I’ll go ahead and admit that I never “got” Facebook. I mean, I have an account, technically my second, but it largely languished, receiving snippets of content from my RSS and Twitter feeds. I never really cared if I was a ninja or a pirate, or for playing scrabble, or joining groups to show ironic allegiance to myriad infomercial products. But while I didn’t, numerous others did, causing the service to gain new users at upwards of a million people per week. I used to think that my issues with Facebook were my own, that was until recent events changed my mind. Beacon, deactivating instead of deleting, and now the ToS. Facebook just doesn’t seem to understand the internet.

An Honest Attempt

I first joined Facebook in 2005. I was going through my second attempt at college as an outsider in a school where everyone knew everyone else. The service, which was barely a year old, had already exploded across college campuses, with current and former students still being the only ones allowed to join and long before the dawn of the Facebook API. At the time, Facebook was simply a closed, visually generic version of MySpace. That every profile was the same seemed to force the ability to differentiate (the real use social networks isn’t to connect, but rather to stand out) not on horrendously designed profiles, but rather on the content in those profiles.

I was okay with that. I slowly started populating my Facebook profile. I searched for other friends be they online or off, and did what I could to connect with them. I uploaded a few photos of my apartment. I scribbled a few notes. And then I was done. I didn’t generate enough content to actually make going to the site worthwhile. The bulk of my good stuff ended up here, on my website. Or on Flickr. Or on another site that did the myriad little things that Facebook tried to do, but you know, did them well. So, for the first two years or so that I was on the site, my profile largely languished.

You'll use the internet his way

And then the news of Beacon hit

Despite the plethora of data that Facebook connects from users, Facebook still has no means of actually generating a profit. Yes, they do run advertisements, and yes, they can target exactly whom they show those adverts to by frighteningly precise demographics. But, this hasn’t helped them make anything close to a profit as Facebook has some of the lowest click-thru rates of any service on the internet.

In Zuckerberg’s attempt to milk his idea for a profit, he decided to team up with numerous online shops, turning purchases that users made into implied endorsements. To accomplish that, an item purchased from eBay would appear in a user’s feed with an implied endorsement.

Or Fandago. Or Travelocity. Or Blockbuster. Or numerous other services. The new advertising scheme was called “Beacon”.

The outrage was quick and deserved. Why? For a few reasons. One, Facebook didn’t notify users in a clear and timely manner that they were going to use this service. The service, which was launched in November of 2007, was suddenly broadcasting potential Christmas presents to friends and family on Facebook.

Second, Beacon was opt-out, not opt-in. This is a major no-no online, and something that the Facebook people should have perhaps realized. But, the arrogance of the service assumed that everyone would want this, in much the same manner as it assumed everyone would want to use the same generic profile.

And finally, Facebook committed the largest social faux pas of all, it lied about the service. Facebook gave misleading information about Beacon not only to partnering sites, but also news organizations.

But you can’t quit

I, like many other users, decided that this was enough. Even though Facebook backpedaled on Beacon rather quickly, they didn’t quite backpedal far enough. Yes, Facebook made Beacon opt-in, but they only made the publishing of results as optional. Whenever you made a purchase from any of their partner sites, Facebook still knew. And they likely still do. I decided to try and quit. At the time, Facebook wouldn’t actually let you quit the service. They would simply deactivate your account. Their logic was eventually, you’d want to come back, and when you did, all of your content should still be there.

From Facebook’s point of view it made sense. Why? Because their terms of service claimed full copyright over everything you submitted until you deleted your account. If you couldn’t delete your account, they were free to use all of your materials in any way they saw fit, forever. It was a win-win for Facebook.

The first blogging example of this hit the ‘sphere in July of 2007, causing a general uproar. So much of an uproar that the New York Times ran an article about it in February of 2008, right on the heels of the Beacon Fiasco. I know because I was one of the people trying to quit at the time. After the Times article, Facebook made it easier to leave.

A smarter return

Several months later, I was working on a startup idea and decided to try and use Facebook to try and give it legs. This time, however, I was determined to play things smarter. Because Facebook had engaged in dubious acts in the past, I used an email unassociated with any other online activity. I uploaded only a single photo, and didn’t give Facebook any original content. Just for fun, I would occasionally pump in gobs of bogus status updates to make myself a non-desirable marketing target. I was too vague, going in too many directions at once.

And so, my account largely languished, as I mentioned in the introduction. But, many of my friends and family and countless strangers saw the ease of centralization and filled up Facebook with blog posts, photos, and videos. At the time, they were rather safe in doing so. While your content was on Facebook, the service technically held total copyright control over them. But, you could regain control over your baby photos simply by deleting your content. A bit severe, but still a manageable out.

Fool me once

Or it was, until February 4th of this year, when Facebook plugged that out by removing a few lines from their Terms of Service statement, the binding legal contract that users agree to when they join, specifically the lines that say that deleting your work terminates their license to it. Furthermore, the termination section of that same statement now says that even if your account is removed, they still claim the same “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense)”.

Reality Check

For most people, this probably won’t be a deal breaker. For most people, allowing Facebook to use their photos in advertising is a rather fair trade off in exchange for free hosting. But for others, it’s it’s the end. For me, this is Facebook’s third strike. I’ve personally unhooked all of my info that fed into my account, removed Facebook Connect from the comments on this site, and took the Facebook app off of my phone. It’s not a breakup, it’s a starvation.

Yes, it seems that Facebook really doesn’t understand the Internet, at least not like I do. Users want empowerment, not enslavement. We want transparency, not obfuscation. After well more than a decade online, I realized it’s not me that doesn’t understand Facebook, it’s Facebook that doesn’t understand the Internet.