Criticism of Facebook

Widening exposure of member information 2011–12

In 2010, the Electronic Frontier Foundation identified two personal information aggregation techniques called "connections" and "instant personalization". They demonstrated that anyone could get access to information saved to a Facebook profile, even if the information was not intended to be made public.^[45] A "connection" is created when a user clicks a "Like" button for a product or service, either on Facebook itself or an external site. Facebook treats such relationships as public information, and the user's identity may be displayed on the Facebook page of the product or service.^[45]

Instant Personalization was a pilot program which shared Facebook account information with affiliated sites, such as sharing a user's list of "liked" bands with a music website, so that when the user visits the site, their preferred music plays automatically. The EFF noted that "For users that have not opted out, Instant Personalization is instant data leakage. As soon as you visit the sites in the pilot program (Yelp, Pandora, and Microsoft Docs) the sites can access your name, your picture, your gender, your current location, your list of friends, all the Pages you have Liked—everything Facebook classifies as public information. Even if you opt out of Instant Personalization, there's still data leakage if your friends use Instant Personalization websites—their activities can give away information about you, unless you block those applications individually."^[45]

On December 27, 2012, CBS News reported that Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, criticized a friend for being "way uncool" in sharing a private Facebook photo of her on Twitter, only to be told that the image had appeared on a friend-of-a-friend's Facebook news feed. Commenting on this misunderstanding of Facebook's privacy settings, Eva Galperin of the EFF said "Even Randi Zuckerberg can get it wrong. That's an illustration of how confusing they can be."^[46]

Issues during 2007

In August 2007, the code used to generate Facebook's home and search page as visitors browse the site was accidentally made public.^[47][48] A configuration problem on a Facebook server caused the PHP code to be displayed instead of the web page the code should have created, raising concerns about how secure private data on the site was. A visitor to the site copied, published and later removed the code from his web forum, claiming he had been served and threatened with legal notice by Facebook.^[49] Facebook's response was quoted by the site that broke the story:^[50]

In November, Facebook launched Beacon, a system (discontinued in September 2009)^[51] where third-party websites could include a script by Facebook on their sites, and use it to send information about the actions of Facebook users on their site to Facebook, prompting serious privacy concerns. Information such as purchases made and games played were published in the user's news feed. An informative notice about this action appeared on the third party site and gave the user the opportunity to cancel it, and the user could also cancel it on Facebook. Originally if no action was taken, the information was automatically published. On November 29 this was changed to require confirmation from the user before publishing each story gathered by Beacon.

On December 1, Facebook's credibility in regard to the Beacon program was further tested when it was reported that The New York Times "essentially accuses" Mark Zuckerberg of lying to the paper and leaving Coca-Cola, which is reversing course on the program, a similar impression.^[52] A security engineer at CA, Inc. also claimed in a November 29, 2007, blog post that Facebook collected data from affiliate sites even when the consumer opted out and even when not logged into the Facebook site.^[53] On November 30, 2007, the CA security blog posted a Facebook clarification statement addressing the use of data collected in the Beacon program:^[54]

The Beacon service ended in September 2009 along with the settlement of a class-action lawsuit against Facebook resulting from the service.^[51]

News Feed and Mini-Feed

On September 5, 2006, Facebook introduced two new features called "News Feed" and "Mini-Feed". The first of the new features, News Feed, appears on every Facebook member's home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of the member's friends. The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member's profile page.^[55] Members can manually delete items from their Mini-Feeds if they wish to do so, and through privacy settings can control what is actually published in their respective Mini-Feeds.

Some Facebook members still feel that the ability to opt out of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary, as evidenced by a statement from the Students Against Facebook News Feed group, which peaked at over 740,000 members in 2006.^[56] Reacting to users' concerns, Facebook developed new privacy features to give users some control over information about them that was broadcast by the News Feed.^[57] According to subsequent news articles, members have widely regarded the additional privacy options as an acceptable compromise.^[58]

In May 2010, Facebook added privacy controls and streamlined its privacy settings, giving users more ways to manage status updates and other information that is broadcast to the public News Feed.^[59] Among the new privacy settings is the ability to control who sees each new status update a user posts: Everyone, Friends of Friends, or Friends Only. Users can now hide each status update from specific people as well.^[60] However, a user who presses "like" or comments on the photo or status update of a friend cannot prevent that action from appearing in the news feeds of all the user's friends, even non-mutual ones. The "View As" option, used to show a user how privacy controls filter out what a specific given friend can see, only displays the user's timeline and gives no indication that items missing from the timeline may still be showing up in the friend's own news feed.

