Facebook Management Has Lost Its Grip on Reality
Facebook made one of the most important announcements in the young company's history today. It has proposed a set of foundational documents, including the first official statement of Facebook Principles. The proposal is made to Facebook's users, who will now have 30 days to read, comment and perhaps vote on the documents.
Looking just below the surface of this big news, though, there are a number of things going on that make absolutely no sense to us. Facebook's management appears to have lost its grip on reality. The population of Facebook dwarfs that of scores of countries in the physical world; these foundational documents are of immense importance and raise big red flags.
We were on a short call today with Mark Zuckerberg, Elliot Schrage and others to discuss the announcement. Schrage's name is at the top of the new Facebook Principles document but we had to search for him on LinkedIn to find that his title is VP of Communications and Public Policy at Facebook. We have requested permission to view his Facebook profile. That's how Facebook works. Having to do that made us pretty uncomfortable given Schrage's role in this declaration of transparency.
We're excited about the prospect of increased openness and transparency at Facebook. Facebook is immensely important as a sociological phenomenon. We have a lot of questions about the document. Unfortunately today's press call ended after only 5 questions were asked. Imagine a government body presenting its founding documents at a press conference and taking only 5 questions!
Here are the big problems we've seen so far with how things are going down. The contradiction between goals to change the world and promises to obey local laws is the most important.
Facebook is Delusional About its Relationship With Users
Today's announcement came in large part from the controversy earlier this month about the Facebook Terms of Service. The company cut its TOS from 15 pages to 5 pages, it said today, and it made some mistakes when it did so. Users alleged that Facebook's new Terms claimed ownership over their photos, videos and other content posted to the site. Facebook quickly backtracked and said again today that users, not Facebook, own the content on the site. (Though we can't export it elsewhere yet.)
What's delusional about the company's position? Multiple company officials on the call today said that the controversy showed how much of a sense of ownership users have over Facebook and that they wanted a sense of participation in its governing. (You complain about us because you love us!) We'd argue that it is pretty clear people have a sense of ownership instead over their content and want Facebook to keep its hands off. Ownership of content, not the lack of input on policy, was what people were upset about.
Facebook appears to forget that it's just one of many ways people use the internet. It's wildly popular today, but just as people have used other social networks in the past - they have other options for social networks to use in the future. It reminded us of the obnoxious post Zuckerberg put up announcing the Facebook Connect service, instructing users who visited other sites without Facebook Connect to contact those sites and "tell them you want to Connect." We grumbled under our breath at the time that connecting is a fundamental part of the human experience and not a Facebook specific word. The smarminess was nauseating.
Let's keep everyone's place in this situation straight - Facebook is fortunate enough to have won millions of users, but it's for the connection with each other and self expression that they come and stay - not because of any loyalty to Facebook.
Did You Say Data Portability??
Part of the new Facebook Principles document reads as follows:
They should have the freedom to share it with anyone they want and take it with them anywhere they want, including removing it from the Facebook Service. People should have the freedom to decide with whom they will share their information, and to set privacy controls to protect those choices. Those controls, however, are not capable of limiting how those who have received information may use it, particularly outside the Facebook Service.
That flies in the face of years of stonewalling on the part of Facebook around the issue of Data Portability, the ability by users to move their content in and out of Facebook (not delete it from Facebook, export it someplace else). Facebook has made a lot of good points about overlapping privacy concerns, something we've hoped they would come up with innovative solutions for. Now they say we have a fundamental right to move our data around? Surely they don't mean that, not like many users mean it.
As Mark Jaquith said this afternoon on Twitter, "wake me up when FB TOS doesn't forbid exporting your profile. Until then, I don't control my data in any real sense."
Voting May Not Be a Good Idea
Facebook said today that policy changes in the future will be voted on if they stir up enough comments to warrant it. There is no clear public standard for what will be voted on, no details about how the voting will work, etc. Perhaps more important, voting about changes to Facebook may not always be a good idea.
Facebook is a trailblazer, the company is changing the world with technologies like the newsfeed, Facebook Connect, Beacon, etc. Many of those changes were wildly unpopular when they were first made. Product changes will not be put up for a vote, but surely the most dramatic product changes have policy implications. The creation of the Facebook Newsfeed saw huge, vocal protests for weeks. If any part of that change had been put up for a vote it would never have passed. And that would have been a terrible loss because the Newsfeed is very important. Sometimes the technologists at Facebook know what's best; crying Uncle and putting important decisions up for a vote could in some cases be a very bad idea.
