Is there more behind it than you think?
By Eric Osguthorpe, Clemson University
Thursday February 23, 2006
A version of this article originally appeared in The Clemson Forum, a Campus Progress sponsored publication.
Facebook. It used to be an actual book, handed out by your college, with pictures of fellow incoming freshmen. Now, it’s the social networking site that’s sitting right behind MySpace in the internet popularity contest. And while there is a chance that you aren’t already a member, 80% of students at Facebook-recognized college campuses are.
What are you missing out on? A great procrastination tool, a good reason (i.e. your hot lab partner’s recommendation) to buy Sufjan Stevens’s latest album, and a potentially huge invasion of your privacy.
Though users understand that untold thousands are browsing through personal profiles and photos on the Facebook, many aren’t aware of its interesting suite of backers, the specifics of its privacy policy, and the risky consequences of posting your personal information on the site.
Go ahead – take a gander at it. You’ll find a few red flags:
“We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship.”
“We may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law or to protect our interests or property. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies.”
“Facebook also collects information about you from other sources, such as newspapers and instant messaging services. This information is gathered regardless of your use of the Web Site.”
So, who are some of the people behind Facebook?
VanguardPAC board member Peter Thiel provided venture capital to the Facebook to the tune of a cool $500,000. Daily Kos describes VanguardPAC as a “wingnut PAC.” (The title of a recent petition urging the confirmation of Justice Alito was titled “ Confirm Judge Alito, or Face America ’s Wrath!”) The stated mission of this highly conservative group is “to help create a farm team of activists and candidates across America ready and able to take leadership, from the lowest level to the highest, effectively implementing the ideas of liberty.”
Accel Partners, the venture capital arm of the Accel Group, invested $10 million. Members of the Accel Partners board previously have been associated with In-Q-Tel, BBN Technologies and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In-Q-Tel is a venture capital fund formed in 1999 to help the CIA identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that could serve the interests of the United States. DARPA once had a project called the Information Awareness Office whose mission was vast information gathering.
According to the November 9, 2002, New York Times, the system proposed by the DARPA project, known as Total Information Awareness (TIA) would have permitted “a team of intelligence analysts to gather and view information from databases, pursue links between individuals and groups, respond to automatic alerts, and share information efficiently, all from their individual computers.” The Information Awareness Office and the proposed TIA caught the attention of conspiracy theorists and civil liberties activists alike, not least of all for its logo – an eye-in-pyramid symbol, with the eye of Providence staring down at the Earth, and the Latin motto scientia est potential: “knowledge is power.” Before it was disbanded in 2003, TIA was amended in May of that year to become Terrorist Information Awareness. Though the Information Awareness Office is no longer in existence, the whole thing seems a precursor to endless government privacy intrusions that have come in the wake of September 11th, including the domestic wiretapping debate currently underway.
With one investor whose goal is building radical right-wing farm teams and another investor with prior connections to government agencies focused on complete information gathering, is Facebook, which contains the personal information of millions of US citizens, less innocuous than we think? Users of web communities like Facebook are responsible for knowing what they’re getting into, so now you know.
Meanwhile, given the soaring popularity of Facebook, school administrators and even secret service agents know that it can be a valuable tool for checking up on students. Take a look at a few cases nationwide.
One lucky Oklahoma student who posted an unsavory comment about President Bush received a friendly Secret Service visit. Saul Martinez, a sophomore member of a “Bush Sucks” Facebook group, responded to another student’s assertion that his pet fish would make a better President, posting a comment along the lines of “Or we could all donate a dollar and raise millions of dollars to hire an assassin to kill the president and replace him with a monkey.” Four months later, Martinez found himself being questioned by a secret service agent who thought he might be a trained assassin.
Cameron Walker, Student Government President at Fisher College, posted comments on Facebook about a campus police officer whom he felt was antagonizing students. He encouraged students to sign a petition to oust the officer, or to “set him up,” leading to the statement that apparently set off alarms for school administrators. Walker wrote, “He’s got to do something wrong, in either case, he’s gotta foul up at some point… anyone willing to get arrested?” Though clearly not a threat, the school expelled Walker, arguing that he was “found to be in violation of the Student Guide and Code of Conduct.”
At Penn State last year, University Police used Facebook to identify and prosecute fans who rushed the football field after a big win against Ohio State. Officers looked at pictures posted in students’ online photo albums, video footage from the field and member groups from Facebook to identify as many fans as possible. One student, who police identified from her online photo album as one of the offending students, was told that she could face up to 2 years in jail and a $2,000 fine from the University.
There is no evidence that Facebook itself was involved in transmitting this information, and Facebook says that it played no role. Nevertheless, my advice: let your fellow coeds know that you enjoy greenery, gin n’ tonics & Jack Johnson when you’re hanging out, but don’t put it on the Facebook for Big Brother and everyone else to see.
Editor’s Note: This is a revised version of this piece. An earlier version incorrectly implied that U.S. intelligence agencies were involved in Facebook and may have been read as suggesting that Facebook played a role in disseminating information to authorities. CampusProgress.org regrets these errors.
For more on your personal privacy and online community sites, check out our previous article on high school administrators use of MySpace.