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Facebook controversy

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Facebook is a social networking website. Partially due to the website's popularity, it has had a fair share of controversy regarding it since it was founded.

Responses

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.[1] 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.[2]

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.[3] 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 and Europe that run elementary through high schools have access to Facebook blocked. Students caught using Facebook and other sites similar to that will be required to serve various punishments, ranging from temporary or permanent exclusion of computer privileges on campus to expulsion. Evading blocks using proxy servers in schools may also result in suspension or expulsion.

Organizations blocking access

Ontario government employees, MPPs, and cabinet ministers were blocked from access to Facebook on government computers in May 2007.[4] 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.[5] However, innovative employees have found ways around such protocols, and many claim to use the site for political or work-related purposes.[6]

The New South Wales Department of Education and Training has also blocked all users (students and staff) from accessing Facebook, as have many other government departments in Australia. The City of New York Department of Health and Hospitals blocks Facebook from use at work.

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.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] 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,[17] 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".[18]

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 to remember not only 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 identities 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 her accused killers, in defiance of Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act which prohibits publishing the names of underage criminals.[19] 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.[20]

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 only allows 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.[21] 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.[22] On March 26 2006, a user was able to embed JavaScript in the "Hometown" field of his profile which imported his custom CSS.[23] In each case, Facebook quickly patched the holes, typically within hours of their discovery. 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, which was used to import custom CSS and demonstrate how the platform could be used to violate privacy rules or create a worm.[24] This hole took Facebook two and a half weeks to fix.[25]

Censorship

In November of 2007, Facebook was blocked by the Syrian government on the premise that it promoted attacks on the authorities.[26][27] No comment was made from the government that blocked it, which has started a crackdown on online political activism in that period. Burma, Bhutan, United Arab Emirates, and Iran are among nations to have banned the website.

Lawsuit from Connectu.com

Template:Ongoing lawsuit Founder of Facebook.com, Mark Zuckerberg, has been accused of illegally using both the concept and source code from competing site Connectu.com. In November 2003, ConnectU engaged Mark Zuckerberg, then a sophomore at Harvard, to complete the computer programming for their website. Upon joining the ConnectU team, Zuckerberg was given full access to the website source code. Allegedly, Zuckerberg intentionally hampered the development of ConnectU while using code originally intended for ConnectU in the development of Facebook.

Since its original filing in Massachusetts in September 2004,[28] the lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice due to technicality on March 28 2007, but was never ruled on. It was refiled soon thereafter in U.S. District Court in Boston, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for July 25 2007.[29] Facebook asked the district court to dismiss the case. The attorneys representing Facebook referred to the allegations as "broad brush" with no evidence to support them.[30]

Aaron Greenspan and houseSYSTEM

Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg, claims that he created the original college social networking system, before either Facebook or ConnectU were founded.[31]

Privacy concerns

There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining. Theories have been written about the possible misuse of Facebook[32] and privacy proponents have criticised the site's current privacy agreement.[33] According to the policy, "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, some features—such as AIM away-message harvesting and campus newspaper monitoring—have been dropped and Facebook has since responded to the concerns. Facebook has assured worried users the next privacy policy will not include the clause about information collection and has denied any data mining is being done "for the CIA or any other group."[34] However, the possibility of data mining by private individuals unaffiliated with Facebook remains open, 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.[35]

A second clause to warrant criticism from some users reserves 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 has also been 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."[36] It is unclear if Facebook plans to remove that clause as well.

Third party applications have access to almost all user information and "Facebook does not screen or approve Platform Developers and cannot control how such Platform Developers use any personal information."[33]

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.[37][38] 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.[39] Facebook's response was quoted by the site that broke the story:[40]

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 only powers the 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 the UK, 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.[41]

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.[42]

In November 2007, Facebook launched a new part of its Ads system named Beacon that published Facebook users' activities on partner websites such as eBay, Fandango, Travelocity, and Blockbuster to their friends. Moveon.org created an online petition due to privacy concerns, and Facebook modified the service to some extent. However, privacy concerns have continued in the wake of a report by a security researcher at Computer Associates that noted that data on users' activities is often still sent to Facebook, even if a user has opted-out on the partner site and logged out of Facebook.

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.[43]

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 raises the concern that private user data will remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers.[44] This college forum took it further and promoted a video which took an in depth look at the amount of data Facebook stores on its users, and who is able to view it.

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.[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54]

Use in investigations

The information students provide on Facebook has been used in investigations by colleges, universities, and local police. Facebook's Terms of Use specify that "the website is available for your personal, noncommercial use only",[55] misleading some to believe that college administrators and police may not use the site for conducting investigations.[citation needed] Furthermore, some employers look at Facebook profiles of prospective employees or interns. Information posted on Facebook is potentially accessible to any employer with an email address and in most cases, the potential employees permission.[56]

References

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  2. ^ "Popular web site, Facebook.com, back online at UNM". University of New Mexico. 2006-01-19. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
  3. ^ Loew, Ryan (June 22 2006). "Kent banning athlete Web profiles". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 2006-10-06. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "Organizations blocking facebook". CTV news.
  5. ^ Benzie, Robert (2007-05-03). "Facebook banned for Ontario staffers". The Toronto Star. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
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  9. ^ "Team Coverage: Suspect In Tiffany Souers Murder Case Captured In Tennessee". ksdk. 2006-06-06. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
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  11. ^ Iorg, Emily (2005-12-05). "Student Colby McLain remembered". University News. Retrieved 2006-04-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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  13. ^ Negrin, Matt (2005-11-21). "University responds to SMG junior's death". Daily Free Press. Retrieved 2006-04-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  14. ^ Gardner-Quinn, Michelle (2006-10-15). "UVM Memorializes Slain Student". Burlington Free Press. Retrieved 2006-10-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ Bernhard, Stephanie (2006-01-25). "Community mourns death of Pagan '06". Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 2006-04-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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  18. ^ "USAToday article". USAToday. 2007-05-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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  28. ^ Maugeri, Alexander (2004-09-20). "TheFacebook.com faces lawsuit". Daily Princetonian. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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