You Can't Always Play Nice and Change the World Too
This final issue is the most important one. One of the questions asked during the press phone call today concerned privacy laws. How would Facebook deal with different privacy laws in different locations? The company said they would follow whatever laws were in place where a user lived. On the face of it that might not sound so bad, but in practice a promise to always follow the law is in direct contradiction with the company's goals of changing the world.
The proposed Facebook Principles document begins with these words:
We are building Facebook to make the world more open and transparent, which we believe will create greater understanding and connection. Facebook promotes openness and transparency by giving individuals greater power to share and connect, and certain principles guide Facebook in pursuing these goals. Achieving these principles should be constrained only by limitations of law, technology, and evolving social norms.
Excuse me? How can a commitment to change the world towards openness thus mean anything when openness is against the law in many places around the world? When social norms often favor authoritarian control? As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said "Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
Presumably if King had lived at the time of Facebook and his local laws required the company to hand over the Friends Lists of black subversives, Facebook would comply.
We're committed to change towards openness but we'll follow local laws. As The Committee to Protect Bloggers said today, "That's what Google, Yahoo, Cisco & every other company that has helped imprisoned bloggers has said."
Facebook's grand gestures towards voting, participation, transparency and the like are empty words for millions of people who know that when push comes to shove the company has promised it will co-operate with authoritarian governments in controlling the citizens of countries like China, Iran and elsewhere.
IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo.
Nice Try, Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg is a young man at the helm of a huge company, touching hundreds of millions of lives all over the world, at a time of dramatic social upheaval caused in large part by the kind of technology he is helping create. That's no small job. We hope he can pull it off.
See also: Our Open Thread discussion about today's Facebook news.
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I will reference this post in future when I try to convey the Madness of King Zuck to other people. I don't know anything about the internal power within the company, but I remain convinced that if Zuck is truly at the helm he really ought to consider relinquishing some control to a more experienced CEO - if only for his own sanity.
I agree with jof on this one. Mark you're great, but things shouldn't have to be this hard
http://tr.im/gOUl
I truly don't understand the continued mis-steps by Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.
some of the things you point out in your analysis seem really fundamentally obvious..."Ownership of content, not the lack of input on policy, was what people were upset about."
...that it makes me wonder what the internal procedures are for this sort of high-level decision making...and the roll-out of those decisions. Isn't Marc Andreessen, one the smartest guys in the universe, on the board? I know boards aren't involved, usually, in day-to-day stuff...but Facebook still seems to react to things (and roll-out things) like they are some little start-up.
Maybe Zuckerberg just isn't a strong enough character to lead Facebook. He's done awesomely well to get this far, but given the global influence Fb wields maybe it's time for a more seasoned CEO to step in to bring the professionalism and for Zuckerberg to move into a purelyt evangelising and visionary role...
Best attention-grabbing headline I've read in a long, long time. :)
FaceBook isn’t the first community to have this issue, in fact it seems like almost all of the “big names” in the community space go through a similar evolution starting with overcoming a major competitor through innovation and responsiveness and leading to an eventual decline in innovation as the machine gets bigger and the “we are unstoppable mantra” sets in.
Don’t get me wrong here – I’m an avid FaceBook user and truly believe that they’ve got a solid enough product that unseating it would be a very challenging and slow process. However just a few years back people were staying the same things about MySpace (not the interface/ tools so much but the user population for sure) and before that it was being said about niche communities, free hosts, image sharing sites and all sorts of other communities. But the truth is the user evolves and while coming up with principals is a wonderful idea it’s not something 90 plus percent of the user base will ever care about.
From where I sit FaceBook would do well to look at its evolved demographics and start to make some of the changes necessary to address a population that has (a) aged since first becoming users and (b) grown to include a much older and more diverse base. Having a one size-fits all profile no longer fits the bill and has lead to numerous other sites finding success in networking… success that FaceBook would have had with a more robust (and simple to use) permissions system.
Trying to get everyone in the community’s input is a wonderful way of encouraging collaboration but it misses the grander point – much like voter turnout in most democracies, user participation in these issues is limited and represents only certain segments of the community who are either passionate about input or frustrated enough to take the time and do things. For most users discussion about how to change, what features to add or how make FaceBook usable by everyone in the world (seriously, I think a large segment of the world has far bigger concerns than getting on FaceBook) isn’t important.
