Facebook = Fascism?
Posted by shaankhan at 10:08 PM on January 15, 2008.
So last night Lynn tries to log on to facebook and discovers her account has been disabled. She gets an email this morning that it has been disabled for spamming and is closed for good. I hear that she's not the only one this has happened to without warning. Having hardly ever used the site, it seems her account was shut down in error.But is it possible to find out what offending messages were sent that violated facebook's term of service? No. Apparently this is not allowed for "security" reasons. What utter bullshit. So basically Facebook, although within its legal means, operates on un-American principles, that is, a right to a fair trial and to know what evidence is being used against you. I might not care if this was a smaller site that provided fewer useful services, but it has become a very important means of communication for many people who rely on it for both personal and business use. If one slip-up can cost them their accounts, without warning, and the fact that if the error is on the part of Facebook the account still can't be reopened, all this points to some serious ethical problems as to how Facebook does business.
I understand Facebook's position. They want to minimize spamming, protect youth from pedophiles and pederasts, and they have to do that for 50 million people who use the service. That's probably not an easy thing to do and some people will slip through the cracks and others will be unjustifiably banned. The problem is, there's no system in place for correcting these errors. People who try to contact Facebook only get automated responses, and like most online businesses, don't provide a customer service hotline. The relationship between service provider and user is that of a master/slave relationship because Facebook doesn't allow any reasonable means of receiving and responding to feedback and concerns. Their great wall of security far outdoes the great firewall of China, which really says something about the nature of their business. (This is a valid comparison because their TOS is as well-defined as China's rules for censoring content--that is, not well-defined at all, which scares users into self-censorship. Far more effective and evil than laying out clearly what is and is not allowed.)
Facebook has total power to decide who can use its service, but users can't decide which service to use, because they are bound by their social circles to use the social networking sites that their friends use. I don't know if Myspace has similar problems, but I imagine Facebook is not unique in this matter, yet somehow they've managed to earn much worse PR about it.
So here's what Facebook needs to do.
1. Get real people and develop a system to respond to complaints. Outsource if you have to. You can certainly afford it at this point.
2. Give people the chance to argue their case.
3. Let them see the incriminating evidence. In my girlfriend's example, she has no idea what got her banned, and it would have helped to understand the nature of her mistake, if it was even hers, if she could see what messages crossed the TOS line.
4. WARN people, always, if you believe they're engaging in behavior that violates the TOS. There is no reason why this is not a fair thing to do, as everyone, even that evil former Soviet Bloc chump who sits in front of his computer all day spamming the world with ads for the latest penis enhancement pills, deserves a second chance. If people do violate the TOS without knowing it, and they never find out what they did wrong, how does this benefit anyone?
6. Stop acting like a fascist organization. Do you really think you're above us? You'd have nothing without your users, at least treat them as human beings rather than accounts. This superiority complex you show in how you do business is very 1980s. For an online company you are surprisingly behind the times.
7. Finally, if nothing else, explain yourselves, for heaven's sake. The wall of silence doesn't help your case at all. Not one bit. I have no particular love for my job in PR, but I have learned that it helps to be good at it. If you explain to people the problems you're dealing with more clearly and with a human doing the explaining, people will understand a bit more. We might still not like you, but our anger will be assuaged.
So, that's my rant. Until Facebook sorts itself out, this is my last login. Good luck to you.k
Currently feeling: amused
