Criticism of Facebook
Encyclopedia
Facebook
's growth as an Internet social network
ing site has met criticism on a range of issues, including online privacy, child safety, and the inability to terminate accounts without first manually deleting the content. In 2008, many companies removed their advertising from the site because it was being displayed on the pages of controversial individuals and groups. The content of user pages, groups, and forums has been criticized for promoting controversial topics. There have been several issues with censorship, both on and off the site.
The changes made by Facebook have been criticized, in particular the new format launched in 2008 and the changes in Facebook's Terms of Use, which removed the clause detailing automatic expiry of deleted content. Facebook has also been sued several times.
code to be displayed instead of the web page the code should have created, raising concerns about how secure private data on the site was. A visitor to the site copied, published and later removed the code from his web forum, claiming he had been served legal notice by Facebook. Facebook's response was quoted by the site that broke the story:
In November, Facebook launched Beacon, a system (discontinued in September 2009) where third-party websites could include a script by Facebook on their sites, and use it to send information about the actions of Facebook users on their site to Facebook, prompting serious privacy concerns. Information such as purchases made and games played were published in the user's news feed. An informative notice about this action appeared on the third party site and gave the user the opportunity to cancel it, and the user could also cancel it on Facebook. Originally if no action was taken, the information was automatically published. On November 29 this was changed to require confirmation from the user before publishing each story gathered by Beacon.
On December 1, Facebook's credibility in regard to the Beacon program was further tested when it was reported that the New York Times "essentially accuses" Mark Zuckerberg of lying to the paper and leaving Coca-Cola
, which is reversing course on the program, a similar impression. A security engineer at CA, Inc. also claimed in a November 29, 2007 blog post that Facebook collected data from affiliate sites even when the consumer opted out and even when not logged into the Facebook site. On November 30, 2007, the CA security blog posted a Facebook clarification statement addressing the use of data collected in the Beacon program:
The Beacon service ended in September 2009 along with the settlement of a class-action lawsuit resulting from the service.
Some Facebook members still feel that the ability to opt out
of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary, as evidenced by a statement from the Students Against Facebook News Feed group, which peaked at over 740,000 members in 2006. Reacting to users' concerns, Facebook developed new privacy features to give users some control over information about them that was broadcast by the News Feed. According to subsequent news articles, members have widely regarded the additional privacy options as an acceptable compromise.
In December 2009, Facebook removed the privacy controls for the News Feed and Mini Feed. This change made it impossible for users to control what activities are published on their walls (and consequently the public news feed). Since users can post anything they want, this allowed people to post things that could target certain groups of people or abuse other users through other means.
In May 2010, Facebook added privacy controls and streamlined its privacy settings, giving users more ways to manage status updates and other information that is broadcast to the public News Feed. Among the new privacy settings is the ability to control who sees each new status update a user posts: Everyone, Friends of Friends, or Friends Only. Users can now hide each status update from specific people as well.
to protect most communications on social networking sites such as Facebook and since the Supreme Court has largely refused to recognize a Fourth Amendment privacy right to information shared with a third party, there is no federal statutory or constitutional right that prevents the government from issuing requests that amount to fishing expeditions and there is no Facebook privacy policy that forbids the company from handing over private user information that suggests any illegal activity.
Aided by Facebook, Israel
prevented scores of pro-Palestinian
activists in July 2011 from boarding Tel Aviv-bound flights in Europe.
(CIPPIC), per Director Phillipa Lawson, filed a 35-page complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner against Facebook on May 31, 2008, based on 22 breaches of the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
(PIPEDA). University of Ottawa
law students Lisa Feinberg, Harley Finkelstein, and Jordan Eric Plener, initiated the "minefield of privacy invasion" suit. Facebook's Chris Kelly
contradicted the claims, saying that: "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors — most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users." Assistant Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham released a report of her findings on July 16, 2009. In it, she found that several of CIPPIC's complaints were well-founded. Facebook agreed to comply with some, but not all, of her recommendations. The Assistant Commissioner found that Facebook did not do enough to ensure users granted meaningful consent for the disclosure of personal information to third parties and did not place adequate safeguards to ensure unauthorized access by third party developers to personal information.
. The Facebook privacy policy once stated, "We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile." However, the policy was later updated and now states: "We may use information about you that we collect from other Facebook users to supplement your profile (such as when you are tagged in a photo or mentioned in a status update). In such cases we generally give you the ability to remove the content (such as allowing you to remove a photo tag of you) or limit its visibility on your profile." The terminology regarding the use of collecting information from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, and instant messaging services, has been removed.
The possibility of data mining by private individuals unaffiliated with Facebook has been a concern, as evidenced by the fact that two Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) students were able to download, using an automated script, over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, the University of Oklahoma
, and Harvard University
) as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14, 2005. Since then, Facebook has bolstered security protection for users, responding: "We’ve built numerous defenses to combat phishing and malware, including complex automated systems that work behind the scenes to detect and flag Facebook accounts that are likely to be compromised (based on anomalous activity like lots of messages sent in a short period of time, or messages with links that are known to be bad)."
A second clause that brought criticism from some users allowed Facebook the right to sell users' data to private companies, stating "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." This concern was addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes, who said "Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to." Facebook eventually removed this clause from its privacy policy.
Previously, third party applications had access to almost all user information. Facebook's privacy policy previously stated: "Facebook does not screen or approve Platform Developers and cannot control how such Platform Developers use any personal information." However, that language has since been removed. Regarding use of user data by third party applications, the ‘Pre-Approved Third-Party Websites and Applications’ section of the Facebook privacy policy now states:
In the United Kingdom, the Trades Union Congress
(TUC) has encouraged employers to allow their staff to access Facebook and other social networking sites from work, provided they proceed with caution.
In September 2007, Facebook drew a fresh round of criticism after it began allowing non-members to search for users, with the intent of opening limited "public profiles" up to search engines such as Google
in the following months. Facebook's privacy settings, however, allow users to block their profiles from search engines.
Concerns were also raised on the BBC's Watchdog
programme in October 2007 when Facebook was shown to be an easy way in which to collect an individual's personal information in order to facilitate identity theft. However, there is barely any personal information presented to non-friends - if users leave the privacy controls on their default settings, the only personal information visible to a non-friend is the user's name, gender, profile picture, networks, and user name.
In addition, a New York Times article in February 2008 pointed out that Facebook does not actually provide a mechanism for users to close their accounts, and thus raised the concern that private user data would remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers. However, Facebook now gives users the options to deactivate or delete their accounts, according to the Facebook Privacy Policy. “When you deactivate an account, no user will be able to see it, but it will not be deleted. We save your profile information (connections, photos, etc.) in case you later decide to reactivate your account.” The policy further states: “When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook.”
A third party site, USocial, was involved in a controversy surrounding the sale of fans and friends. USocial received a cease-and-desist letter from Facebook and has stopped selling friends.
that users had to clear their own accounts by manually deleting all of the content including wall posts, friends, and groups. A New York Times article noted the issue, and also raised a concern that emails and other private user data remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers. Facebook subsequently began allowing users to permanently delete their accounts. Facebook's Privacy Policy now states: "When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook."
Such memorial groups have also raised legal issues. Notably, on January 1, 2008, one such memorial group posted the identity of murdered Toronto
teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police Service
their consent to release her name to the media, and the identities of her accused killers, in defiance of Canada
's Youth Criminal Justice Act
which prohibits publishing the names of under-age criminals. While police and Facebook staff attempted to comply with the privacy regulations by deleting such posts, they noted that it was difficult to effectively police the individual users who repeatedly republished
the deleted information.
but one significant difference between the two sites is the level of customization. MySpace
allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML
and CSS
while Facebook allows only plain text
. However, a number of users have tweaked their profiles by using "hacks." On February 24, 2006, a pair of users exploited a cross-site scripting
(XSS) hole on the profile page and created a fast-spreading worm, loading a custom CSS file on infected profiles that made them look like MySpace
profiles.
On April 19, 2006, a user was able to embed an iframe
into his profile and load a custom off-site page featuring a streaming video
and a flash game
from Drawball. He has since been banned from Facebook.
On March 26, 2006, a user was able to embed JavaScript
in the "Hometown" field of his profile which imported his custom CSS.
In each case, Facebook quickly patched the holes, typically within hours of their discovery. However, in July 2007, Adrienne Felt, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, discovered a cross-site scripting
(XSS) hole in the Facebook Platform that could inject JavaScript into profiles. She used the hole to import custom CSS and demonstrate how the platform could be used to violate privacy rules or create a worm. This hole took Facebook two and a half weeks to fix.
feature in June 2011, called "Tag Suggestions". The feature compares newly uploaded photographs to those of the uploader's Facebook friends, in order to suggest photo tags. Facebook has defended the feature, saying users can disable it. Facebook introduced the feature in an opt-out
basis. European Union data-protection regulators said they would investigate the feature to see if it violated privacy rules.
and that he will "investigate the complaints using his full legal powers if necessary". The complaints were filed in Ireland because all users who are not residents of the United States or Canada have a contract with "Facebook Ireland Ltd", located in Dublin, Ireland
. Under European law Facebook Ireland is the "data controller" for facebook.com, and therefore, facebook.com is governed by European data protection laws. Facebook Ireland Ltd. was established by Facebook Inc. to avoid US taxes (see Double Irish Arrangement
).
The group europe-v-facebook.org made access requests at Facebook Ireland and received up to 1.200 pages of data per person in 57 data categories that Facebook was holding about them, including data that was previously removed by the users. Despite the amount of information given, the group claimed that Facebook did not give them all of its data. Some of the information not included was "likes", data about the new face recognition function, data about third party websites that use "social plugins" visited by users and information about uploaded videos.
The 16 complaints target different problems, from undeleted old "pokes" all the way to the question if sharing and new functions on Facebook should be opt-in or opt-put. The most severe could be a complaint that claims that the privacy policy and the consent to the privacy policy is void under European laws. It is reported that the group is planning to file more complaints, including one against the "Like" button.
In an Interview with the Irish Independent
a spokesperson said, that the DPC will "go and audit Facebook, go into the premises and go through in great detail every aspect of security". He continued by saying: "It's a very significant, detailed and intense undertaking that will stretch over four or five days. Then we'll publish a detailed report and Facebook will respond". This means that the investigation by the DPC might become one of the most severe investigations into Facebook's privacy practice in the past years.
claimed that Facebook has created a web log of pages visited both by its members and by others. Facebook relies on tracking cookies to keep track of pages visited by more than 800 million individuals.
According to the article, the United States congress
and the world wide web consortium
are attempting to set new guidelines to deal with privacy concerns. It is not clear whether the information collected in this manner is provided only to advertisers and no others.
and defamation verdict against someone over an entry on a social networking site.
charity B-EAT called on all social networking sites to curb "pro-ana" (anorexia
) and "pro-mia" (bulimia) pages and groups, naming MySpace
and Facebook specifically.
, Vodafone
, Virgin Media
, The Automobile Association
, Halifax and the Prudential
removed their advertisements from Facebook. A Virgin Media spokeswoman said "We want to advertise on social networks but we have to protect our brand". The companies found that their services were being advertised on pages of the British National Party
, a far-right political party in the UK. New Media Age
magazine was first to alert the companies that their ads were coming up on BNP's Facebook page.
groups. Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, said, "We want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed." While Facebook's terms of use include the warning that users may "be banned if they post 'any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable'", Schnitt said, "We can't guarantee that there isn't any content that violates our policies."
groups caused an alert in the country and brought the government, after a short debate, to rapidly issue a law which will force ISPs to deny access to entire sites in case of refused removal of illegal contents; the removal can be requested by a prosecutor in any case in which there is a suspicion that criminal speech
(a defence of or incitement to crime) is published on a website. The amendment was passed by the Italian Senate
and now needs to be passed unchanged by the Chamber of Deputies
to become immediately effective.
