Criticism of Facebook

Facebook's growth as an Internet social networking 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 topics such as pro-anorexia and religious blasphemy. 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.

Privacy concerns

Privacy policy

Facebook's privacy policy has grown significantly over time - as of May 2010, it is 5,830 words long. It was adopted based on a ballot of the site's users, and that debate was identified as demonstrating "the increasing tensions between information policy decided and enforced from the centre, and the local, social reality of that policy application."

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 PHP 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:

A small fraction of the code that displays Facebook web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. Because the code that was released powers only Facebook user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of Facebook. The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further.

In November 2007, 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 Dec. 1, 2007 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 Nov. 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 Nov. 30, 2007, the CA security blog posted a Facebook clarification statement addressing the use of data collected in the Beacon program:

When a Facebook user takes a Beacon-enabled action on a participating site, information is sent to Facebook in order for Facebook to operate Beacon technologically. If a Facebook user clicks ‘No, thanks’ on the partner site notification, Facebook does not use the data and deletes it from its servers. Separately, before Facebook can determine whether the user is logged in, some data may be transferred from the participating site to Facebook. In those cases, Facebook does not associate the information with any individual user account, and deletes the data as well.

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 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.

Complaint from CIPPIC

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (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. Specifically, 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 mining. 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 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) 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 warranted criticism from some users reserved 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 order to provide you with useful social experiences off of Facebook, we occasionally need to provide General Information about you to pre-approved third party websites and applications that use Platform at the time you visit them (if you are still logged in to Facebook). Similarly, when one of your friends visits a pre-approved website or application, it will receive General Information about you so you and your friend can be connected on that website as well (if you also have an account with that website). In these cases we require these websites and applications to go through an approval process, and to enter into separate agreements designed to protect your privacy…You can disable instant personalization on all pre-approved websites and applications using your Applications and Websites privacy setting. You can also block a particular pre-approved website or application by clicking "No Thanks" in the blue bar when you visit that application or website. In addition, if you log out of Facebook before visiting a pre-approved application or website, it will not be able to access your information.

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 controversy surrounding the sale of fans and friends, but it received a cease-and-desist letter from Facebook.

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 Columbia 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.”

Additional usage of Facebook as a tool of remembrance is expressed in group memberships on the site. Now that groups are community-wide and available among all networks, many users create Facebook groups not only to remember a deceased friend or individual but also as a source of support in response to an occurrence such as the September 11, 2001 attacks or the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007.

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.

Customization and security

Facebook is often compared to MySpace 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.

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, even if it does so for unconfirmed reasons - or just an suspicion that something may be awry, it becomes essentially impossible to reinstate that account. Partly due to lack of personal support (all support is automated), but also because Facebook will send the account holder in a closed loop which offers no real solutions. The miffed account holder may be given several supposed options for reinstating his/her account, but it all results in no progress - as once the account has been disabled, it's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to get it reinstated. Because of Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities is also often misleading, as it states that joining a school network is not a requirement, yet users are often disabled without warning 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 been instances of user accounts being memorialized even though the person listed on the profile was not deceased.

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 Pingdom 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. In October 2009, an unspecified number of Facebook users were unable to access their accounts for over three weeks. On Thursday 23 September 2010, Nobody within the UK, US and Latin America could log in to Facebook with Facebook quoting a DNS Failure.

New Facebook

September 2008 upgrade

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 were 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,

Stories 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.

This redesign was explained as:

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.

Immediately, the redesign was met 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 also mentioned on an episode of Hungry Beast that aired that month.

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 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.

May 2010

In May 2010 Facebook quietly implemented several changes, including a feature available before December 2009 to allow users to limit the visibility of friends lists. The changes included an option not available before to make the friends list visible to the user only ("Only me" as a "Custom" setting, although before December 2009 it had been possible to achieve the same aim by customising the settings to exclude all individual friends from seeing the list). In practice, the functionality restored, combined with the "lists" feature, can force friends to view only the "mutual friends" of the list in which a particular friend is included. As of May 5, 2010 the Privacy Policy still indicated that the last revision was implemented on April 22, 2010.