But rather having good innovation, good ways to broaden their experiences and provide more value is what counts. Whether that means access to topical discussions with people out of their network, easier content sharing or whatever else can be dreamed up its features that got FaceBook where it is and that will keep it dominant in the future. The vision part really is nice but every time a general user heres about an issue with the site they move a step closer to trying whatever comes next and only action will stop that.
Now back to checking status updates….
"I truly don't understand the continued mis-steps by Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. "
I do. he's young. He's gone from a first try to an amazing success with no intervening experience. While some of this is unique to FB, many of the privacy issues are not new - witness the initial concern over cookie tracking in the late 90s. Anyone who's been around for awhile looks at some of these issues and recalls other, similar discussions that could guide FB's decisions.
At the same time, the extreme sharing does complicate matters. If I write on Marshall's wall is it MY data? Or his? What about a photo I post there? What if that photo gets comments?
How many of the people so outraged about control of their digital artifacts type out their comments listening to pirate music... ? :) While there ARE precendents for some of this, some of it is also new. Even FB's missteps will teach us things.
Great post. The core issue would seem that Facebook just doesn't know how to play nice with others, whether that's its own users or the media. A failure to properly identify key people to bloggers being courted and the fundamental misunderstanding of why we all were pissed about the TOS change are both telling examples of the problem here.
I'll stand by my comment on Twitter a couple weeks ago: "Dear Zuckerberg: please get off the internets until you understand the workings of the tubes."
I find it slightly humorous that you have Facebook connect incorporated in your post trashing some aspects of Facebook.
Maybe I'm a cynic, but I found the statement from Zuckerberg lacked substance as illustrated here: http://bit.ly/1auitD
I was looking for your post before I wrote my angle on it. While you were more eloquent being the pro you are, at least we both are thinking - Facebook has lost their grip of reality. The whole tribal council/fantasy island/american idol vote and we'll all sit around and pass the peace pipe thing doesn't sit well.
And from the live blog that I read and linked too (Kara Swisher), she was bored to tears and would have rather been doing something else. Didn't realize that it was a very un-democratic 5 questions, and we are gone! See ya! That's our democratic way of being cool to our users.
Very eye opening, and I wonder if they will change it again due to un-popular demand. It's almost like they have no backbone and if there is another poll that says "56% of fb users hate the new new new statement of responsibility - they'll wimp out and yet again change it to please everyone.
Pleasing everyone is not something Facebook should ever strive for if it is to become a world leader in the social networking worl
Great article, Marshall!
The big message that all Facebook users should take away from all of this is that they can make a difference. Facebook made an announcement, lots of folks registered their opinions loudly, and Facebook’s position moved. Where it moved to, I think the jury is still out on that one – and it’s still moving.
Regarding Data Portability, remember it wasn’t so long ago that it was inconceivable that Facebook would make as much progress as they have, and, as trail blazers, they’re still trying to figure it out. And, that’s were all of us, the users, still get to make a difference. Now is the time for advocacy, for everyone to speak their minds about the issues and register their two cents.
Steve Repetti
www.DataPortability.org
www.radwebtech.com
"We're committed to change towards openness but we'll follow local laws."
Methinks that says it all.
Data points, Barbara
I wonder if even Facebook misunderstands the whole ToS issue... Many of us had been protesting Facebook's old Terms because they claimed a license to use any user-posted content however they chose, but that license expired (for lack of a better term) when a user removed the content. The revised Terms changed this to give Facebook a license to use posted content FOREVER, even after a user removed it. When the uproar began, it was the first time most people even realized that Facebook claimed any right to their content. For most of us (the original protestors) it's an IP and copyright issue, not a privacy issue.
You make a lot of good points in your post about allowing users to vote, but I have to say that as a photographer (who does not and will not post photos to her FaceBook profile unless and until the Terms become appropriate) I appreciate the opportunity to finally provide some input to FaceBook. Whether or not they will listen or care is another story.
Well seeing as Facebook has more people than a lot of small countries maybe this is the beginning of the virtual election process. It is "country" that is boarderless with the social clout to make actual change in the world. If a mob of angry Tropicana drinkers can get Pepsi to toss out 35 million worth of re-branding in less than a week of lobbying. Think what this vitual country could do.