Facebook and other websites, Google
included, criticized the amendment emphasizing the eventual effects on the freedom of speech
of those users who do not violate any law.
s' subsequent reactions to their deaths. Shortly after the suicide of high school student Alexis Pilkington, anonymous posters began trolling for reactions across various message boards, referring to Pilkington as a "suicidal slut", and posting graphic images on her Facebook
memorial page. The segment also included an exposé of a 2006 accident, in which an eighteen-year-old student out for a drive fatally crashed her father's car into a highway pylon; trolls e-mailed her grieving family the leaked pictures of her mutilated corpse.
There have been cases where Facebook "trolls" were jailed for their communications on Facebook, particularly memorial pages. In Fall 2010, Colm Coss of Ardick, Britain, was sentenced to 26 weeks in jail under s127 of the Communications Act 2003 of Great Britain, for "malicious communications" for leaving messages deemed obscene and hurtful on Facebook memorial pages.
In April 2011, Bradley Paul Hampson was sentenced to three years in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of using a carriage service, the Internet, to cause offense, for posts on Facebook memorial pages, and one count each of distributing and possessing child pornography when he posted images on the memorial pages of the deceased with phalluses superimposed alongside phrases such as "Woot I'm dead".
Once Facebook disables an account, whether it does so for unconfirmed reasons or a suspicion that something may be awry, it is impossible to reinstate the account, partly due to lack of in-person support and partly because any attempt to do so sends the account holder into a closed loop.
Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities is often misleading. For example, it states that joining a school network is not a requirement, even though users are often disabled for not joining a school network. Facebook has disabled user accounts for having names deemed to be fake despite being real. Once an account is disabled, it can no longer be logged into and all public traces of it disappear.
There have also been instances of user accounts being memorialized, even though the person listed on the profile was not deceased.
found that Facebook had less downtime in 2008 than most social networking websites. On September 16, 2009, Facebook started having major problems with loading when people signed in. On September 18, 2009, Facebook went down for the second time in 2009, the first time being when a group of hackers were deliberately trying to drown out a political speaker who had social networking problems from continuously speaking against the Iranian election results. On August 10, 2011 Facebook was in-accessible.
In October 2009, an unspecified number of Facebook users were unable to access their accounts for over three weeks. On September 23, 2010, nobody within the UK, US, and Latin America could log in to Facebook. Facebook quoted a DNS
failure.
Facebook's decision to migrate their users was met with some controversy in their community. Several groups started opposing the decision, some with over a million users.
The redesign was met immediately with criticism with users, many who did not like the amount of information that was coming at them. This was also compounded by the fact that people couldn't select what they saw. Immediately, groups formed, one getting over 1,600,000 within the first two weeks of the update.
The change was described by Gawker
as Facebook's Great Betrayal, forcing user profile photos and friends lists to be visible in users' public listing, even for users who had explicitly chosen to hide this information previously, and making photos and personal information public unless users were proactive about limiting access. For example, a user whose "Family and Relationships" information was set to be viewable by "Friends Only" would default to being viewable by "Everyone" (publicly viewable). That is, information such as the gender of partner you are interested in, relationship status, and family relations became viewable to those even without a Facebook account. Facebook was heavily criticized for both reducing its users' privacy and pushing users to remove privacy protections. Groups criticizing the changes include the Electronic Frontier Foundation
and American Civil Liberties Union
. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, had hundreds of personal photos and his events calendar exposed in the transition. Facebook has since re-included an option to hide friends lists from being viewable; however, this preference is no longer listed with other privacy settings, and the former ability to hide the friends list from selected people among one's own friends is no longer possible. Journalist Dan Gillmor deleted his Facebook account over the changes, stating he "can't entirely trust Facebook" and Heidi Moore at Slate's Big Money temporarily deactivated her account as a "conscientious objection". Other journalists have been similarly disappointed and outraged by the changes. Defending the changes, founder Mark Zuckerberg said "we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it". The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
launched another investigation into Facebook's privacy policies after complaints following the change.
have sued Facebook for breaching privacy laws.
of TechCrunch has written about Facebook's possible censorship of "Ron Paul
" as a search term. MoveOn.org's Facebook group for organizing protests against privacy violations could for a time not be found by searching. The very word privacy was also restricted. Facebook claimed that the problem was a bug.
The breastfeeding photos controversy continued following public protests and the growth in the online membership in the Facebook group titled "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene! (Official petition to Facebook)."
On May 21, 2010, Facebook disabled the account of Sulphur Springs, Texas
radio station KNOI
after it posted editorial comments critical of Facebook's privacy policies and shared links to articles about Leo Laporte
's decision to delete his own Facebook account.
written by Michael Bugeja, director of the Journalism School
at Iowa State University
, entitled "Facing the Facebook". Bugeja, author of the Oxford University Press
text Interpersonal Divide (2005), quoted representatives of the American Association of University Professors
and colleagues in higher education to document the distraction of students using Facebook and other social networks during class and at other venues in the wireless campus
. Bugeja followed up on January 26, 2007 in The Chronicle with an article titled "Distractions in the Wireless Classroom", quoting several educators across the country who were banning laptops in the classroom. Similarly, organisations such as the National Association for Campus Activities
, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
, and others have hosted seminars and presentations to discuss ramifications of students' use of Facebook and other social networking systems.
The EDUCAUSE
Learning Initiative has also released a brief pamphlet entitled "7 Things You Should Know About Facebook" aimed at higher education professionals that "describes what[Facebook] is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning".
Some research on Facebook in higher education suggests that there may be some small educational benefits associated with student Facebook use, including improving engagement which is related to student retention. Furthermore, using technologies such as Facebook to connect with others can help college students be less depressed and cope with feelings of loneliness and homesickness. According to one case study, students surveyed who were regular facebook users had, on average, lower grades than those who were not.
including Syria, China, Iran, and Vietnam.
In 2010, Facebook reportedly allowed an objectionable page, deemed by the Islamic Lawyers Forum, to be anti-Muslim. The "ILF" filed a petition with Pakistan
's Lahore High Court
. On May 18, 2010, Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry ordered Pakistan
's Telecommunication Authority to block access to Facebook until May 31. The offensive page had provoked street demonstrations in Muslim countries due to visual depictions of Mohammed, which are regarded as blasphemous by Muslims. A spokesman said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority
would move to implement the ban once the order has been issued by the Ministry of Information and Technology. "We will implement the order as soon as we get the instructions", Khurram Mehran told AFP. "We have already blocked the URL link and issued instruction to Internet service providers yesterday", he added. Rai Bashir told AFP that "We moved the petition in the wake of widespread resentment in the Muslim community against the Facebook contents". The petition called on the government of Pakistan to lodge a strong protest with the owners of Facebook, he added. Bashir said a PTA official told the judge his organisation had blocked the page, but the court ordered a total ban on the site. People demonstrated outside court in the eastern city of Lahore
, Pakistan
, carrying banners condemning Facebook. Protests in Pakistan
on a larger scale took place after the ban and widespread news of that objectionable page. The ban was lifted on May 31 after Facebook reportedly assured the Lahore High Court that it would remedy the issues in dispute.
In 2011, a court in Pakistan was petitioned to place a permanent ban on Facebook for hosting a page called "2nd Annual Draw Muhammad Day May 20th 2011."
government employees, Federal public servants, MPPs, and cabinet ministers were blocked from access to Facebook on government computers in May 2007. When the employees tried to access Facebook, a warning message "The Internet website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for government business purposes". This warning also appears when employees try to access YouTube
, MySpace
, gambling or pornographic websites. However, innovative employees have found ways around such protocols, and many claim to use the site for political or work-related purposes.
A number of local governments including those in the UK and Finland imposed restrictions on the use of Facebook in the workplace due to the technical strain incurred. Other government-related agencies, such as the US Marine Corps have imposed similar restrictions.
A number of hospitals in Finland have also restricted Facebook use citing privacy concerns.
Employees of Broward County, Florida have been blocked from accessing Facebook and most social networking and blog sites since 2009.
(UNM) in October 2005 blocked access to Facebook from UNM campus computers and networks, citing unsolicited e-mails and a similar site called UNM Facebook. After a UNM user signed into Facebook from off campus, a message from Facebook said, "We are working with the UNM administration to lift the block and have explained that it was instituted based on erroneous information, but they have not yet committed to restore your access." UNM, in a message to students who tried to access the site from the UNM network, wrote, "This site is temporarily unavailable while UNM and the site owners work out procedural issues. The site is in violation of UNM's Acceptable Computer Use Policy
for abusing computing resources (e.g., spamming, trademark infringement
, etc). The site forces use of UNM credentials (e.g., NetID or email address) for non-UNM business." However, after Facebook created an encrypted login and displayed a precautionary message not to use university passwords for access, UNM unblocked access the following spring semester.
The Columbus Dispatch reported on June 22, 2006, that Kent State University
's athletic director
had planned to ban the use of Facebook by athletes and gave them until August 1 to delete their accounts. On July 5, 2006, the Daily Kent Stater
reported that the director reversed the decision after reviewing the privacy settings of Facebook.
According to several communities and authors closed social networking, on
the other hand, promotes data retrieval from other people while not
exposing one's personal information.
Openbook
was established in early 2010 both as a parody of Facebook and a critique of its changing privacy management protocols.
and Facebook, Inc. in the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California for violation of the Unfair competition law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and for unjust enrichment
.
, Cameron Winklevoss
, and Tyler Winklevoss
, founders of the social networking website ConnectU, filed a lawsuit against Facebook in September 2004. The lawsuit alleged that Zuckerberg had broken an oral contract
to build the social networking site, copied the idea, and used source code
that they provided to Zuckerberg to create competing site Facebook. Facebook countersued in regards to Social Butterfly, a project put out by The Winklevoss Chang Group, an alleged partnership between ConnectU
and i2hub
. It named among the defendants ConnectU
, Cameron Winklevoss
, Tyler Winklevoss
, Divya Narendra
, and Wayne Chang
, founder of i2hub
. The parties reached a settlement agreement in February, 2008, for $20 million in cash and 1,253,326 Facebook shares. On August 26, 2010, The New York Times
reported that Facebook shares were trading at $76 per share in the secondary market, putting the total settlement value now at close to $120 million.
ConnectU filed another lawsuit against Facebook on March 11, 2008, attempting to rescind the settlement, claiming that Facebook, in settlement negotiations, had overstated the value of stock it was granting the ConnectU founders as part of the settlement. ConnectU argued that Facebook represented itself as being worth $15 billion at the time, due to the post-money valuation
arising from Microsoft
's purchase in 2007 of a 1.6% stake in Facebook for US $246 million. Facebook announced that valuation in a press release. However, Facebook subsequently performed an internal valuation that estimated a company value of $3.75 billion. ConnectU then fired the law firm Quinn Emanuel that had represented it in settlement discussions. Quinn Emanuel filed a $13 million lien
against the settlement proceeds and ConnectU sued for malpractice
. On August 25, 2010, an arbitration panel ruled that Quinn Emanuel had "earned its full contingency fee". It also found that Quinn Emanuel committed no malpractice. ConnectU's lawsuit against Facebook to quadruple its settlement remains ongoing.
