Around the Net
Press Piles On Facebook
- Business Insider et al., Friday, May 14, 2010 2:16 PM
But, has the social net really lost its footing, or have its myriad critics, analysts,
and casual watchers just lost their minds?
Noting that "Folks like Leo Laporte deleted their (Facebook) accounts," "Jeff Jarvis is taunting (Zuckerberg) on Twitter," "and The Huffington
Post actually compared Facebook's privacy issues to the BP oil spill," blogger Robert Scoble himself acknowledges a "common feeling that we can't trust Facebook anymore."
As a
result, "Many once-loyal Facebook users have declared that they are looking
for ways to exit the site," writes DailyFinance.
Furthermore, Facebook's "fall from grace has made backers of the 'social media' bubble quite nervous," according to The Register.
Still, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington says, "The press has gone wild," and that
enough is enough. "It's completely out of hand, and it's just another example
of an online mob getting out of control."
Remarking that "Zuckerberg is aware that the knives are being sharpened for him," Fast Company writes:
"There is a right old kerfuffle going on right now about Facebook's privacy issue - -or seeming lack of it ... Bloggers the Web over are giving their reasons why the blue peril should be avoided at
any cost ... some serious, some tongue-in-cheek."
Serious or not, Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan believes that, based on the latest growth figures provided by Facebook, "a significant number of people are canceling their Facebook accounts because of privacy concerns." Indeed, he
suggests that active use growth has dropped by as much as 25-50%!
In response, Zuckerberg and other Facebook execs held a company-wide meeting late Thursday ostensibly to discuss the
issue of privacy, along with consumer and industry backlash.
Yet, according to The Los Angeles Times, "Facebook downplayed the all-hands meeting, saying it would not be making any changes to new features
announced three weeks ago that some say invade their privacy."
Despite its persistence, however, Facebook has been forced to abandon major projects in the past. In 2007, for one, the
company was compelled to kill Beacon -- a highly-controversial feature that published users' Web surfing activity in their Facebook news feeds.
