Before we get into these possible scenarios, please be aware that anything, and I mean anything, that you have posted on your Facebook is the property of Facebook while you use the site. This includes any writing you have posted, any photo, any status note. Read the TOS.
Consider protesting this by NOT logging in on June 6. If you do not want to delete or deactivate your account, don't, but on June 6, do NOT log in. This will cause a significant loss of income to FB if enough people do it and they WILL have to make changes if their users demand it. Remember-YOU Are the consumer and YOU are the product they are using to make billions of dollars a year.
Lisa works as a nurse in a hospital in the neonatal unit. She volunteers as a grief counselor for those who are mourning their newborns. She uses Facebook as a way to keep in touch with some of the parents she has helped through a really difficult time. They share prayers and she often uses biblical quotes to try and ease the pain of these parents. If they have a need to rant one day, even years later, when they are having a bad day-they can do it to her via Facebook.
Her family is also on Facebook. One of her brothers is not as devout as she is. A quote is put on her brothers wall one day by one of his friends, something that, at the moment, Lisa finds appropriate. She hits LIKE. She doesn't realize that by hitting LIKE on a post from someone she doesn't even know will put that post in her cache, forever.
Her brother is not as devout as she is. His circle of friends includes some that follow a prominent atheist. Two years later, one of her extra needy families is angry and looking for someone to blame for their loss. They are not getting what they need at the moment and personalize their rage to Lisa. They do a search on her, find the quote. The quote itself is innocent, but because if was written by Prominent Atheist, they use this as a weapon and go to the supervisor. She is asked to no longer volunteer because of the upset. Lisa deactivates her Facebook. The hospital, owned by the Catholic church, is also informed of what is posted on her Facebook page. They begin to do an extensive search. Even though she has deactivated her page, they find things, not written by her, but written by other people, like her brother, that advocate a pro-choice stance. They let her know they do not believe this is appropraite.
Lisa is not out-rightly fired, but within a few months, a couple of her shifts are cut. She does not receive the merit raise she usually receives. The hospital claims they are in a budget crunch. Eventually she has to leave the job she has had for 18 years because she is simply not getting enough hours. She is unsure if this will happen again in the future, because she thinks her Facebook page is no longer visible. Until she deletes it from the system, it will always come up in a search, but even after she deletes it, the things she has written on other active subscribers walls remain there.
Kathy has been on Facebook for a 1 month. Her friends list is just her sister and her sister's children and a couple of people from work. Politically, she is an independent with left leanings. She goes to several news sites a day to read the different viewpoints and thier slants including CNN, FOX, Huffington Post etc She comes across an article on Huffington that leads to some questions she would like Sarah Palin to respond to. She wants to post the questions on Sarah Palin's Facebook. In order to do that, she has to JOIN the page. She Joins the page, posts the questions, provides a link, and in a few minutes she is inundated by people who see the origin of the article and immediately dismiss the question because of its source. She realizes this was not the place to ask this question, and leaves the Facebook group. A few days later, she notices ads have begun to pop up on the side of her Facebook page for Ann Coulter and other right wing pundits and politicians. She ignores them. She eventually deactivates her account because she doesn't really want to see her nieces drinking beer in their bikini and her sister is never on anyway.
Months later, when the next election cycle begins she starts receiving a larger than average amount of flyers in mail from the Right. She begins getting emails by the dozens. Soon she is getting phone calls from them every day. National, local, statewide politicians who assume, because she joined the Sarah Palin page for 2 hours one day that she is a supporter. A yard sign is placed in her yard-she doesn't remember requesting one, but she wakes up one morning and it's there.
Maggie has been on Facebook since the beginning, she was a Junior in High school when she joined and is now a junior in College. She loves Facebook. She has heard about the privacy issues but she feels strongly that she has said nothing on Facebook that she would not say anywhere else, and so she has no fear of any backlash. She has heard stories about people getting fired and even arrested for posting their personal photos and information online. She knows better than to post photos of her with beer in hand or half dressed. She has no issue with her political leanings being out there, she is who she is. She would not want to work for a company that would not allow her to be herself anyway.
Maggie is currently sending out applications to grad school. She is a writer and hopes to get into her first choice, but understands it's a long shot. It's around this time that she and her boyfriend begin to argue over where their future is headed and eventually she breaks up with him. He is not happy. The first thing she does is remove him from her Facebook.
The problem arises when some of her 897 friends are also his 942 friends. For about two weeks, some of the friends that were really only his friends start making disparaging remarks on her wall about a writing project that she had done. It was one of the projects sent out with her MFA applications and her boyfriend knows this. They begin quoting it and telling her that her ex wants particular portions removed, since it was actually his writing. She is appalled. It's completely untrue, the only thing her ex ever did was proof read a few times. They also target random lyrics from songs she enjoys that she has posted, some of them when she was still in high school and they are not attributed to the songwriter. They have gone back and pulled these years old quotes and accuse her of copyright infringement.
Meanwhile, those prospective universities have been looking at her Facebook and the rejection letters are piling in. She has to delete 20-30 comments a day, posted at all hours just to try to keep her Facebook wall clean of these accusations. When she removes one of her ex's friends from her page, another pops up with accusations of plagiarism. Not only is her first school choice out, but her second, third...fifteenth choice are out too. All of the rejection letters are standard issue. None of the schools have said outright that Facebook is the reason she has been rejected.
There are thousands of scenarios like this on Facebook and a number of other internet sites. The issue is not just about personal information being exposed, but about every word you have written. Facebook is a particular problem because of the friends of friends network-you can delete your account, but if you ever posted anything on someone else's wall, that will show up until they delete their own FB account.
Protest this on June 6 by NOT logging in.
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