In January 2010, it was reported that i2hub
founder Wayne Chang
and The i2hub Organization launched a lawsuit against ConnectU
and its founders, Cameron Winklevoss
, Tyler Winklevoss
, and Divya Narendra
, seeking 50% of the settlement. The complaint states "Through this litigation, Chang asserts his ownership interest in The Winklevoss Chang Group and ConnectU, including the settlement proceeds." Lee Gesmer (of Gesmer Updegrove, LLP) posted the detailed 33-page complaint online. On April 12, 2011, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the Winklevoss brothers, whose fight over Facebook's origins was a major narrative arc of the film The Social Network
, cannot back out of a settlement they signed with the company in 2008.
Student Entrepreneurship Council (a now-defunct student group) and the CEO of Think Computer Corporation, Aaron Greenspan created a web portal as a Harvard undergraduate called houseSYSTEM that launched on August 1, 2003. Designed to centralize student life in a more user-friendly manner than Harvard's official student portal, my.harvard, houseSYSTEM had a variety of features, including an event calendar with digital RSVP, a photo album, user-uploadable "posters", a teaching feedback system called CriticalMass, an on-line trading post called Student Exchange, and, as of September 19, 2003, a "Universal Face Book", which was also referred to at times as "The Facebook." Greenspan began communicating with fellow classmate Mark Zuckerberg via e-mail shortly after launching the houseSYSTEM Facebook in September after reading a profile of Zuckerberg in The Harvard Crimson
news magazine. They met in person in early January 2004, at which point Zuckerberg, as well as future Facebook, Inc. co-founders Dustin Moskovitz
, Eduardo Saverin
, and Chris Hughes were already houseSYSTEM members. (Cameron Winklevoss
and Victor Gao
of the ConnectU
team were also houseSYSTEM members.) Though Greenspan and Zuckerberg decided to work on their respective projects independently, they frequently discussed technological aspects of houseSYSTEM related to the Facebook, as well as Zuckerberg's unspecified latest project, about which he was secretive, using AOL Instant Messenger
. Throughout the spring semester of 2004, Greenspan and Zuckerberg were both enrolled in CS91r (also called Applied Math 91r), a ten-person computer science seminar that focused on using the PHP programming language with voice recognition technology.
On January 11, 2004, a few days after meeting Greenspan and concurrent with using the Universal Face Book on houseSYSTEM, Zuckerberg registered the domain name "thefacebook.com" independently. On February 4, 2004, when thefacebook.com launched, Greenspan recognized aspects of his own work in the site, and later came to believe that Zuckerberg was copying his work one feature at a time—a claim that Zuckerberg denied. Many of the features Greenspan created for houseSYSTEM, such as the digital event posters, electronic RSVPs, organizational pages, photo album, and marketplace, did eventually appear on thefacebook.com under similar names. Zuckerberg was aware of these features, eventually telling Greenspan at one point, "your facenet thing is hot". Social networking functionality was added to houseSYSTEM in March 2004, and the name "FaceNet" replaced the "Universal Face Book". Regarding Greenspan's allegations, Zuckerberg was described in The New York Times
as "saying through a spokeswoman that he was not sure how to respond."
In 2008, when Greenspan published a book entitled Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era describing his side of the story of Facebook's birth as well as events leading up to it (including aggressive actions on behalf of the Harvard University administration), he was prohibited from advertising the book using Google AdWords
because of the inclusion of the word "Facebook" in the book's subtitle, and the existence of Facebook, Inc.'s registered trademark on the term "Facebook". The trademark had come into existence two years before in 2006, partially as a defensive measure during a battle over the "facebook.com" domain name in the ConnectU
lawsuit.
Greenspan's company filed a Petition to Cancel the "Facebook" trademark, which included claims of prior use and fraud by Facebook, Inc. against the USPTO. Greenspan represented himself for the majority of the proceedings, and the USPTO TTAB found his claims to be adequate. Facebook, Inc. agreed to a formal settlement with Greenspan in late May, 2009 and issued a press release, but the terms were not disclosed.
Greenspan is incorrectly referred to repeatedly as "Aaron Grossman" in Ben Mezrich
's book, The Accidental Billionaires
. Greenspan declined to cooperate with Mezrich on the book due to Mezrich's reputation for character distortion and consequently was not included in the resulting screenplay for The Social Network
, even though Mezrich cited Authoritas as a source.
Greenspan has written a number of articles critical of Facebook on The Huffington Post
.
, the owner of a wood pellet fuel company in Allegany County, New York
, filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, claiming 84% ownership of Facebook as well as additional monetary damages. According to Ceglia, he and Zuckerberg signed a contract on April 28, 2003, that for an initial fee of $1,000, entitles Ceglia to 50% of the website's revenue, as well as additional 1% interest per each day after January 1, 2004, until website completion. Zuckerberg was developing other projects at the time, among which was Facemash, the predecessor of Facebook, but did not register the domain name thefacebook.com until January 1, 2004. Facebook management has dismissed the lawsuit as "completely frivolous". Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt issued a statement indicating that the counsel for Ceglia had unsuccessfully attempted to seek an out-of-court settlement. In an interview to ABC World News, Zuckerberg stated he is confident of never signing such an agreement. At the time, Zuckerberg worked for Ceglia as a code developer on a project named "StreetFax". Judge Thomas Brown of Allegany Court issued a restraining order
on all financial transfers concerning ownership of Facebook until further notice; in response, Facebook management successfully filed for the case to be moved to federal court. According to Facebook, the order does not affect their business but lacks legal basis.
, on February 4, 2009, the changes went unnoticed until Chris Walters, a blogger for the consumer-oriented blog, The Consumerist, noticed the change on February 15, 2009. Walters complained the change gave Facebook the right to "Do anything they want with your content. Forever." The section under the most controversy is the "User Content Posted on the Site" clause. Before the changes, the clause read:
Many users of Facebook voiced opinions against the changes to the Facebook Terms of Use, leading to an Internet-wide debate over the ownership of content. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
prepared a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission
. Many individuals were frustrated with the removal of the controversial clause. Facebook users, numbering more than 38,000, joined a user group against the changes, and a number of blogs and news sites have written about this issue.
After the change was brought to light in Walters's blog entry, in his blog on February 16, 2009, Zuckerberg addressed the issues concerning the recently made changes to Facebook's terms of use. Zuckerberg wrote “Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with.” In addition to this statement Zuckerberg explained the paradox created when people want to share their information (phone number, pictures, email address, etc.) with the public, but at the same time desire to remain in complete control of who has access to this info.
In order to calm criticism, Facebook returned to its original terms of use. However, on February 17, 2009, Zuckerberg wrote in his blog, that although Facebook reverted to its original terms of use, it is in the process of developing new terms in order to address the paradox. Zuckerberg stated that these new terms will allow Facebook users to “share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand.” Zuckerberg invited users to join a group entitled “Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” to give their input and help shape the new terms.
On February 26, 2009, Zuckerberg posted a blog, updating users on the progress of the new Terms of Use. He wrote, “We decided we needed to do things differently and so we're going to develop new policies that will govern our system from the ground up in an open and transparent way.” Zuckerberg introduces the two new additions to Facebook: the Facebook Principles and the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities Both additions allow users to vote on changes to the terms of use before they are officially released. Because “Facebook is still in the business of introducing new and therefore potentially disruptive technologies”, Zuckerberg explains, users need to adjust and familiarize themselves with the products before they can adequately show their support.
This new voting system was initially applauded as Facebook’s step to a more democratized social network system. However, the new terms were harshly criticized in a report by computer scientists from the University of Cambridge
, who stated that the democratic process surrounding the new terms is disingenuous and significant problems remain in the new terms. The report was endorsed by the Open Rights Group
.
In December 2009, EPIC and a number of other US privacy organizations filed another complaint with the Federal Trade Commission
regarding Facebook's Terms of Service. In January 2011 EPIC filed a subsequent complaint claiming that Facebook's new policy of sharing users' home address and mobile phone information with third-party developers were "misleading and fail[ed] to provide users clear and privacy protections", particularly for children under age 18. Facebook temporarily suspended implementation of its policy in February 2011, but the following month announced it was "actively considering" reinstating the 3rd party policy.
in an open standard
format contributes to vendor lock-in
and contravenes the principles of data portability. Automated collection of user information without Facebook's consent violates its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and third-party attempts to do so (e.g., Web scraping
) have resulted in suspension of accounts, cease and desist
letters, and litigation with one of the third parties, Power.com
.
Facebook Connect has been criticized for its lack of interoperability
with OpenID
.
gave Facebook an "A" rating"
, the 36-month running count of complaints about Facebook logged with the Better Business Bureau is 1136, including 101 ("Making a full refund, as the consumer requested"), 868 ("Agreeing to perform according to their contract"), 1 ("Refuse [sic] to adjust, relying on terms of agreement"), 20 ("Unassigned"), 0 ("Unanswered") and 136 ("Refusing to make an adjustment"). Facebook reportedly claimed to the BBB that some customers had received warnings for violations when none were actually sent.
. On July 28, 2010 the BBC
reported that security consultant Ron Bowes used a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles to collect data of 100 million profiles. The data collected was not hidden by the user's privacy settings. Bowes then published the list online. This list, which has been shared as a downloadable file, contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user's profile, their name and unique ID. Bowes said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook claimed it was already public information.
was chosen as the site for a new Facebook data center. However the center has been met with criticism from environmental groups such as Greenpeace
because the power utility company contracted for the center, PacifiCorp
, generates 60% of its electricity from coal. In September 2010, Facebook received a letter from Greenpeace containing half a million signatures asking the company to cut its ties to coal based electricity.
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
's growth as an Internet social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
ing site has met criticism on a range of issues, including online privacy, child safety, and the inability to terminate accounts without first manually deleting the content. In 2008, many companies removed their advertising from the site because it was being displayed on the pages of controversial individuals and groups. The content of user pages, groups, and forums has been criticized for promoting controversial topics. There have been several issues with censorship, both on and off the site.
The changes made by Facebook have been criticized, in particular the new format launched in 2008 and the changes in Facebook's Terms of Use, which removed the clause detailing automatic expiry of deleted content. Facebook has also been sued several times.
Issues during 2007
In August 2007, the code used to dynamically generate Facebook's home and search page as visitors browse the site was accidentally made public, according to leading internet news sites. A configuration problem on a Facebook server caused the PHPPHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
code to be displayed instead of the web page the code should have created, raising concerns about how secure private data on the site was. A visitor to the site copied, published and later removed the code from his web forum, claiming he had been served legal notice by Facebook. Facebook's response was quoted by the site that broke the story:
In November, Facebook launched Beacon, a system (discontinued in September 2009) where third-party websites could include a script by Facebook on their sites, and use it to send information about the actions of Facebook users on their site to Facebook, prompting serious privacy concerns. Information such as purchases made and games played were published in the user's news feed. An informative notice about this action appeared on the third party site and gave the user the opportunity to cancel it, and the user could also cancel it on Facebook. Originally if no action was taken, the information was automatically published. On November 29 this was changed to require confirmation from the user before publishing each story gathered by Beacon.