Cooperation with government requests

Government and local authorities rely on Facebook and other social networks to investigate crimes and obtain evidence to help establish a crime, provide location information, establish motives, prove and disprove alibis, and reveal communications.^[61] Federal, state, and local investigations have not been restricted to profiles that are publicly available or willingly provided to the government; Facebook has willingly provided information in response to government subpoenas or requests, except with regard to private, unopened inbox messages less than 181 days old, which would require a warrant and a finding of probable cause under federal law under Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). One 2011 article noted that "even when the government lacks reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and the user opts for the strictest privacy controls, Facebook users still cannot expect federal law to stop their 'private' content and communications from being used against them".^[62]

Indeed, Facebook's privacy policy states that "We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities".^[62] Since the U.S. Congress has failed to meaningfully amend the ECPA to protect most communications on social-networking sites such as Facebook, and since the U.S. Supreme Court has largely refused to recognize a Fourth Amendment privacy right to information shared with a third party, there is no federal statutory or constitutional right that prevents the government from issuing requests that amount to fishing expeditions and there is no Facebook privacy policy that forbids the company from handing over private user information that suggests any illegal activity.^[62]

The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures identified Facebook as a participant in the U.S. National Security Administration's PRISM program. Facebook now reports the number of requests it receives for user information from governments around the world.^[63]

Complaint from CIPPIC

On May 31, 2008, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), per Director Phillipa Lawson, filed a 35-page complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner against Facebook based on 22 breaches of the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). University of Ottawa law students Lisa Feinberg, Harley Finkelstein, and Jordan Eric Plener, initiated the "minefield of privacy invasion" suit. Facebook's Chris Kelly contradicted the claims, saying that: "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors—most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users."^[64] Assistant Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham released a report of her findings on July 16, 2009.^[65] In it, she found that several of CIPPIC's complaints were well-founded. Facebook agreed to comply with some, but not all, of her recommendations.^[65] The Assistant Commissioner found that Facebook did not do enough to ensure users granted meaningful consent for the disclosure of personal information to third parties and did not place adequate safeguards to ensure unauthorized access by third party developers to personal information.^[65]

Data mining

There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining.

Two Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students were able to use an automated script to download the publicly posted information of over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, the University of Oklahoma, and Harvard University) as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14, 2005.^[66] Since then, Facebook has bolstered security protection for users, responding: "We've built numerous defenses to combat phishing and malware, including complex automated systems that work behind the scenes to detect and flag Facebook accounts that are likely to be compromised (based on anomalous activity like lots of messages sent in a short period of time, or messages with links that are known to be bad)."^[67]

A second clause that brought criticism from some users allowed Facebook the right to sell users' data to private companies, stating "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." This concern was addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes, who said "Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to."^[68] Facebook eventually removed this clause from its privacy policy.^[69]

In the United Kingdom, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has encouraged employers to allow their staff to access Facebook and other social-networking sites from work, provided they proceed with caution.^[70]

In September 2007, Facebook drew criticism after it began allowing search engines to index profile pages, though Facebook's privacy settings allow users to turn this off.^[71]

Concerns were also raised on the BBC's Watchdog program in October 2007 when Facebook was shown to be an easy way in which to collect an individual's personal information in order to facilitate identity theft.^[72] However, there is barely any personal information presented to non-friends - if users leave the privacy controls on their default settings, the only personal information visible to a non-friend is the user's name, gender, profile picture, networks, and user name.^[73]

An article in The New York Times in February 2008 pointed out that Facebook does not actually provide a mechanism for users to close their accounts, and raised the concern that private user data would remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers.^[74] As of 2013, Facebook gives users the options to deactivate or delete their accounts. Deactivating an account allows it to be restored later, while deleting it will remove the account "permanently", although some data submitted by that account ("like posting to a group or sending someone a message") will remain.^[75]

