Why Web Professionals Should UnFriend Facebook
This article is going to run off nearly every reader’s back and they won’t get it. I know that going in. Oh they’ll accept that it’s true but behaviours won’t change because humans don’t like giving up stuff that easily. However, if you consider yourself a web professional you should be thinking on this level.
As a web professional we know better than the average person what the online experience should provide, how it should be treated by organisations (ethically, legally and in sustainable business models) and we should be able to fathom the industry expectation of best practice. Why? Because that’s the world we buy into when we shift our self-identity away from two-bit freebie person and become the web professional person.
As a web professional we are representative of the eyes, ears and overall conscience of the industry we create and maintain.
As a web professional we should be the litmus test on what is right and wrong – doing good and failing to support evil – within the web business environment.
As a web professional I am taking the liberty to presume you have already read about this subject and I’m not even going to put links to relevant resources within this article – which says as a web professional I expect a lot of you.
But you all know the score. You’ve all bought into the Facebook paradigm and are afraid to leave… hell, everybody is afraid to leave. Do you even exist if you don’t use your Facebook profile? I’m serious – you will have to forgo what would otherwise be a useful connection within industry and between acquaintances and family.
Here’s why you should leave Facebook en masse as web professionals. Because you know the company is unethical. Because you know when Zuck baby got burned with privacy issues in the past he used to cover up and say it was an accident… but now he’s emboldened because we’ve back-lashed and he’s still grown his business… and he’s in the business of selling our information as a part of his business model.
We, as web professionals, actually get the privacy issue. And yet we’re still there on Facebook. We’re condoning and supporting – and by our presence we are influencing and recommending – an evil company which is bait-and-switching the privacy issue to the general public.
So it comes down to your definition of what a web professional means… this afternoon I will be notifying everyone I know on Facebook that I will no longer be using the service and why… I’ll just have to live without it. All I can say is follow your conscience…
… and don’t complain about the industry going to crap if you’re willing to sell your soul to be a part of it.
May 7th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
And this is another almost daily example of the pitiful show we all call Facebook… Facebook’s new social features secretly installs malware.
I mean this is an article talking directly to web professionals… seriously?!
May 8th, 2010 at 1:00 am
True to your word: you’ve left Facebook! I applaud your determined principles mate (and wondering if I have the nerve to do the same).
In fairness, you haven’t been on the site all that long…where as I’ve been on there for *thinks*…well, years. I should do it (leave), but can I? Will I? I’m weighing-up all angles right now – although the ethical reason is strong!!
May 8th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Matt, its an individual and personal decision and I don’t really expect others to follow… nor should they really. I expect others to think about it though – Zeldman, Holzschlag, across the continuum to everyone like us. And I’m far from the only person saying this… only that I’m saying this in the context of web professionals only.
Here is another reason to fear Facebook – on behalf of the battered wives who are hiding, the people who slip in witness protection programs, for undercover government officials… for people with enemies who can use simple bits of information to locate who you love, are friends with and what time you (or your children) come and go. That’s a dangerous facet of other people’s private information.
Personally, I’ve got a few people – not not the junkies who might make a pestering phone call, but I mean a couple of solid enemies who have done many years for violent crimes – who could utilise the opportunity. So its definately not for me the moment they give free access to 3rd party applications without my permission… I’ve lost control of what tenuous privacy there is.
If my safety is compromised – how fares the battered wife, the stalked, or societies vulnerable?
However, the facet I chose to write about was simply the ‘condoning of bad ethics’ by apparent web professionals… because one of the problems with labeling ourselves that is to say yes we have an ethical obligation somewhere implicit in the word professional. We aren’t the police – I can’t force anyone to leave FB or even dent their armour ha ha… but I recognise that professionalism without that ethical integrity is a hollow word.
Most professions by the way have a ‘code of ethics’ that they choose to support. Where is ours?
But its a personal decision. I hope in the next 12 months or so perspectives change about this Big Brother we have… I really do. There are other social networks we can migrate to and make our own.
I am just one of a growing catalyst of people who have said no… just like to smoking… and to illicit drugs… after trying and moving on.
I mentioned to Robert that I hadn’t been on there long (although my account had been there for years and I hadn’t done anything with it). Still, I have been using it for five months or more and I’ve been prolific in its use connecting to family, real life friends and several international industry friends. So it wasn’t like two weeks or anything. By the same token, you’re right the longer you use FB the better they have you tied in – emotionally.
The world doesn’t stop with social networks…
And there are other more conscientious social networks…
So I just don’t get why an industry clamouring for ‘professional recognition’ (a) has no code of ethics, and (b) misses the point that ethics does require tough decisions.
It will never be convenient. But would you let your bank or your school or your employer share that much information about you to identity theives and villains and busy bodies?
This is why I wrote about Web Professionals should Leave Facebook. I think the individual should make the choice explicitly at every minute about what information about them is released into the public domain. Facebook only need be honest and stop pretending it provides privacy… then it would be more like Twitter or plain blogging and everybody would know where they stood.
May 8th, 2010 at 9:08 am
[...] « Why Web Professionals Should UnFriend Facebook [...]
May 10th, 2010 at 1:36 am
In a ‘Facebook Exit Strategy’ approach, I’m staggering my departure from the service (with the bulk of it happening right now). So, I have made the decision to also support the ethical reason for not using Facebook. In due course, my Facebook profile will be deactivated (or deleted if possible). Currently, my profile still exists, but it’s been stripped of almost all information about me, almost all of my activity on the site, and there are obvious suggestions to follow/connect with me elsewhere on the web or visit my web site. I haven’t ceased to exist, just stopped interacting with Facebook (and made it clear why).
I’ll be composing this in a post on my site soon too (for clarity). See you on twitter mate!
May 10th, 2010 at 9:59 am
140 or less characters of prime Saturday night party material