On December 1, Facebook's credibility in regard to the Beacon program was further tested when it was reported that the New York Times "essentially accuses" Mark Zuckerberg of lying to the paper and leaving Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
, which is reversing course on the program, a similar impression. A security engineer at CA, Inc. also claimed in a November 29, 2007 blog post that Facebook collected data from affiliate sites even when the consumer opted out and even when not logged into the Facebook site. On November 30, 2007, the CA security blog posted a Facebook clarification statement addressing the use of data collected in the Beacon program:
The Beacon service ended in September 2009 along with the settlement of a class-action lawsuit resulting from the service.
News Feed and Mini-Feed
On September 5, 2006, Facebook introduced two new features called "News Feed" and "Mini-Feed". The first of the new features, News Feed, appears on every Facebook member's home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of the member's friends. The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member's profile page. Members can manually delete items from their Mini-Feeds if they wish to do so, and through privacy settings can control what is actually published in their respective Mini-Feeds.Some Facebook members still feel that the ability to opt out
Opt-out
The term opt-out refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information. This ability is usually associated with direct marketing campaigns such as telemarketing, e-mail marketing, or direct mail. A list of those who have opted-out is called a...
of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary, as evidenced by a statement from the Students Against Facebook News Feed group, which peaked at over 740,000 members in 2006. Reacting to users' concerns, Facebook developed new privacy features to give users some control over information about them that was broadcast by the News Feed. According to subsequent news articles, members have widely regarded the additional privacy options as an acceptable compromise.
In December 2009, Facebook removed the privacy controls for the News Feed and Mini Feed. This change made it impossible for users to control what activities are published on their walls (and consequently the public news feed). Since users can post anything they want, this allowed people to post things that could target certain groups of people or abuse other users through other means.
In May 2010, Facebook added privacy controls and streamlined its privacy settings, giving users more ways to manage status updates and other information that is broadcast to the public News Feed. Among the new privacy settings is the ability to control who sees each new status update a user posts: Everyone, Friends of Friends, or Friends Only. Users can now hide each status update from specific people as well.
Cooperation with government search requests
Government authorities rely on Facebook to investigate crimes and obtain evidence to help establish a crime, provide location information, establish motives, prove and disprove alibis, and reveal communications. Federal, state, and local investigations have not been restricted to profiles that are publicly available or willingly provided to the government; Facebook has willingly provided information in response to government subpoenas or requests, except with regard to private, unopened inbox messages less than 181 days old, which require a warrant and a finding of probable cause under federal law. An article by Junichi Semitsu published in the Pace Law Review, reports that "even when the government lacks reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and the user opts for the strictest privacy controls, Facebook users still cannot expect federal law to stop their 'private' content and communications from being used against them. " Facebook's privacy policy states that "We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities." Since Congress has failed to meaningfully amend the Electronic Communications Privacy ActElectronic Communications Privacy Act
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act is a United States law.- Overview :The “electronic communication” means any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic or...
to protect most communications on social networking sites such as Facebook and since the Supreme Court has largely refused to recognize a Fourth Amendment privacy right to information shared with a third party, there is no federal statutory or constitutional right that prevents the government from issuing requests that amount to fishing expeditions and there is no Facebook privacy policy that forbids the company from handing over private user information that suggests any illegal activity.
Aided by Facebook, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
prevented scores of pro-Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
activists in July 2011 from boarding Tel Aviv-bound flights in Europe.
Complaint from CIPPIC
The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest ClinicCanadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic is a legal clinic at the University of Ottawa focused on maintaining fair and balanced policy making in Canada related to technology...
(CIPPIC), per Director Phillipa Lawson, filed a 35-page complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner against Facebook on May 31, 2008, based on 22 breaches of the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act is a Canadian law relating to data privacy. It governs how private sector organizations collect, use and disclose personal information in the course of commercial business. In addition, the Act contains various provisions to...
(PIPEDA). University of Ottawa
University of Ottawa
The University of Ottawa is a bilingual, research-intensive, non-denominational, international university in Ottawa, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada. It was originally established as the College of Bytown in 1848 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate...
law students Lisa Feinberg, Harley Finkelstein, and Jordan Eric Plener, initiated the "minefield of privacy invasion" suit. Facebook's Chris Kelly
Chris Kelly (entrepreneur)
Christopher Michael "Chris" Kelly is an American entrepreneur, politician, and lawyer. Until March 16, 2010, he was the Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook...
contradicted the claims, saying that: "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors — most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users." Assistant Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham released a report of her findings on July 16, 2009. In it, she found that several of CIPPIC's complaints were well-founded. Facebook agreed to comply with some, but not all, of her recommendations. The Assistant Commissioner found that Facebook did not do enough to ensure users granted meaningful consent for the disclosure of personal information to third parties and did not place adequate safeguards to ensure unauthorized access by third party developers to personal information.
Data mining
There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data miningData mining
Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
. The Facebook privacy policy once stated, "We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile." However, the policy was later updated and now states: "We may use information about you that we collect from other Facebook users to supplement your profile (such as when you are tagged in a photo or mentioned in a status update). In such cases we generally give you the ability to remove the content (such as allowing you to remove a photo tag of you) or limit its visibility on your profile." The terminology regarding the use of collecting information from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, and instant messaging services, has been removed.
The possibility of data mining by private individuals unaffiliated with Facebook has been a concern, as evidenced by the fact that two Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) students were able to download, using an automated script, over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, the University of Oklahoma
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...
, and Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
) as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14, 2005. Since then, Facebook has bolstered security protection for users, responding: "We’ve built numerous defenses to combat phishing and malware, including complex automated systems that work behind the scenes to detect and flag Facebook accounts that are likely to be compromised (based on anomalous activity like lots of messages sent in a short period of time, or messages with links that are known to be bad)."
A second clause that brought criticism from some users allowed Facebook the right to sell users' data to private companies, stating "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." This concern was addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes, who said "Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to." Facebook eventually removed this clause from its privacy policy.
Previously, third party applications had access to almost all user information. Facebook's privacy policy previously stated: "Facebook does not screen or approve Platform Developers and cannot control how such Platform Developers use any personal information." However, that language has since been removed. Regarding use of user data by third party applications, the ‘Pre-Approved Third-Party Websites and Applications’ section of the Facebook privacy policy now states:
In the United Kingdom, the Trades Union Congress
Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...
(TUC) has encouraged employers to allow their staff to access Facebook and other social networking sites from work, provided they proceed with caution.
In September 2007, Facebook drew a fresh round of criticism after it began allowing non-members to search for users, with the intent of opening limited "public profiles" up to search engines such as Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
in the following months. Facebook's privacy settings, however, allow users to block their profiles from search engines.
Concerns were also raised on the BBC's Watchdog
Watchdog (TV series)
Watchdog is a BBC television series that investigates viewers' reports of problematic experiences with traders, retailers, and other companies around the UK...
programme in October 2007 when Facebook was shown to be an easy way in which to collect an individual's personal information in order to facilitate identity theft. However, there is barely any personal information presented to non-friends - if users leave the privacy controls on their default settings, the only personal information visible to a non-friend is the user's name, gender, profile picture, networks, and user name.
In addition, a New York Times article in February 2008 pointed out that Facebook does not actually provide a mechanism for users to close their accounts, and thus raised the concern that private user data would remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers. However, Facebook now gives users the options to deactivate or delete their accounts, according to the Facebook Privacy Policy. “When you deactivate an account, no user will be able to see it, but it will not be deleted. We save your profile information (connections, photos, etc.) in case you later decide to reactivate your account.” The policy further states: “When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook.”
A third party site, USocial, was involved in a controversy surrounding the sale of fans and friends. USocial received a cease-and-desist letter from Facebook and has stopped selling friends.
Inability to voluntarily terminate accounts
Facebook had allowed users to deactivate their accounts but not actually remove account content from its servers. A Facebook representative explained to a student from the University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
that users had to clear their own accounts by manually deleting all of the content including wall posts, friends, and groups. A New York Times article noted the issue, and also raised a concern that emails and other private user data remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers. Facebook subsequently began allowing users to permanently delete their accounts. Facebook's Privacy Policy now states: "When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook."
Memorials
A notable ancillary effect of social networking websites, particularly Facebook, is the ability for participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook, students often leave messages of sadness, grief, or hope on the individual's page, transforming it into a sort of public book of condolences. This particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools. Previously, Facebook had stated that its official policy on the matter was to remove the profile of the deceased one month after he or she has died, preventing the profile from being used for communal mourning, citing privacy concerns. Due to user response, Facebook amended its policy. Its new policy is to place deceased members' profiles in a "memorialization state". Facebook's Privacy Policy regarding memorialization says, "If we are notified that a user is deceased, we may memorialize the user’s account. In such cases we restrict profile access to confirmed friends, and allow friends and family to write on the user’s Wall in remembrance. We may close an account if we receive a formal request from the user's next of kin or other proper legal request to do so."Such memorial groups have also raised legal issues. Notably, on January 1, 2008, one such memorial group posted the identity of murdered Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police Service
Toronto Police Service
The Toronto Police Service , formerly the Metropolitan Toronto Police, is the police service for the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest municipal police service in Canada and second largest police force in Canada after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...
their consent to release her name to the media, and the identities of her accused killers, in defiance of Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's Youth Criminal Justice Act
Youth Criminal Justice Act
Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act is a Canadian statute, which came into effect on April 1, 2003. It covers the prosecution of youths for criminal offences...
which prohibits publishing the names of under-age criminals. While police and Facebook staff attempted to comply with the privacy regulations by deleting such posts, they noted that it was difficult to effectively police the individual users who repeatedly republished
Streisand effect
The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely...
the deleted information.
Customization and security
Facebook is often compared to MySpaceMySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
but one significant difference between the two sites is the level of customization. MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
and CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
while Facebook allows only plain text
Plain text
In computing, plain text is the contents of an ordinary sequential file readable as textual material without much processing, usually opposed to formatted text....
. However, a number of users have tweaked their profiles by using "hacks." On February 24, 2006, a pair of users exploited a cross-site scripting
Cross-site scripting
Cross-site scripting is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in Web applications that enables attackers to inject client-side script into Web pages viewed by other users. A cross-site scripting vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same...
(XSS) hole on the profile page and created a fast-spreading worm, loading a custom CSS file on infected profiles that made them look like MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
profiles.
On April 19, 2006, a user was able to embed an iframe
HTML element
An HTML element is an individual component of an HTML document. HTML documents are composed of a tree of HTML elements and other nodes, such as text nodes. Each element can have attributes specified. Elements can also have content, including other elements and text. HTML elements represent...
into his profile and load a custom off-site page featuring a streaming video
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
and a flash game
Online game
An online game is a game played over some form of computer network. This almost always means the Internet or equivalent technology, but games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, and hard wired terminals before modems...
from Drawball. He has since been banned from Facebook.
On March 26, 2006, a user was able to embed JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
in the "Hometown" field of his profile which imported his custom CSS.
In each case, Facebook quickly patched the holes, typically within hours of their discovery. However, in July 2007, Adrienne Felt, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, discovered a cross-site scripting
Cross-site scripting
Cross-site scripting is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in Web applications that enables attackers to inject client-side script into Web pages viewed by other users. A cross-site scripting vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same...
(XSS) hole in the Facebook Platform that could inject JavaScript into profiles. She used the hole to import custom CSS and demonstrate how the platform could be used to violate privacy rules or create a worm. This hole took Facebook two and a half weeks to fix.