In late May 2010, the Norwegian Consumer Council filed a complaint to the Data Inspectorate on Facebook and Zynga's breaches of the Data Protection Act. The Consumer Council is previously known for initiating the case against Apple's iTunes which eventually led to the dismantling of Apple's DRM practices.

Censorship controversies

Search function

Facebook's search function has been accused of preventing users from searching for certain terms. Michael Arrington 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.

Disabling of sexual orientation search

As of 2009, it is no longer possible to search a network based on sexual orientation.

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 September 6, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an editorial article entitled, "Obama speaks to children; right wing shows its crazy side". By September 7, attempts to link the article to Facebook were met with a block indicating that the article was reported by users as abusive.

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 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.

Inappropriate content controversies

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 using user accounts has the potential for users to create false accounts.

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 disorder 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.

Advertiser concerns

On August 3, 2007, British companies including First Direct, 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. The AA also pulled its advertising from YouTube when a BBC documentary showed that videos of school children fighting were available on that site.

Holocaust denial

In 2009, Facebook received criticism for including Holocaust denial 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."

Cyberbullying, stalking and murder

Many critics, including Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, have criticized Facebook as a possible tool for cyberbullying, with the possibilities of anonymous profiles and the creation of groups allowing bullies to target individuals online. In 2009, an Oceanside teenager sued Facebook, as well as four of her former classmates for $3 million after the individuals created a password-protected Facebook group that was allegedly "calculated to hold the plaintiff up to public hatred, ridicule and disgrace". A Facebook spokesperson stated "we see no merit to this suit and we will fight it vigorously." On August 21, 2009, Keeley Houghton, 18, of Malvern, Worcestershire, was sentenced to three months in a young offenders' institution after being found guilty of bullying one of her classmates on Facebook, making her the first person in Britain to be jailed for bullying on a social networking site.

Facebook's privacy settings, combined with the sheer volume of personal information individuals put on their profiles, have also led to claims that Facebook could encourage cyberstalking.

One particular aspect of cyberstalking that is of concern to insurance companies is the use of Facebook as a research tool for burglars. A report published in 2009 by Legal & General called "The Digital Criminal" revealed that 38% of social network users post status updates with details of their holiday plans, which can be an "open invitation to burglars" as many users also posted their home address on their profile. In August 2009, a burglar in Hove accessed his victim's Facebook profile to taunt her over the theft of her laptop by posting comments on her profile. A spokesperson for Sussex Police said: "Being burgled is traumatic enough for any family but for the culprit to apparently use their stolen possessions to publicly gloat over the crime is a sinister twist."

In November 2009, Facebook was accused of promoting Gingerism after a 'Kick a Ginger' group, which was inspired by the South Park episode Ginger Kids and aimed to establish a "National Kick a Ginger Day" on November 20, received almost 5,000 members. A 14-year-old boy from Courtenay, British Columbia who ran the Facebook group was subjected to an investigation from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for possible hate crimes.

There have been a number of cases where a person has been murdered by someone they have met on Facebook.

Pro-mafia groups' case

In Italy, the discovery of pro-mafia 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.

Trolling

On March 31, 2010, the Today Show ran a segment detailing the deaths of three separate adolescent girls and trolls’ 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 expose 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 emailed her grieving family the leaked pictures of her mutilated corpse.

Religious Discrimination

In 2010, Facebook reportedly allowed an objectionable page, deemed by some to be anti-Muslim. The Islamic Lawyers Forum 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.

Third-party responses to Facebook

Government censorship

Because of the open nature of Facebook, several countries have banned access to it including Syria, China, Iran, and Vietnam.

