The latest trend in the tech world doesn't involve sharing what you buy on Blippy or lining up in the rain for the iPad. It involves Facebook. No, not hanging out on Facebook, but kicking it to the curb. Tech guru Leo Laporte, a good friend of mine, recently ditched the world's number one social networking site with a live audience cheering him on.
Laporte and a small group of prominent Internet celebs are choosing to leave Facebook after a number of security issues, such as a recent hole in chat functionality that let your friends view your conversations. The company has gained a reputation -- fairly or not -- for showing a lack of concern for users' personal info. If you think it's easy to delete your account, Facebook actually makes it tough to go all the way (in other words, you can easily deactivate your profile, but that only temporarily hides your info).
Here's the link to the WikiHow page: How to Permanently Delete a Facebook Account
This digital crowd isn't abandoning Facebook without a back-up plan. A new social networking project called Diaspora*, which aims to put users in control of their own personal data, is getting significant online and financial support. The group of NYU students behind this initiative recently announced that they've raised more than $100,000 to fund their start-up, more than 10 times what they initially requested.
With more than 400 million users, it's not a total surprise that Facebook is experiencing some backlash. As many successful tech companies rise to the top, early adopters often band together to find a new ship to sail. What's unique with the Facebook situation is the widespread privacy concerns. To manage what Facebook information you want public and what you want private takes a lot of time, effort, and knowledge.
However, I don't think I'll be quitting Facebook any time soon, mostly because I never assume that anything online is completely private in the first place. I don't think you should post anything on the web that you're worried about someone else seeing, whether you're on Facebook or another social site. Also, sharing your phone number, home address, and e-mail address should be something you keep out of your online networks altogether. As for photos, again, protected or not, it's easy for pictures to end up all over the Internet, so don't share them in the first place if you're at all concerned about them going public.
I do agree that Facebook should make it easier within their account settings to protect your privacy and security, but users also have to take some responsibility and educate themselves about such Internet risks. As much as Facebook is at the centre of this controversy, there are many other examples of privacy issues on the web. Case in point, a simple search on our official WhitePages site allows anyone who knows your name to find your home address. A reverse phone number look-up reveals the same info. In other words, ditching Facebook isn't going to save your privacy. As sad as it is, privacy might is a bit of a pipe dream on the web, and I can't see things getting better any time soon.