Photo recognition and face tagging
Facebook enabled an automatic facial recognitionFacial recognition system
A facial recognition system is a computer application for automatically identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or a video frame from a video source...
feature in June 2011, called "Tag Suggestions". The feature compares newly uploaded photographs to those of the uploader's Facebook friends, in order to suggest photo tags. Facebook has defended the feature, saying users can disable it. Facebook introduced the feature in an opt-out
Opt-out
The term opt-out refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information. This ability is usually associated with direct marketing campaigns such as telemarketing, e-mail marketing, or direct mail. A list of those who have opted-out is called a...
basis. European Union data-protection regulators said they would investigate the feature to see if it violated privacy rules.
Investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner 2011
In August 2011 the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) started an investigation after receiving 16 complaints by europe-v-facebook.org which was founded by a group of Austrian students. The DPC stated in first reactions that the Irish DPC is legally responsible for privacy on Facebook for all users within the European UnionEuropean Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
and that he will "investigate the complaints using his full legal powers if necessary". The complaints were filed in Ireland because all users who are not residents of the United States or Canada have a contract with "Facebook Ireland Ltd", located in Dublin, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. Under European law Facebook Ireland is the "data controller" for facebook.com, and therefore, facebook.com is governed by European data protection laws. Facebook Ireland Ltd. was established by Facebook Inc. to avoid US taxes (see Double Irish Arrangement
Double Irish Arrangement
The Double Irish Arrangement is a tax avoidance strategy that U.S. based multinational corporations use to lower their income tax liability. The idea is to use payments between related entities in a corporate structure to shift income from a higher-tax country to a lower-tax country. It relies on...
).
The group europe-v-facebook.org made access requests at Facebook Ireland and received up to 1.200 pages of data per person in 57 data categories that Facebook was holding about them, including data that was previously removed by the users. Despite the amount of information given, the group claimed that Facebook did not give them all of its data. Some of the information not included was "likes", data about the new face recognition function, data about third party websites that use "social plugins" visited by users and information about uploaded videos.
The 16 complaints target different problems, from undeleted old "pokes" all the way to the question if sharing and new functions on Facebook should be opt-in or opt-put. The most severe could be a complaint that claims that the privacy policy and the consent to the privacy policy is void under European laws. It is reported that the group is planning to file more complaints, including one against the "Like" button.
In an Interview with the Irish Independent
Irish Independent
The Irish Independent is Ireland's largest-selling daily newspaper that is published in both compact and broadsheet formats. It is the flagship publication of Independent News & Media.-History:...
a spokesperson said, that the DPC will "go and audit Facebook, go into the premises and go through in great detail every aspect of security". He continued by saying: "It's a very significant, detailed and intense undertaking that will stretch over four or five days. Then we'll publish a detailed report and Facebook will respond". This means that the investigation by the DPC might become one of the most severe investigations into Facebook's privacy practice in the past years.
Breach of privacy extends to non-members of Facebook
An article published by USA todayUSA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
claimed that Facebook has created a web log of pages visited both by its members and by others. Facebook relies on tracking cookies to keep track of pages visited by more than 800 million individuals.
According to the article, the United States congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
and the world wide web consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
are attempting to set new guidelines to deal with privacy concerns. It is not clear whether the information collected in this manner is provided only to advertisers and no others.
Envy
Facebook has been criticized for making people envious and unhappy due to the constant exposure to positive yet unrepresentative highlights of their peers.Stress
Research performed by psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University indicated that Facebook adds stress to users' lives. Causes of stress included fear of missing important social information, fear of offending contacts, discomfort or guilt from rejecting user requests or deleting unwanted contacts, the pressure to be entertaining, and having to use appropriate etiquette for different types of friends. Many people who started using Facebook for positive purposes have found that the website has negatively impacted their actual lives.Misleading campaigns
In May 2011 emails were sent to journalists and bloggers making critical allegations about Google's privacy policies; however it was later discovered that the anti-Google campaign, conducted by PR giant Burson-Marsteller, was paid for by Facebook in what CNN referred to as "a new level skullduggery" and which Daily Beast called a "clumsy smear." While taking responsibility for the campaign, Burson-Marsteller said it should not have agreed to keep its client's (Facebook's) identity a secret. "Whatever the rationale, this was not at all standard operating procedure and is against our policies, and the assignment on those terms should have been declined," it said in a statement.Identity theft
One can easily create an account and impersonate another person, often for malicious or mischievous reasons and to harass others. This criticism is not unique to Facebook, since any site with user accounts has the potential for users to create false accounts but due to its popularity and wide use Facebook is being the severe reason for this on internet.Defamation
On July 24, 2008, the High Court in London ordered a British cameraman to pay £22,000 (then about US$43,700) for breach of privacy and libel. He had posted a fake Facebook page purporting to be that of a former schoolfriend and business colleague, Mathew Firsht, with whom he had fallen out in 2000. The fake page claimed that Firsht was homosexual and untrustworthy. The case is believed to be the first successful invasion of privacyInvasion of privacy
United States privacy law embodies several different legal concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information,...
and defamation verdict against someone over an entry on a social networking site.
Anorexia and bulimia
Facebook has received criticism from users and from people outside the Facebook community about hosting pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia information. British eating disorderEating disorder
Eating disorders refer to a group of conditions defined by abnormal eating habits that may involve either insufficient or excessive food intake to the detriment of an individual's physical and mental health. Bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and binge eating disorder are the most common specific...
charity B-EAT called on all social networking sites to curb "pro-ana" (anorexia
Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...
) and "pro-mia" (bulimia) pages and groups, naming MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and Facebook specifically.
Advertiser concerns
On August 3, 2007, British companies including First DirectFirst Direct
First Direct is a telephone and internet-based retail bank in the United Kingdom, a division of HSBC Bank plc. First Direct has headquarters in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, and has 1.16 million customers....
, Vodafone
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
, Virgin Media
Virgin Media
Virgin Media Inc. is a company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom...
, The Automobile Association
The Automobile Association
The Automobile Association , a British motoring association founded in 1905 was demutualised in 1999 to become a private limited company which currently provides car insurance, driving lessons, breakdown cover, loans and motoring advice, and other services...
, Halifax and the Prudential
Prudential plc
Prudential plc is a multinational financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.Prudential's largest division is Prudential Corporation Asia, which has over 15 million customers across 13 Asian markets and is a top-three provider of life insurance in mainland China, Hong...
removed their advertisements from Facebook. A Virgin Media spokeswoman said "We want to advertise on social networks but we have to protect our brand". The companies found that their services were being advertised on pages of the British National Party
British National Party
The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...
, a far-right political party in the UK. New Media Age
New Media Age
New Media Age is a weekly news magazine, covering business use of interactive media in the UK.New Media Age is owned by Centaur Media plc. It was launched as a newsletter in May 1995 under editor Phil Dwyer with reporters Nick Jones and Catherine Stewart...
magazine was first to alert the companies that their ads were coming up on BNP's Facebook page.
Holocaust denial
In 2009, Facebook received criticism for including Holocaust denialHolocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
groups. Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, said, "We want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed." While Facebook's terms of use include the warning that users may "be banned if they post 'any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable'", Schnitt said, "We can't guarantee that there isn't any content that violates our policies."
Pro-mafia groups' case
In Italy, the discovery of pro-mafiaMafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
groups caused an alert in the country and brought the government, after a short debate, to rapidly issue a law which will force ISPs to deny access to entire sites in case of refused removal of illegal contents; the removal can be requested by a prosecutor in any case in which there is a suspicion that criminal speech
Criminal speech
Criminal speech is a legal concept that identifies certain kinds of speech as a crime. The concept is somewhat at odds with freedom of speech in its broadest sense, within the broader freedom of expression, and asserts certain limitations on such freedom....
(a defence of or incitement to crime) is published on a website. The amendment was passed by the Italian Senate
Italian Senate
The Senate of the Republic is the upper house of the Italian Parliament. It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as Senato del Regno , itself a continuation of the Senato Subalpino of Sardinia-Piedmont established on 8 May 1848...
and now needs to be passed unchanged by the Chamber of Deputies
Italian Chamber of Deputies
The Italian Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Parliament of Italy. It has 630 seats, a plurality of which is controlled presently by liberal-conservative party People of Freedom. Twelve deputies represent Italian citizens outside of Italy. Deputies meet in the Palazzo Montecitorio. A...
to become immediately effective.
Facebook and other websites, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
included, criticized the amendment emphasizing the eventual effects on the freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
of those users who do not violate any law.
Trolling
On March 31, 2010, the Today Show ran a segment detailing the deaths of three separate adolescent girls and trollTroll (Internet)
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response...
s' subsequent reactions to their deaths. Shortly after the suicide of high school student Alexis Pilkington, anonymous posters began trolling for reactions across various message boards, referring to Pilkington as a "suicidal slut", and posting graphic images on her Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
memorial page. The segment also included an exposé of a 2006 accident, in which an eighteen-year-old student out for a drive fatally crashed her father's car into a highway pylon; trolls e-mailed her grieving family the leaked pictures of her mutilated corpse.
There have been cases where Facebook "trolls" were jailed for their communications on Facebook, particularly memorial pages. In Fall 2010, Colm Coss of Ardick, Britain, was sentenced to 26 weeks in jail under s127 of the Communications Act 2003 of Great Britain, for "malicious communications" for leaving messages deemed obscene and hurtful on Facebook memorial pages.
In April 2011, Bradley Paul Hampson was sentenced to three years in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of using a carriage service, the Internet, to cause offense, for posts on Facebook memorial pages, and one count each of distributing and possessing child pornography when he posted images on the memorial pages of the deceased with phalluses superimposed alongside phrases such as "Woot I'm dead".
Disabling of user accounts
There have been complaints of user accounts easily being mistakenly disabled for violating Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The disabling is often automated and can be easily triggered by a user filing a report on an account, regardless of whether or not the report is legitimate.Once Facebook disables an account, whether it does so for unconfirmed reasons or a suspicion that something may be awry, it is impossible to reinstate the account, partly due to lack of in-person support and partly because any attempt to do so sends the account holder into a closed loop.
Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities is often misleading. For example, it states that joining a school network is not a requirement, even though users are often disabled for not joining a school network. Facebook has disabled user accounts for having names deemed to be fake despite being real. Once an account is disabled, it can no longer be logged into and all public traces of it disappear.
There have also been instances of user accounts being memorialized, even though the person listed on the profile was not deceased.
Enabling of Harassment
Facebook instituted a policy by which it is now self-policed by the community of Facebook users. Some users have complained that this policy allows Facebook to empower abusive users to harass them by allowing them to submit reports on even benign comments and photos as being "offensive" or "in violation of Facebook Rights and Responsibilities" and that enough of these reports result in the user who is being harassed in this way getting their account blocked for a predetermined number of days or weeks, or even deactivated entirely. In addition, Facebook does not ban the IPs of users who have proven to create multiple accounts for the purposes of trolling or stalking others, thereby enabling the harasser, even if they do have one of the offending accounts deactivated, to simply create another one and continue the harassment with no lasting consequences.Lack of customer support
Facebook lacks live support, making it difficult to resolve issues that require the services of an administrator or are not covered in the FAQs, such as the enabling of a disabled account. The automated emailing system used when filling out a support form often refers users back to the help center or to pages that are outdated and cannot be accessed, leaving users at a dead end with no further support available.Downtime and outages
Facebook has had a number of outages and downtime large enough to draw some media attention. A 2007 outage resulted in a security hole that enabled some users to read other users' personal mail. In 2008, the site was inaccessible for about a day, from many locations in many countries. In spite of these occurrences, a report issued by PingdomPingdom
Pingdom is a service that tracks the uptime, downtime, and performance of websites. Based in Sweden, Pingdom monitors websites from multiple locations globally so that it can distinguish genuine downtime from routing and access problems....
found that Facebook had less downtime in 2008 than most social networking websites. On September 16, 2009, Facebook started having major problems with loading when people signed in. On September 18, 2009, Facebook went down for the second time in 2009, the first time being when a group of hackers were deliberately trying to drown out a political speaker who had social networking problems from continuously speaking against the Iranian election results. On August 10, 2011 Facebook was in-accessible.