Africa and Middle East

The Syrian government explained their ban by claiming the website promoted attacks on authorities. The government also feared Israeli infiltration of Syrian social networks on Facebook. Facebook was also used by Syrian citizens to criticize the government, and public criticism of the Syrian government is punishable by imprisonment.

On February 5, 2008, Fouad Mourtada, a citizen of Morocco, was arrested for the alleged creation of a faked Facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco.

During the 2009 election in Iran, the website was banned because of fears that opposition movements were being organized on the website.

Mauritius

The Prime Minister of Mauritius, Dr Navin Ramgoolam ordered Internet Service Providers(ISPs) of the country to ban Facebook on immediate effect, on the 8th November 2007. The Prime Minister did not approve that someone impersonated him on Facebook. Access to Facebook was restored on the next day.

Related links

• http://www.mauritiustoday.com/news/articles/16054/1/Mauritius-blocks-facebook/Page1.html
• http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2007/11/08/facebook-a-mauritian-tragedy/
• http://priscimon.com/blog/2007/11/08/facebook-blocked-by-isps-in-mauritius/
• http://pascalg.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/facebook-outage-in-mauritius-its-been-censored/
• http://www.yashvinblogs.com/

Far East

In Mainland China, Facebook was blocked following the July 2009 Ürümqi riots. Huanqi.com had asserted that "Xinjiang Independence" activists were using Facebook as part of their communications network. Some Chinese users also believed that Facebook will not succeed in China, after Google's departure. A transliterated namesake of Facebook (非死不可 fēisǐbùkě, literally "will definitely die") is popular among Chinese media.

In Vietnam, an unauthenticated document supposedly issued by the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security dating August 27, 2009 instructing ISPs to block Facebook sparked shutdown fears. Access to Facebook became intermittent in mid-November and major ISPs were swamped by complaints. Some technicians confirmed being ordered by the government to block access to Facebook while government officials denied it.

Organizations blocking access

Ontario 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.

Schools blocking access

The University of New Mexico (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.

Since it violates many school boards' terms of use for the internet along with local and state laws, many school boards in North America, Europe, India and Oceania that run elementary through high schools have blocked access to Facebook. The Calgary Board of Education, and the Greater Essex County District School Board, school districts in Calgary, Alberta, and Essex County, Ontario Canada, block Facebook use through internet filters in some schools.

In India, the wide popularity of facebook has led to it being banned in most universities, as students would waste a large amount of time on it.

In Australia, a primary school banned students from using Facebook, even outside of school, because of students breaching the under-13 rule. The school has been swamped with complaints.

Closed social networks

Several web sites concerned with social networking have criticized the lack of information that users get when they share data.

Advanced users can 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. Furthermore, 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 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. 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.

Student-related issues

Student privacy concerns

Students who post illegal or otherwise inappropriate material have faced disciplinary action from their universities, including expulsion. While others posting libelous content relating to faculty have also faced disciplinary action.

Integration of high school users

Following the February 27, 2006, integration of the high school and college levels, some college users began creating groups critical of the decision. Users from the two branches could fully interact only if they were friends and some separation did remain. The site also released the Limited Profile privacy settings and advised students on how to hide pictures and other features from others. However, some college users felt that the site's former exclusivity had been key to their experience. Some expressed concerns about the ability of unknown persons to create accounts on the high school version (since university addresses are not required) and use them to access the college version; by default, strangers can message and view users' friends through a simple global search. Some made predictions that the site would soon face issues with spammers, stalkers, or worse, and worried this would result in controversies similar to the bad publicity seen by MySpace.

Adding to the controversy around opening Facebook to younger students, four high school students at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario were arrested in a Facebook-related protest on March 23, 2007. Earlier that week, five students had been suspended for posting criticisms about a vice-principal of their school. About a dozen friends of the suspendees had decided to protest in front of the school, but that handful soon grew to over 100 students protesting for free speech. Local law enforcement authorities were called, and a scuffle ensued, resulting in the arrest of four students. Users under eighteen years old have been banned from Facebook for not being in a high school group. This discourages homeschoolers from using Facebook. Facebook does not actively enforce the age limit, resulting in children under the age of 13 using it. This has raised concerns in regard to the safety of children.