So he is a king for now and this is a first attempt at a constitution. It will only be a curtain amount of time before they storm the Bastille.
http:www.powershiftermedia.com/blog
Sorry to pick spelling nits:
=~s/Faceook/Facebook/
While I am a cynic and don't readily believe that community commentary and voting will make much of a difference, I at least have to applaud opening the door to such participatory development of these documents. To say that FB has lost it in this move is to underestimate the participatory nature of these networks and the desire that at least some users (enough to catch the ear of the board) to have their voices heard. Why not just declare that the believe in a representational democracy is foolish because government doesn't really listen to us? Sometimes, all it takes is an impetus for change.
"As Mark Jaquith said this afternoon on Twitter, "wake me up when FB TOS doesn't forbid exporting your profile. Until then, I don't control my data in any real sense.""
Bitch there is no standard to do so. You are getting a free service to store your data use it or Go to View Source and click File Save As.. on your FB profile. Then hire an ETL expert to convert that HTML data into x-social network input form and let it enter automatically for you. Happy?
Is Faceook is immensely important as a sociological phenomenon, or Facebook? ;)
sounds like an echo chamber in here ;) gotta take a contrarian view :)
four points...
1) operating a service online shouldn't mean that local laws no longer apply. diff companies handle this in diff ways. goog chose to reduce their index of content in china, yhoo chose to turn-in a dissident. the latter was clearly a poorer solution to meeting local laws, but in both cases it's the price of being a global player. the choice would be to not operate in those countries whose laws they want to pass judgment against. seems antithetical to how businesses grow, at least when growth exceeds a local community.
2) running an online social network service is not trivial. content use laws in the u.s. require that service providers secure those rights fm content owners in order to offer their service. many ways to get the necessary rights. note that yhoo & myspace had similar rights (haven't checked them as of late, but they used to ask for right to do anything w/users' content) to fb's recent change. it also makes it easier to innovate new features and capabilities. w/limited rights as soon as you want to enable a new capability, you gotta reach out to lots of people (& incur major costs) before being able to to deploy. hence why it's easier to secure more rights. piecemeal deployment is significantly more costly that deployment across the full service. this needs to be taken into consideration when dealing w/these issues.
3) users have a choice to use a service or not. if it's useful then they can decide if it's worth the cost of giving up certain rights, if it's not then don't. someone else will come up w/a service that gives users all the rights they want and they can use that one. so why all da bitchin'?
4) as for data portability, why shouldn't facebook do this in a measured way (ie. slow walk the process until they figure out how benefit adequately fm it) that doesn't adversely affect their biz? afterall, they're providing a useful and valuable service to lots of folks today for FREE (to users), and if people want to keep using fb's resources for some stuff and not other then this comes at great cost to fb. not sure why anyone s/b surprised or upset that fb is moving more deliberately than not.
anyway, it's not as simple as "fb wants to rip our stuff off" argument that has been framed by users unfamiliar w/the legality around this nor apparently the necessary biz issues for this to work for everyone.
ah, was that contrarian enough? :)
Was it really necessary to start off by insulting me?
There are standards to do so (e.g. OpenID Attribute Exchange), but even if it was just a big proprietary XML dump -- it'd be something. Facebook Connect gives developers access to a bunch of data, but the TOS forbids them from storing it except for temporary caching purposes! It's not a technical hurdle, it is a policy/TOS hurdle.
Why not do it in a measured approach? Because their TOS says that users own their data, but that ownership is useless unless they actually have the ability to transfer their data. Data portability is Facebook's end game. A measured approach doesn't change that end game -- it will just alienate people who already feel that their relationship with Facebook is lopsided.
Despite all these issues, i still believe Facebook will prevail in the end. Nobody will stop using Facebook. That's for sure..
There is no doubt that FB is an important social phenomenom and platform (not yet a real business), run by inexperienced kids who should know better and get some adult advice and supervision.
However, comparing FB's set of principles and their importance to those of a small country is ludicrous.
People joining FB should know thry are agreeing to put their personal details in the hands of a start up run by 20-something guys, with all the risks associated with that. What is the fuss about?