In October 2009, an unspecified number of Facebook users were unable to access their accounts for over three weeks. On September 23, 2010, nobody within the UK, US, and Latin America could log in to Facebook. Facebook quoted a DNS
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
failure.
September 2008
In September 2008, Facebook permanently moved its users to what they termed the "New Facebook" or Facebook 3.0. This version contained several different features and a complete layout redesign. Between July and September, users had been given the option to use the new Facebook in place of the original design, or to return to the old design.Facebook's decision to migrate their users was met with some controversy in their community. Several groups started opposing the decision, some with over a million users.
October 2009
In October 2009, Facebook redesigned the news feed so that the user could view all types of things that their friends were involved with. In a statement, they said,This redesign was explained as:
Stores your applications generate can show up in both views. The best way for your stories to appear in the News Feed filter is to create stories that are highly engaging, as high quality, interesting stories are most likely to garner likes and comments by the user's friends.
News Feed will focus on popular content, determined by an algorithm based on interest in that story, including the number of times an item is liked or commented on. Live Feed will display all recent stories from a large number of a user's friends.
The redesign was met immediately with criticism with users, many who did not like the amount of information that was coming at them. This was also compounded by the fact that people couldn't select what they saw. Immediately, groups formed, one getting over 1,600,000 within the first two weeks of the update.
November/December 2009
In November 2009, Facebook issued a proposed new privacy policy, and adopted it unaltered in December 2009. They combined this with a rollout of new privacy settings. This new policy declared certain information, including "lists of friends", to be "publicly available", with no privacy settings; it was previously possible to keep access to this information restricted. Due to this change, the users who had set their "list of friends" as private were forced to make it public without even being informed, and the option to make it private again was removed. This was protested by many people and privacy organizations such as the EFF.The change was described by Gawker
Gawker.com
Gawker is a newsmagazine/blog based in New York City that bills itself as "the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip" and focuses on celebrities and the media industry....
as Facebook's Great Betrayal, forcing user profile photos and friends lists to be visible in users' public listing, even for users who had explicitly chosen to hide this information previously, and making photos and personal information public unless users were proactive about limiting access. For example, a user whose "Family and Relationships" information was set to be viewable by "Friends Only" would default to being viewable by "Everyone" (publicly viewable). That is, information such as the gender of partner you are interested in, relationship status, and family relations became viewable to those even without a Facebook account. Facebook was heavily criticized for both reducing its users' privacy and pushing users to remove privacy protections. Groups criticizing the changes include the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
and American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, had hundreds of personal photos and his events calendar exposed in the transition. Facebook has since re-included an option to hide friends lists from being viewable; however, this preference is no longer listed with other privacy settings, and the former ability to hide the friends list from selected people among one's own friends is no longer possible. Journalist Dan Gillmor deleted his Facebook account over the changes, stating he "can't entirely trust Facebook" and Heidi Moore at Slate's Big Money temporarily deactivated her account as a "conscientious objection". Other journalists have been similarly disappointed and outraged by the changes. Defending the changes, founder Mark Zuckerberg said "we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it". The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Privacy Commissioner of Canada
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada is a special ombudsman and an officer of parliament who reports directly to the House of Commons and the Senate....
launched another investigation into Facebook's privacy policies after complaints following the change.
Tracking Cookies
Facebook has been criticised heavily for 'tracking' users, even when logged out of the site. Australian technologist Nik Cubrilovic discovered that when a user logs out of Facebook, the cookies from that login are still kept in the browser, allowing Facebook to track users on websites that include "social widgets" distributed by the social network. Facebook has denied the claims, saying they have 'no interest' in tracking users or their activity. They also promised after the discovery of the cookies that they would remove them, saying they will no longer have them on the site. A group of users in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
have sued Facebook for breaching privacy laws.
Censorship controversies
Search function
Facebook's search function has been accused of preventing users from searching for certain terms. Michael ArringtonMichael Arrington
J. Michael Arrington is the founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in USA and elsewhere...
of TechCrunch has written about Facebook's possible censorship of "Ron Paul
Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician, author and United States Congressman who is seeking to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Paul represents Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes...
" as a search term. MoveOn.org's Facebook group for organizing protests against privacy violations could for a time not be found by searching. The very word privacy was also restricted. Facebook claimed that the problem was a bug.
Breastfeeding photos
Facebook has been criticized for removing photos uploaded by mothers of themselves breastfeeding their babies and also canceling their Facebook accounts. Although photos that show an exposed breast violate Facebook's decency code, even when the baby covered the nipple, Facebook took several days to respond to calls to deactivate a paid advertisement for a dating service that used a photo of a topless model.The breastfeeding photos controversy continued following public protests and the growth in the online membership in the Facebook group titled "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene! (Official petition to Facebook)."
Censorship of editorial content
On February 4, 2010, a number of Facebook groups against the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) were removed without any reason given. The DAB is one of the largest pro-Beijing political parties in Hong Kong. The affected groups have since been restored.On May 21, 2010, Facebook disabled the account of Sulphur Springs, Texas
Sulphur Springs, Texas
Sulphur Springs is a city in Hopkins County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 14,551. It is the county seat of Hopkins County.-Geography:Sulphur Springs is located at ....
radio station KNOI
Kete
Kete can refer to:* afro-carib drums* a minor Kazakh Jüz "horde", numbering ca. 50-60,000* USS Kete * Kete, Pembrokeshire 51.69° N 05.18° W* Māori bags* Cocaine paste, a Peruanian slang name...
after it posted editorial comments critical of Facebook's privacy policies and shared links to articles about Leo Laporte
Leo Laporte
Léo Gordon Laporte is an Emmy Award winning, American technology broadcaster, author, and entrepreneur. A former resident of Providence, Rhode Island, he now lives in Petaluma, California with his wife Jennifer and two children, Abby and Henry....
's decision to delete his own Facebook account.
Accusation of politically biased granting of group upgrades
In May 2011, Facebook announced that in the coming months it will be "archiving" all groups in the old format, part of the consequence of which is losing all the existing members of a group, which would effectively destroy many groups, forcing them to re-acquire members from scratch. A few groups have been given an option to "upgrade" to the new groups format, which keeps the members, but the criteria for determining whether a group is offered this "upgrade" are unknown. Some groups have had success in getting this upgrade by having activity in their group, while others have not. One article has claimed an empirical observation that disproportionately more "liberal" groups have been able to upgrade than "conservative" groups, leading to accusations of potential political bias, or of politically motivated censorship of conservative groups.Student privacy concerns
Students who post illegal or otherwise inappropriate material have faced disciplinary action from their universities, including expulsion. Others posting libelous content relating to faculty have also faced disciplinary action.Effect on higher education
On January 23, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education continued an ongoing national debate on social networks with an opinion pieceEditorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...
written by Michael Bugeja, director of the Journalism School
Journalism school
A journalism school is a school or department, usually part of an established university, where journalists are trained. An increasingly used term for a journalism department, school or college is 'J-School'...
at Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
, entitled "Facing the Facebook". Bugeja, author of the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
text Interpersonal Divide (2005), quoted representatives of the American Association of University Professors
American Association of University Professors
The American Association of University Professors is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership is about 47,000, with over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations...
and colleagues in higher education to document the distraction of students using Facebook and other social networks during class and at other venues in the wireless campus
Hotspot (Wi-Fi)
A hotspot is a site that offers Internet access over a wireless local area network through the use of a router connected to a link to an Internet service provider...
. Bugeja followed up on January 26, 2007 in The Chronicle with an article titled "Distractions in the Wireless Classroom", quoting several educators across the country who were banning laptops in the classroom. Similarly, organisations such as the National Association for Campus Activities
National Association for Campus Activities
National Association for Campus Activities is an organization designed to provide information and resources for campus activities programmers throughout the United States and Canada...
, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, or AEJMC, is a major international membership organization for academics in the field, offering regional and national conferences and refereed publications. It has numerous membership divisions, interest groups, publications and...
, and others have hosted seminars and presentations to discuss ramifications of students' use of Facebook and other social networking systems.
The EDUCAUSE
EDUCAUSE
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is "to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology." Membership is open to institutions of higher education, corporations serving the higher education information technology market, and other related...
Learning Initiative has also released a brief pamphlet entitled "7 Things You Should Know About Facebook" aimed at higher education professionals that "describes what
Some research on Facebook in higher education suggests that there may be some small educational benefits associated with student Facebook use, including improving engagement which is related to student retention. Furthermore, using technologies such as Facebook to connect with others can help college students be less depressed and cope with feelings of loneliness and homesickness. According to one case study, students surveyed who were regular facebook users had, on average, lower grades than those who were not.
Government censorship
Several countries have banned access to itCensorship of Facebook
Censorship of Facebook has occurred because of the open nature of Facebook; several countries have interfered with or banned access to it, including Syria, China, Iran, Vietnam and the United Kingdom.-China:...
including Syria, China, Iran, and Vietnam.
In 2010, Facebook reportedly allowed an objectionable page, deemed by the Islamic Lawyers Forum, to be anti-Muslim. The "ILF" filed a petition with Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
's Lahore High Court
Lahore High Court
The Lahore High Court is based in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. It was established as a high court on March 21, 1919. The Lahore High Court has jurisdiction over Punjab...
. On May 18, 2010, Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry ordered Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
's Telecommunication Authority to block access to Facebook until May 31. The offensive page had provoked street demonstrations in Muslim countries due to visual depictions of Mohammed, which are regarded as blasphemous by Muslims. A spokesman said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority is Pakistani government agency responsible for the establishment, operation and maintenance of telecommunications in Pakistan...
would move to implement the ban once the order has been issued by the Ministry of Information and Technology. "We will implement the order as soon as we get the instructions", Khurram Mehran told AFP. "We have already blocked the URL link and issued instruction to Internet service providers yesterday", he added. Rai Bashir told AFP that "We moved the petition in the wake of widespread resentment in the Muslim community against the Facebook contents". The petition called on the government of Pakistan to lodge a strong protest with the owners of Facebook, he added. Bashir said a PTA official told the judge his organisation had blocked the page, but the court ordered a total ban on the site. People demonstrated outside court in the eastern city of Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, carrying banners condemning Facebook. Protests in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
on a larger scale took place after the ban and widespread news of that objectionable page. The ban was lifted on May 31 after Facebook reportedly assured the Lahore High Court that it would remedy the issues in dispute.
In 2011, a court in Pakistan was petitioned to place a permanent ban on Facebook for hosting a page called "2nd Annual Draw Muhammad Day May 20th 2011."
Organizations blocking access
OntarioOntario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
government employees, Federal public servants, MPPs, and cabinet ministers were blocked from access to Facebook on government computers in May 2007. When the employees tried to access Facebook, a warning message "The Internet website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for government business purposes". This warning also appears when employees try to access YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
, gambling or pornographic websites. However, innovative employees have found ways around such protocols, and many claim to use the site for political or work-related purposes.
