Facebook deletes Scoble, what does it mean for the rest of us?
by 
Tris Hussey on January 3rd, 2008
The "hot" news this morning is that Facebook deleted Scoble’s profile on Facebook:
If you are trying to contact me on Facebook, please don’t. My account has been “disabled” for breaking Facebook’s Terms of Use. I was running a script that got them to keep me from accessing my account. I’m appealing. I’ll tell you what I was doing as soon as I talk with the developers who built what I was using and as soon as I talk with Facebook’s support (I sent an email in reply to the one below, but haven’t heard back yet). Source: Facebook disabled my account « Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger
First it was "disabled", but according to Rodney Rumford of Facereviews, he’s all gone. Rodney sees a good side to this, which is that FB is watching out for bots that could be scraping content for nefarious purposes, however…
Chris Brogan makes the key point that this might be the beginning of the "Data Wars":
Maybe The Data Wars Have Begun
Perhaps it’s now a time where we, the users of social networks, will start thinking of our data as a source of value, and perhaps we’ll have to better understand the social contracts between what we’re using on these sites and what these sites are using from us. The more we give away, the less value it will have ultimately for our own use, and yet, there’s a trade that has to happen, lest everything we like about the Internet (free, fluid, fast) suddenly become a losing proposition for these organizations, who mostly are using our data for educating advertisers.
I’m not sure my take on this, but wanted to bring it to you for consideration. On one side, I want to be able to move my personal data from site to site, because if I spent the effort building it in there, I want to get it back out. On another side, is the friending process of Facebook THEIR data or is it mine? My friends, yes, but is the link and the semantic data built between us something that Facebook owns?
Beyond the certain Star Wars metaphors sure to come, the key is that we should at the very least own our data and be able to pull our contact list out of Facebook so we can, say e-mail people how we choose.
Scoble has jumped on the DataPortability Workgroup (hmm, why not before? not a red flag issue for him?) and Allen Stern, like others including myself, thinks this is going to give a serious boost to discussions about data portability and data ownership.
Why does this matter in Canada? Why am I writing about this here instead of on my personal blog you wonder? Simply this, Canada has probably the highest percentage of Facebook users of any country. Toronto has a million (that’s a third of the population people) and half of Canadians online are on Facebook. So if there is any country where this should be a hot button issue-it’s here!
I’m not going to be so bold as to call for a Canadian boycott of Facebook, nor am I jumping on the Free the Scoble 5000 bandwagon. Yeah Scoble broke the TOS and he (probably) knew it too, but like Mark Evans points out, FB really blew it again. They had a clear opportunity to manage this nicely. Good discussion about data ownership and personal control and data security. However they missed that chance. Pity.
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8 opinions for Facebook deletes Scoble, what does it mean for the rest of us?
Plaxo on the market and Alpha Pulse FB Connector boots Scoble-bad timing!
Jan 3, 2008 at 2:19 pm
[…] and good, but wow did something just fall into our collective laps this morning. With the Scoble-Facebook debacle still hot on our fingers (since we’re typing our thoughts generally-of course there are Seesmic and Utterz on the […]
Jan 3, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I don’t think Facebook blew it at all. In fact I think it was a smart move to show power in the industry. I think this is a smart move on their part and will show everyone how important a communication tool facebook is. I like Scoble & Facebook, but FB did the right thing.
Jan 3, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Mike I agree with you. Facebook did the right thing to pull the account after this kind of TOS violation. The precedent that would have been set…scary.
But…Facebook did miss the chance to get some good ink on this. Like protecting our privacy and such. A slap on Scoble’s wrist would have been good. That said, I don’t support the mass uprising to let him back in.
Jan 3, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I agree that Canada is a very plugged in nation and tend to be well-represented on many social sites. However, a million people in the Toronto network is not a third of the population. The Toronto network includes all the surrounding suburbs, some of which have large populations like Mississauga (700k). (Some people from the suburbs also just list there hometown as Toronto.) In fact Toronto as an urban conglomerate (Hamilton to Oshawa) has more than 8 million people. Just though I’d mention it. All in all, i’m glad you raised this issue and it was a thought-provoking read.
Jan 3, 2008 at 4:50 pm
RS, thank you for the correction. So maybe not a third, but half of all online Canadians it huge, since between 60-70% of Canadians are online!
Jan 3, 2008 at 7:04 pm
There is no such thing as free. You may have a free account with Facebook, but Facebook will alway own your data.
Jan 3, 2008 at 9:42 pm
True FB will own your data. What need to consider is it worth the price?
A Bugged Life [ philippine technology. the communications industry and geek rants ] » Blog Archive » Scoble gets face off’ed on Facebook: another justification for OpenSocial?
Jan 3, 2008 at 11:49 pm
[…] part of the company’s terms of service. We have interesting coverage from the Canadians Tris Hussey and Mark Evans - Tris hints a boycott of Facebook (well not really): Why does this matter in […]
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