expose/ share/hide as much as suits me personally.
• I am in the driver’s seat with the reins in my hands
• I and only I proactively manage my privacy and trust

And as for an age of no privacy – that’s a very legitimate debate, as long as it is done on neutral grounds, with no ability to abuse. When Stow Boyd claims that we are in  a decade of publicy, you may agree or disagree, but he is not harmful.

When Zuckerberg is in a position to gain millions from abusing personal data of his users, his social sensitivity to fluctuation norms should be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

Today’s zeitgeist strives for a cleaner web ecology, based on transparency, authenticity and trust. We strive for leaders and CEOs that manage their companies not just for financial results, but by values that guide their management.

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