A number of local governments including those in the UK and Finland imposed restrictions on the use of Facebook in the workplace due to the technical strain incurred. Other government-related agencies, such as the US Marine Corps have imposed similar restrictions.
A number of hospitals in Finland have also restricted Facebook use citing privacy concerns.
Employees of Broward County, Florida have been blocked from accessing Facebook and most social networking and blog sites since 2009.
Schools blocking access
The University of New MexicoUniversity of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
(UNM) in October 2005 blocked access to Facebook from UNM campus computers and networks, citing unsolicited e-mails and a similar site called UNM Facebook. After a UNM user signed into Facebook from off campus, a message from Facebook said, "We are working with the UNM administration to lift the block and have explained that it was instituted based on erroneous information, but they have not yet committed to restore your access." UNM, in a message to students who tried to access the site from the UNM network, wrote, "This site is temporarily unavailable while UNM and the site owners work out procedural issues. The site is in violation of UNM's Acceptable Computer Use Policy
Acceptable use policy
An acceptable use policy is a set of rules applied by the owner/manager of a network, website or large computer system that restrict the ways in which the network site or system may be used...
for abusing computing resources (e.g., spamming, trademark infringement
Trademark infringement
Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attaching to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees...
, etc). The site forces use of UNM credentials (e.g., NetID or email address) for non-UNM business." However, after Facebook created an encrypted login and displayed a precautionary message not to use university passwords for access, UNM unblocked access the following spring semester.
The Columbus Dispatch reported on June 22, 2006, that Kent State University
Kent State University
Kent State University is a public research university located in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university has eight campuses around the northeast Ohio region with the main campus in Kent being the largest...
's athletic director
Athletic director
An athletic director is an administrator at many American colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches and related staff involved in intercollegiate or interscholastic athletic programs...
had planned to ban the use of Facebook by athletes and gave them until August 1 to delete their accounts. On July 5, 2006, the Daily Kent Stater
Kent State University
Kent State University is a public research university located in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university has eight campuses around the northeast Ohio region with the main campus in Kent being the largest...
reported that the director reversed the decision after reviewing the privacy settings of Facebook.
Closed social networks
Several web sites concerned with social networking, such as Plugtodo.com and salesforce have criticized the lack of information that users get when they share data. Advanced users cannot limit the amount of information anyone can access in their profiles, but Facebook promotes the sharing of personal information for marketing purposes, leading to the promotion of the service using personal data from users who are not fully aware of this. Facebook exposes personal data, without supporting open standards for data interchange.According to several communities and authors closed social networking, on
the other hand, promotes data retrieval from other people while not
exposing one's personal information.
Openbook
Openbook (Facebook)
Openbook is a Facebook-specific search engine, built upon Facebook's publicly available API, which enables one to search for specific texts on the walls of Facebook subscribers en masse which they have denoted, knowingly or unknowingly, as being available to "Everyone," i.e. to the Internet at large...
was established in early 2010 both as a parody of Facebook and a critique of its changing privacy management protocols.
Class action lawsuit
On November 17, 2009, Rebecca Swift, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, filed a class action lawsuit against Zynga Game Network Inc.Zynga
Zynga is a social network game developer located in San Francisco, United States. The company develops browser-based games that work both stand-alone and as application widgets on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace....
and Facebook, Inc. in the United States District Court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
for the Northern District of California for violation of the Unfair competition law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and for unjust enrichment
Unjust enrichment
Unjust enrichment is a legal term denoting a particular type of causative event in which one party is unjustly enriched at the expense of another, and an obligation to make restitution arises, regardless of liability for wrongdoing.Definition:...
.
ConnectU.com lawsuit
Divya NarendraDivya Narendra
Divya Narendra is an American businessman. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of SumZero. He also co-founded HarvardConnection with Harvard classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss....
, Cameron Winklevoss
Cameron Winklevoss
Cameron Howard Winklevoss is an American rower and entrepreneur. He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner Tyler Winklevoss. Cameron and his brother are known for co-founding HarvardConnection along with Harvard...
, and Tyler Winklevoss
Tyler Winklevoss
Tyler Howard Winklevoss is an American rower and entrepreneur. He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner Cameron Winklevoss...
, founders of the social networking website ConnectU, filed a lawsuit against Facebook in September 2004. The lawsuit alleged that Zuckerberg had broken an oral contract
Oral contract
An oral contract is a contract the terms of which have been agreed by spoken communication, in contrast to a written contract, where the contract is a written document...
to build the social networking site, copied the idea, and used source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
that they provided to Zuckerberg to create competing site Facebook. Facebook countersued in regards to Social Butterfly, a project put out by The Winklevoss Chang Group, an alleged partnership between ConnectU
ConnectU
ConnectU was a social networking website launched on May 21, 2004 that was founded by Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra in December 2002. Users could add people as friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about...
and i2hub
I2hub
i2hub was a peer-to-peer file sharing service and program designed and intended primarily for use by university and college students. The program was created by Wayne Chang, a student at University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
. It named among the defendants ConnectU
ConnectU
ConnectU was a social networking website launched on May 21, 2004 that was founded by Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra in December 2002. Users could add people as friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about...
, Cameron Winklevoss
Cameron Winklevoss
Cameron Howard Winklevoss is an American rower and entrepreneur. He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner Tyler Winklevoss. Cameron and his brother are known for co-founding HarvardConnection along with Harvard...
, Tyler Winklevoss
Tyler Winklevoss
Tyler Howard Winklevoss is an American rower and entrepreneur. He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner Cameron Winklevoss...
, Divya Narendra
Divya Narendra
Divya Narendra is an American businessman. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of SumZero. He also co-founded HarvardConnection with Harvard classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss....
, and Wayne Chang
Wayne Chang
Wayne Chang is an American entrepreneur and computer programmer. He is best known for creating i2hub, a peer-to-peer filesharing network.-Personal life:...
, founder of i2hub
I2hub
i2hub was a peer-to-peer file sharing service and program designed and intended primarily for use by university and college students. The program was created by Wayne Chang, a student at University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
. The parties reached a settlement agreement in February, 2008, for $20 million in cash and 1,253,326 Facebook shares. On August 26, 2010, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported that Facebook shares were trading at $76 per share in the secondary market, putting the total settlement value now at close to $120 million.
ConnectU filed another lawsuit against Facebook on March 11, 2008, attempting to rescind the settlement, claiming that Facebook, in settlement negotiations, had overstated the value of stock it was granting the ConnectU founders as part of the settlement. ConnectU argued that Facebook represented itself as being worth $15 billion at the time, due to the post-money valuation
Post-money valuation
Post-money valuation is the value of a company after an investment has been made. This value is equal to the sum of the pre-money valuation and the amount of new equity....
arising from Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's purchase in 2007 of a 1.6% stake in Facebook for US $246 million. Facebook announced that valuation in a press release. However, Facebook subsequently performed an internal valuation that estimated a company value of $3.75 billion. ConnectU then fired the law firm Quinn Emanuel that had represented it in settlement discussions. Quinn Emanuel filed a $13 million lien
Lien
In law, a lien is a form of security interest granted over an item of property to secure the payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation...
against the settlement proceeds and ConnectU sued for malpractice
Legal malpractice
Legal malpractice is the term for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, or breach of contract by an attorney that causes harm to his or her client...
. On August 25, 2010, an arbitration panel ruled that Quinn Emanuel had "earned its full contingency fee". It also found that Quinn Emanuel committed no malpractice. ConnectU's lawsuit against Facebook to quadruple its settlement remains ongoing.
In January 2010, it was reported that i2hub
I2hub
i2hub was a peer-to-peer file sharing service and program designed and intended primarily for use by university and college students. The program was created by Wayne Chang, a student at University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
founder Wayne Chang
Wayne Chang
Wayne Chang is an American entrepreneur and computer programmer. He is best known for creating i2hub, a peer-to-peer filesharing network.-Personal life:...
and The i2hub Organization launched a lawsuit against ConnectU
ConnectU
ConnectU was a social networking website launched on May 21, 2004 that was founded by Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra in December 2002. Users could add people as friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about...
and its founders, Cameron Winklevoss
Cameron Winklevoss
Cameron Howard Winklevoss is an American rower and entrepreneur. He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner Tyler Winklevoss. Cameron and his brother are known for co-founding HarvardConnection along with Harvard...
, Tyler Winklevoss
Tyler Winklevoss
Tyler Howard Winklevoss is an American rower and entrepreneur. He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner Cameron Winklevoss...
, and Divya Narendra
Divya Narendra
Divya Narendra is an American businessman. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of SumZero. He also co-founded HarvardConnection with Harvard classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss....
, seeking 50% of the settlement. The complaint states "Through this litigation, Chang asserts his ownership interest in The Winklevoss Chang Group and ConnectU, including the settlement proceeds." Lee Gesmer (of Gesmer Updegrove, LLP) posted the detailed 33-page complaint online. On April 12, 2011, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the Winklevoss brothers, whose fight over Facebook's origins was a major narrative arc of the film The Social Network
The Social Network
The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits...
, cannot back out of a settlement they signed with the company in 2008.
Aaron Greenspan and houseSYSTEM
As the President of the Harvard CollegeHarvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
Student Entrepreneurship Council (a now-defunct student group) and the CEO of Think Computer Corporation, Aaron Greenspan created a web portal as a Harvard undergraduate called houseSYSTEM that launched on August 1, 2003. Designed to centralize student life in a more user-friendly manner than Harvard's official student portal, my.harvard, houseSYSTEM had a variety of features, including an event calendar with digital RSVP, a photo album, user-uploadable "posters", a teaching feedback system called CriticalMass, an on-line trading post called Student Exchange, and, as of September 19, 2003, a "Universal Face Book", which was also referred to at times as "The Facebook." Greenspan began communicating with fellow classmate Mark Zuckerberg via e-mail shortly after launching the houseSYSTEM Facebook in September after reading a profile of Zuckerberg in The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, was founded in 1873. It is the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates...
news magazine. They met in person in early January 2004, at which point Zuckerberg, as well as future Facebook, Inc. co-founders Dustin Moskovitz
Dustin Moskovitz
Dustin Moskovitz is an American internet entrepreneur who co-founded the social networking website Facebook along with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin and Chris Hughes. Moskovitz owns a 6% share of Facebook. He is also a co-founder and the CEO of Asana. Moskovitz is Jewish...
, Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo P. Saverin is a Brazilian-born American internet entrepreneur and investor. Saverin is best known for co-founding Facebook, along with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes...
, and Chris Hughes were already houseSYSTEM members. (Cameron Winklevoss
Cameron Winklevoss
Cameron Howard Winklevoss is an American rower and entrepreneur. He competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his identical twin brother and rowing partner Tyler Winklevoss. Cameron and his brother are known for co-founding HarvardConnection along with Harvard...
and Victor Gao
Victor Gao
Victor Zhikai Gao is a Chinese international relations expert and translator. He is a Director of the China National Association of International Studies and an Executive Director of Beijing Private Equity Association...
of the ConnectU
ConnectU
ConnectU was a social networking website launched on May 21, 2004 that was founded by Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra in December 2002. Users could add people as friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about...
team were also houseSYSTEM members.) Though Greenspan and Zuckerberg decided to work on their respective projects independently, they frequently discussed technological aspects of houseSYSTEM related to the Facebook, as well as Zuckerberg's unspecified latest project, about which he was secretive, using AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger is an instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. It was released by AOL in May 1997...
