Facebook Principles… Is Facebook Delusional?
By Anna Johnson on March 2nd, 2009Facebook has caused another stir with the release of the Facebook Principles. While the principles seem, on the surface, to be quite reasonable and well-intended, they also raise the question: is Facebook delusional?
ReadWriteWeb thinks Facebook may be delusional because the company seems to think its users have a sense of ownership over Facebook and want greater participation in how it’s governed.
This is delusional, says ReadWriteWeb, who believes Facebook members are more concerned with Facebook’s sense of ownership over THEIR content!
Facebook has introduced its principles to ‘reflect the philosophy and values we aspire to and will guide us in reaching our goal of making the world more open and connected – which we believe will promote greater understanding and transparency around the world.’ The Principles are available for member feedback until March 29, 2009.
They also ‘form the foundation for how we define the rights and responsibilities of Facebook and its community’ which will be encapsulated in Facebook’s proposed Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which is being published for comment here.
ReadWriteWeb also points to Facebook’s almost-arrogance in stating the right of its members to, for example, do whatever they want with their own information.
I agree with ReadWriteWeb’s objection.
Call me old-fashioned but I thought someone’s content was their content and they had the right to do whatever they wanted with it… without Facebook creating a principle permitting them to do so!
The merits of the Facebook Principles aside, here’s why I think Facebook is delusional. And it has nothing to do with the principles themselves.
It has to do with Facebook’s somewhat naive view that it can publish such principles without being subject to ongoing scrutiny over whether it is abiding by those principles.
Once Facebook holds itself up to such standards as Principle 9 (‘Facebook should publicly make available information about its purpose, plans, policies, and operations’) and Principle 10 (‘The Facebook Service should transcend geographic and national boundaries and be available to everyone in the world’), you can bet others will be watching closely to see if Facebook lives up to these principles.
They may even, gasp, take legal action if Facebook breaches its own principles.
I hate to say this, because I see the goodness in what Facebook is trying to do, but I’m surprised Facebook’s lawyers let the company go down this path.
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Facebook has gone too far. What about the privacy and protection act, they should look that up some time.