30000 Facebook users aboutface

Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 01 June 2010 12:11

Opinion and Analysis

A  Facebook privacy protest group claims that their call for 'Quit Facebook Day' resulted in over 30,000 users cancelling their accounts on the social network.

The continuing logger-head between privacy advocates and the - seemingly - arrogant approach to these concerns by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reached its climax last night with 32,749 accounts dropping out of the social network.

These figures arrive from a group organising Quit Facebook Day over the inaction of the company to protect personal data on the social network.

"For us it comes down to two things: fair choices and best intentions. In our view, Facebook doesn't do a good job in either department," the group said on their website.

"Facebook gives you choices about how to manage your data, but they aren't fair choices."

What is exactly meant by 'fair choices' is not clear, and 32,000 users out of a reportedly 540 million accounts are not going to shake the foundations of the Facebook conglomerate.

Facebook does make it difficult to opt out once you are in; deleting accounts is not the easiest thing to achieve, with the account sometimes being reactivated post deletion despite the user never connecting.

The social networking shift has made staying in touch or catching up that much easier. But it does come at a cost.  Facebook will trawl user content for ad delivery; it is how all this free networking is paid for.

People need to be very careful how they use this tool; the recent example of Sydney teenager, Nona Belomesoff raised the spectre of how online social systems can have tragic ends.

The man charged with murder of MS Belomesoff will appear in a Sydney court today, and represents the most extreme sinister side of the Facebook phenomena, and something that could not be fixed by any security settings on the site.  Only education on the perils of online social contact will help  future victims of groomers on the net.