. Throughout the spring semester of 2004, Greenspan and Zuckerberg were both enrolled in CS91r (also called Applied Math 91r), a ten-person computer science seminar that focused on using the PHP programming language with voice recognition technology.
On January 11, 2004, a few days after meeting Greenspan and concurrent with using the Universal Face Book on houseSYSTEM, Zuckerberg registered the domain name "thefacebook.com" independently. On February 4, 2004, when thefacebook.com launched, Greenspan recognized aspects of his own work in the site, and later came to believe that Zuckerberg was copying his work one feature at a time—a claim that Zuckerberg denied. Many of the features Greenspan created for houseSYSTEM, such as the digital event posters, electronic RSVPs, organizational pages, photo album, and marketplace, did eventually appear on thefacebook.com under similar names. Zuckerberg was aware of these features, eventually telling Greenspan at one point, "your facenet thing is hot". Social networking functionality was added to houseSYSTEM in March 2004, and the name "FaceNet" replaced the "Universal Face Book". Regarding Greenspan's allegations, Zuckerberg was described in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
as "saying through a spokeswoman that he was not sure how to respond."
In 2008, when Greenspan published a book entitled Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era describing his side of the story of Facebook's birth as well as events leading up to it (including aggressive actions on behalf of the Harvard University administration), he was prohibited from advertising the book using Google AdWords
AdWords
Google AdWords is Google's main advertising product and main source of revenue. Google's total advertising revenues were USD$28 billion in 2010. AdWords offers pay-per-click advertising, cost-per-thousand advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads. The AdWords...
because of the inclusion of the word "Facebook" in the book's subtitle, and the existence of Facebook, Inc.'s registered trademark on the term "Facebook". The trademark had come into existence two years before in 2006, partially as a defensive measure during a battle over the "facebook.com" domain name in the ConnectU
ConnectU
ConnectU was a social networking website launched on May 21, 2004 that was founded by Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra in December 2002. Users could add people as friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about...
lawsuit.
Greenspan's company filed a Petition to Cancel the "Facebook" trademark, which included claims of prior use and fraud by Facebook, Inc. against the USPTO. Greenspan represented himself for the majority of the proceedings, and the USPTO TTAB found his claims to be adequate. Facebook, Inc. agreed to a formal settlement with Greenspan in late May, 2009 and issued a press release, but the terms were not disclosed.
Greenspan is incorrectly referred to repeatedly as "Aaron Grossman" in Ben Mezrich
Ben Mezrich
Ben Mezrich is an American author from Princeton, New Jersey. He graduated magna-cum-laude with a degree in Social Studies from Harvard University in 1991. Some of his books have been written under the pseudonym Holden Scott. Mezrich attended Princeton Day School, in Princeton, New Jersey...
's book, The Accidental Billionaires
The Accidental Billionaires
The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal is a 2009 book by Ben Mezrich about the founding of Facebook. Co-founder Eduardo Saverin served as Mezrich's main consultant...
. Greenspan declined to cooperate with Mezrich on the book due to Mezrich's reputation for character distortion and consequently was not included in the resulting screenplay for The Social Network
The Social Network
The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits...
, even though Mezrich cited Authoritas as a source.
Greenspan has written a number of articles critical of Facebook on The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
.
Paul Ceglia
On June 30, 2010, Paul CegliaPaul Ceglia
Paul Ceglia is an American businessman. In 2010, he brought a case against Facebook claiming he was a founder of the company along with Mark Zuckerberg.-Personal life:...
, the owner of a wood pellet fuel company in Allegany County, New York
Allegany County, New York
Allegany County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 48,946. Its name derives from a Delaware Indian word, applied by settlers of Western New York State to a trail that followed the Allegheny River. Its county seat is...
, filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, claiming 84% ownership of Facebook as well as additional monetary damages. According to Ceglia, he and Zuckerberg signed a contract on April 28, 2003, that for an initial fee of $1,000, entitles Ceglia to 50% of the website's revenue, as well as additional 1% interest per each day after January 1, 2004, until website completion. Zuckerberg was developing other projects at the time, among which was Facemash, the predecessor of Facebook, but did not register the domain name thefacebook.com until January 1, 2004. Facebook management has dismissed the lawsuit as "completely frivolous". Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt issued a statement indicating that the counsel for Ceglia had unsuccessfully attempted to seek an out-of-court settlement. In an interview to ABC World News, Zuckerberg stated he is confident of never signing such an agreement. At the time, Zuckerberg worked for Ceglia as a code developer on a project named "StreetFax". Judge Thomas Brown of Allegany Court issued a restraining order
Restraining order
A restraining order or order of protection is a form of legal injunction that requires a party to do, or to refrain from doing, certain acts. A party that refuses to comply with an order faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
on all financial transfers concerning ownership of Facebook until further notice; in response, Facebook management successfully filed for the case to be moved to federal court. According to Facebook, the order does not affect their business but lacks legal basis.
Terms of Use controversy
While Facebook originally made changes to its terms of use or, terms of serviceTerms of service
Terms of service are rules which one must agree to abide by in order to use a service. Unless in violation of consumer protection laws, such terms are usually legally binding...
, on February 4, 2009, the changes went unnoticed until Chris Walters, a blogger for the consumer-oriented blog, The Consumerist, noticed the change on February 15, 2009. Walters complained the change gave Facebook the right to "Do anything they want with your content. Forever." The section under the most controversy is the "User Content Posted on the Site" clause. Before the changes, the clause read:
"You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."The "license granted" refers to the license that Facebook has to your "name, likeness, and image" to use in promotions and external advertising. The new terms of use deleted the phrase that states the license would "automatically expire" if a user chose to remove content. By omitting this line, Facebook license extends to adopt users' content perpetually and irrevocably years after the content has been deleted.
Many users of Facebook voiced opinions against the changes to the Facebook Terms of Use, leading to an Internet-wide debate over the ownership of content. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center is a public interest research group in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values in the information age...
prepared a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
. Many individuals were frustrated with the removal of the controversial clause. Facebook users, numbering more than 38,000, joined a user group against the changes, and a number of blogs and news sites have written about this issue.
After the change was brought to light in Walters's blog entry, in his blog on February 16, 2009, Zuckerberg addressed the issues concerning the recently made changes to Facebook's terms of use. Zuckerberg wrote “Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with.” In addition to this statement Zuckerberg explained the paradox created when people want to share their information (phone number, pictures, email address, etc.) with the public, but at the same time desire to remain in complete control of who has access to this info.
In order to calm criticism, Facebook returned to its original terms of use. However, on February 17, 2009, Zuckerberg wrote in his blog, that although Facebook reverted to its original terms of use, it is in the process of developing new terms in order to address the paradox. Zuckerberg stated that these new terms will allow Facebook users to “share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand.” Zuckerberg invited users to join a group entitled “Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” to give their input and help shape the new terms.
On February 26, 2009, Zuckerberg posted a blog, updating users on the progress of the new Terms of Use. He wrote, “We decided we needed to do things differently and so we're going to develop new policies that will govern our system from the ground up in an open and transparent way.” Zuckerberg introduces the two new additions to Facebook: the Facebook Principles and the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities Both additions allow users to vote on changes to the terms of use before they are officially released. Because “Facebook is still in the business of introducing new and therefore potentially disruptive technologies”, Zuckerberg explains, users need to adjust and familiarize themselves with the products before they can adequately show their support.
This new voting system was initially applauded as Facebook’s step to a more democratized social network system. However, the new terms were harshly criticized in a report by computer scientists from the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, who stated that the democratic process surrounding the new terms is disingenuous and significant problems remain in the new terms. The report was endorsed by the Open Rights Group
Open Rights Group
The Open Rights Group is a UK-based organisation that works to preserve digital rights and freedoms by campaigning on digital rights issues, acting as a media clearinghouse service putting journalists in touch with experts, and by fostering a community of grassroots activists...
.
In December 2009, EPIC and a number of other US privacy organizations filed another complaint with the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
regarding Facebook's Terms of Service. In January 2011 EPIC filed a subsequent complaint claiming that Facebook's new policy of sharing users' home address and mobile phone information with third-party developers were "misleading and fail[ed] to provide users clear and privacy protections", particularly for children under age 18. Facebook temporarily suspended implementation of its policy in February 2011, but the following month announced it was "actively considering" reinstating the 3rd party policy.
Interoperability and data portability
Facebook has been criticized for failing to offer users a feature to export their friends' information, such as contact information, for use with other services or software. The inability of users to export their social graphSocial graph
The social graph is a term coined by scientists working in the social areas of graph theory. It has been described as "the global mapping of everybody and how they're related"...
in an open standard
Open standard
An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed . There is no single definition and interpretations vary with usage....
format contributes to vendor lock-in
Vendor lock-in
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs...
and contravenes the principles of data portability. Automated collection of user information without Facebook's consent violates its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and third-party attempts to do so (e.g., Web scraping
Web scraping
Web scraping is a computer software technique of extracting information from websites...
) have resulted in suspension of accounts, cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
letters, and litigation with one of the third parties, Power.com
Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc.
Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc. is a lawsuit brought by Facebook in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that , a third-party platform, collected user information from Facebook and displayed it on their own website...
.
Facebook Connect has been criticized for its lack of interoperability
Interoperability
Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together . The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to...
with OpenID
OpenID
OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities...
.
Better Business Bureau review
, the Better Business BureauBetter Business Bureau
The Better Business Bureau , founded in 1912, is a corporation consisting of several private business franchises of local BBB organizations based in the United States and Canada, which work through their parent corporation, the Council of Better Business Bureaus .The Better Business Bureau, through...
gave Facebook an "A" rating"
, the 36-month running count of complaints about Facebook logged with the Better Business Bureau is 1136, including 101 ("Making a full refund, as the consumer requested"), 868 ("Agreeing to perform according to their contract"), 1 ("Refuse [sic] to adjust, relying on terms of agreement"), 20 ("Unassigned"), 0 ("Unanswered") and 136 ("Refusing to make an adjustment"). Facebook reportedly claimed to the BBB that some customers had received warnings for violations when none were actually sent.
Security
Facebook's software has proven vulnerable to likejackingLikejacking
Likejacking, a form of clickjacking, is a malicious technique of tricking users of a website into posting a Facebook status update for a site they did not intentionally mean to "like"...
. On July 28, 2010 the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
reported that security consultant Ron Bowes used a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles to collect data of 100 million profiles. The data collected was not hidden by the user's privacy settings. Bowes then published the list online. This list, which has been shared as a downloadable file, contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user's profile, their name and unique ID. Bowes said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook claimed it was already public information.
Environment
In 2010, Prineville, OregonPrineville, Oregon
Prineville is a city in and the county seat of Crook County, Oregon, United States. It was named for the first merchant located in the present location, Barney Prine. The population was 9,253 at the 2010 census.- History :...
was chosen as the site for a new Facebook data center. However the center has been met with criticism from environmental groups such as Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
because the power utility company contracted for the center, PacifiCorp
PacifiCorp
PacifiCorp is an electric power company in the northwestern United States.PacifiCorp has three primary subsidiaries:# Pacific Power is a regulated electric utility with service territory throughout Oregon, northern California, and southeastern Washington.# Rocky Mountain Power is a regulated...
, generates 60% of its electricity from coal. In September 2010, Facebook received a letter from Greenpeace containing half a million signatures asking the company to cut its ties to coal based electricity.