While Mark Zuckerberg Tries to Save Facebook, Save Yourself. Here's How ...
Thomas Friedman's recent column in The New York Times, "How Mark Zuckerberg Can Save Facebook — and Us" is an interesting, insightful read. In it, Friedman posits that the recent issues that have come to light regarding Facebook represent more than just an engineering and business model problem, but one that requires moral leadership.
It's a nice notion, but there are two problems with this thinking. The first is we as consumers have no guarantee that such moral leadership will ever emerge. Additionally, even if it does, we won't see anything substantive result from it anytime soon. The technological monster from which Facebook and other platforms emerged will not be tamed overnight -- even if Zuckerberg promises to tame it.
So I say tame the monster yourself, as best you can. For starters, adjust your Facebook account settings here. This week I decided to turn just about everything off, and granted the most minimal of permissions possible for everything, including apps I had opened with Facebook. I also deleted the apps I had not used in years. I did the same for apps on my phone that were not opened through Facebook. Here's what happened as I went about my day: Almost nothing. The sky didn't fall--my work a social life proceeded as it had before. I hit a few speed bumps as I tried to do things I had become used to doing.
I attempted to make a mobile bank deposit through my bank's app, and a reminder popped up that it needed permission to access my camera in order to snap a photo of the check. So I enabled it. I also tried to share a photo but could not because I deactivated the ability to do this. So I enabled it and made sure to do so while allowing only the most minimal amount of permissions. Later I decided to share a work-related article of interest with my network, but received a prompt that I had disabled the platform that allowed me to do this. So I re-enabled the platform and, importantly, read the fine print on Facebook, which told me my settings for "apps others use" (meaning what people see about me when a Facebook connection uses an app and gives permission to access the contact information of that connection's friends) would be restored to their previous settings. I took the time to uncheck everything in the "apps others use" area. And I shared the article with my connections.
This seems to me to be a good way to cleanse your social network settings and perform an apps audit that results in you enabling only the ones you really want/need. Go back to zero/limited permissions and add them back in as you need them. I plan to do this periodically going forward.
By the way, before I did any of the above, I downloaded a copy of my Facebook data, which you can do here. I was pleased to find that it did not contain information about my contacts, text messages, and metadata, which others have reported finding in their downloaded information. I think this is because I did not ever give Facebook permission to access any of this information. Put another way, I went into my settings and made sure to uncheck the items I did not want Facebook and associated apps to have access to. (The cynic in me does wonder if that information is indeed out there somewhere, but according to what I downloaded it is not.)
I find it somewhat amusing that we are collectively up in arms over what Facebook and other platforms collect from us when we use their tools. To be sure, the Cambridge Analytica issue is a problem because they ended up getting data from friends of friends who used their app. That is a no-no, and someone needs to be held accountable for it. But I also am hearing people express shock that Facebook has their "life history." They are tired of clicking around the internet and then seeing ads based on their search history. But like it or not, seeing targeted ads is the price of admission for using a tool that Mark Zuckerberg gave you free of charge. He surely didn't do this out of the goodness of his heart. He gave it to gratis because--whether you realize it or not--you are the product. He has to make money somehow, and long ago decided the best way to do that is to sell advertising.
So while others wait for the moral leadership Thomas Friedman is calling for, I suggest that you take charge. For it is not Mark Zuckerberg who will save us--we are going to have to save ourselves.