This is an amazing post. Thank you.
ah facebook.. the ultimate dot com bubble, post dot com bubble. same story, just consolidated into one entity. it must be nice to run a company and collect a handsome salary on pure speculation with no real monetization that can cover the expenses. but hey, i'm not giving them money so it doesn't hurt me or the millions of users that don't pay a red cent to use it. when the time comes that they have to 'charge' for usage things will change. remember the dot com bubble?
No doubt FB is fun to use but I doubt that they can monetize this technology, maybe they can... prove me wrong.
yeah the title of this article is perfect, it has even lost trust among many celebrity users of facebook
Thanks for this post, Marshall. To date, I've tolerated Facebook (though I participate only very minimally) because that's where so many of my friends are.
I'm beginning to realize that I (we all) have a responsibility to lead them somewhere else.
that it makes me wonder what the internal procedures are for this sort of high-level decision making...and the roll-out of those decisions. Isn't Marc Andreessen, one the smartest guys in the universe, on the board? I know boards aren't involved, usually, in day-to-day stuff...but Facebook still seems to react to things (and roll-out things) like they are some little start-up.
"To everything there is a season, under heaven."
I suspect what we've seen here involves a shark and some jumping. The power of the Internets involves lots of hungry, competing little startups and services that do what I want (or things I don't know that I want yet) to try to win my eyes. And my content.
If one of them becomes an ugly 600 pound gorilla, I'm probably not gonna like the little fella any more.
D
Facebook, as a company, can do whatever it wants (within legal reason). We're free to speculate about their motives, or their potential successes or failures, but the ultimate responsibility for whether or not the service survives long enough to become profitable and sustainable beyond the "Web 2.0" era is entirely theirs.
I think it's interesting that they're trying to learn from their mistakes as they go, though whether they (or we) truly understand what those mistakes *are* (and why they're considered mistakes) remains to be seen. But maybe the best sign that this era of user-connected technology is reaching "maturity" is that -- like politics, celebrities and other big businesses -- we love Facebook when it does what we want it to do and hate it when it doesn't.
You people take Facebook much too seriously. I remember in the good old days when AOL was a place that had content and groups and all the same issues were debated that are now being rehashed with Facebook. Except that Facebook is smarter, or lazier, or more Wiki-like, in that they don't create any content, but just provide a shell and let the users create the content. And if you don't like the rules, then don't play there. No one is going to miss out on anything important by not using Facebook. Sure it's nice to connect with people, but there are a million ways to connect, including using email, chat, a telephone, or god forbid in person. So while it's interesting to debate the skills of Facebook's management - it's not going to save the economy, or end hunger or anything really useful. Then again, maybe someone could create groups to do just those things, but nah, I'm sure they wouldn't get anything real done, because to do that you'd have to get your hands dirty. So I'd suggest, a day without Facebook and you can all go join Jimmy Carter and build some houses or do some real work or anything really productive.
I think it's interesting that they're trying to learn from their mistakes as they go, though whether they (or we) truly understand what those mistakes *are* (and why they're considered mistakes) remains to be seen. But maybe the best sign that this era of user-connected technology is reaching "maturity" is that -- like politics, celebrities and other big businesses -- we love Facebook when it does what we want it to do and hate it when it doesn't.
It sucks when some big companies try to change their policies and sort of experiment on that people that love them. Eventually, these people will get tired of what they're doing especially if its something uncomfortable.
these people will get tired of what they're doing especially if its something uncomfortable.
Face Book management
Dear Sir/Ms:
To inform you from yesterday i have problem to login to my page in face book.i wanted to knows whats the reason and if its possible solve it for me as soon as possible.i didnt do any mistake and i had respect about the terms of use in your website.
Thanks and Regards
peiman bagherzadeh
My account was disabled my by an administrator and they refuse to tell me why?
My account was disabled my by an administrator and they refuse to tell me why?
My account was disabled my by an administrator and they refuse to tell me why?
I'm sure they wouldn't get anything real done, because to do that you'd have to get your hands dirty. So I'd suggest, a day without Facebook and you can all go join Jimmy Carter and build some houses or do some real work or anything really productive.
these people will get tired of what they're doing especially if its something uncomfortable.
well the openness and transparency of facebook.
facebook has done a grea job.
Great job with the posting.
We love facebook and what it does for our business.
Is it the truth? I don't get to realize about it.
I don't think so/ I think facebook is a great success and will be.
I think facebook has achieved a great success.
Are you guys kidding? I donot believe it.
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