Effect on higher education

On January 23, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education continued an ongoing national debate on social networks with an opinion piece 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".

The most recent research on Facebook in higher education shows that there are educational benefits to 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 a case study, students surveyed had on average lower grades if they used Facebook than students who did not use Facebook.

Lawsuits

ConnectU.com lawsuit

Main article: ConnectU

Divya Narendra, 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 in 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.

Aaron Greenspan and houseSYSTEM

As the President of the Harvard College 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's 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. Consequently, Greenspan's company filed a Petition to Cancel the "Facebook" trademark, which included claims of prior use, genericness, 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 co-operate 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.

Since then, Greenspan has launched FaceCash, a mobile payment system that makes use of a person's face as a security token. He was written a number of articles critical of Facebook on The Huffington Post.

Paul Ceglia

On June 30, 2010, Paul Ceglia, 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 or 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 has issued a restraining order on all financial transfers concerning ownership of Facebook until further notice; in response, Facebook management has requested for the order to be canceled and for the case to be removed to federal court. According to Facebook, the order would 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 service, 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) 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, Mark 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 back 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. Their report was endorsed by the Open Rights Group.

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 graph 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.

Better Business Bureau review

As of December 2010, the Better Business Bureau gave Facebook an "A" rating"

As of December 2010, 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 Likejacking. 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.

On July 28, 2010 a group of Turkish pranksters decided to abuse Facebook's translate application and posted a plan on how to do it online. Their actions changed the translation of such messages as “Your message could not be sent because the user is offline” to “Your message could not be sent because of your tiny penis”, however these misguided translations were reverted back and the translate application went offline for many languages, however it is unknown if this was due to the Turkish attack.

In August 2010, Facebook started blocking multiple logins within a short timeframe from a single IP address - successful or otherwise - as a security measure. Many organizations use Facebook for open communications with customers. Organizations utilizing Network Address Translation for Internet access typically get blocked by Facebook under the new rules. Shortly afterwards, some organizations started using Tor to get around this limitation as a temporary solution. This caused a similar block within the Tor network due to insufficient nodes. Some users set up HTTP proxy servers at home and routed requests from an office computer through their home computers to evade the block.

Litigation

StudiVZ

On July 18, 2008, Facebook sued StudiVZ in a California federal court, alleging that StudiVZ copied its look, feel, features, and services. StudiVZ denied the claims, and asked for declaratory judgment at the District Court in Stuttgart, Germany. On September 10, 2009, a settlement was reached, resulting in StudiVZ paying an undisclosed sum to Facebook and both companies continuing business as usual.

Grant Raphael

On July 24, 2008, the High Court in London ordered British freelance cameraman Grant Raphael to pay £22,000 (then about US$43,700) for breach of privacy and libel. Raphael had posted a fake Facebook page purporting to be that of a former schoolfriend and business colleague, Mathew Firsht, with whom Raphael 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 privacy and defamation verdict against someone over an entry on a social networking site.

Adam Guerbuez

Facebook won a lawsuit against Canadian Adam Guerbuez, of Montreal, and his business, Atlantis Blue Capital. Guerbuez had spammed the website with over four million messages containing various advertisements including penis enlargement products and marijuana. The judgment awarded Facebook US$873 million—almost $100 in damages and $100 in punitive damages for each of the 4,366,386 spam messages sent by Guerbuez. In October 2010, the Quebec courts upheld the US decision, which also forbids Guerbuez from ever using Facebook again for the rest of his life. As a result of this decision, Guerbuez had declared bankruptcy.

Coal

In 2010, Prineville, Oregon was chosen as the site for a new Facebook data center. However the center has met met with criticism from environmental groups such as Greenpeace because the power utility company contracted for the center, PacifiCorp, generates 70% 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.