Inability to voluntarily terminate accounts

Facebook had allowed users to deactivate their accounts but not actually remove account content from its servers. A Facebook representative explained to a student from the University of British Columbia that users had to clear their own accounts by manually deleting all of the content including wall posts, friends, and groups. The New York Times noted the issue and raised a concern that emails and other private user data remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers.^[74] Facebook subsequently began allowing users to permanently delete their accounts in 2010. Facebook's Privacy Policy now states, "When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook."^[69]

Memorials

A notable ancillary effect of social-networking websites is the ability for participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook, friends often leave messages of sadness, grief, or hope on the individual's page, transforming it into a public book of condolences. This particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools.^[76][77][78] Facebook originally held a policy that profiles of people known to be deceased would be removed after 30 days due to privacy concerns.^[79] Due to user response, Facebook changed its policy to place deceased members' profiles in a "memorialization state".^[80] Facebook's Privacy Policy regarding memorialization says, "If we are notified that a user is deceased, we may memorialize the user's account. In such cases we restrict profile access to confirmed friends and allow friends and family to write on the user's Wall in remembrance. We may close an account if we receive a formal request from the user's next of kin or other proper legal request to do so."^[69]

Some of these memorial groups have also caused legal issues. Notably, on January 1, 2008, one such memorial group posted the identity of murdered Toronto teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police Service their consent to release her name to the media, and the identities of her accused killers, in defiance of Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act, which prohibits publishing the names of the under-age accused.^[81] While police and Facebook staff attempted to comply with the privacy regulations by deleting such posts, they noted difficulty in effectively policing the individual users who repeatedly republished the deleted information.^[82]

Customization and security

In July 2007, Adrienne Felt, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole in the Facebook Platform that could inject JavaScript into profiles. She used the hole to import custom CSS and demonstrate how the platform could be used to violate privacy rules or create a worm.^[83]

Quit Facebook Day

Quit Facebook Day was an online event which took place on May 31, 2010 (coinciding with Memorial Day), in which Facebook users stated that they would quit the social network due to privacy concerns.^[84] It was estimated that 2% of Facebook users coming from the United States would delete their accounts.^[85] However, only 33,000 (roughly 0.0066% of its roughly 500 million members at the time) users quit the site.^[86] The number one reason for users to quit Facebook was privacy concerns (48%), being followed by a general dissatisfaction with Facebook (14%), negative aspects regarding Facebook friends (13%), and the feeling of getting addicted to Facebook (6%). Facebook quitters were found to be more concerned about privacy, more addicted to the Internet, and more conscientious.^[87]

Photo recognition and face tagging

Facebook enabled an automatic facial recognition feature in June 2011, called "Tag Suggestions", a product of a research project named "DeepFace".^[88] The feature compares newly uploaded photographs to those of the uploader's Facebook friends, in order to suggest photo tags.

National Journal Daily claims "Facebook is facing new scrutiny over its decision to automatically turn on a new facial recognition feature aimed at helping users identify their friends in photos".^[89] Facebook has defended the feature, saying users can disable it.^[90] Facebook introduced the feature in an opt-out basis.^[91] European Union data-protection regulators said they would investigate the feature to see if it violated privacy rules.^[90][92] Naomi Lachance stated in a web blog for NPR, All Tech Considered, that Facebook's facial recognition is right 98% of the time compared to the FBI's 85% out of 50 people. It's also noted, however, that the accuracies of Facebook searches are due to its larger, more diverse photo selection compared to the FBI's closed database.^[93] Mark Zuckerberg showed no worries when speaking about Facebook's AIs, saying, "Unsupervised learning is a long-term focus of our AI research team at Facebook, and it remains an important challenge for the whole AI research community" and "It will save lives by diagnosing diseases and driving us around more safely. It will enable breakthroughs by helping us find new planets and understand Earth's climate. It will help in areas we haven't even thought of today".^[94]

Investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner 2011/2012

In August 2011, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) started an investigation after receiving 22 complaints by europe-v-facebook.org, which was founded by a group of Austrian students.^[95] The DPC stated in first reactions that the Irish DPC is legally responsible for privacy on Facebook for all users within the European Union^[96] and that he will "investigate the complaints using his full legal powers if necessary".^[97] The complaints were filed in Ireland because all users who are not residents of the United States or Canada have a contract with "Facebook Ireland Ltd", located in Dublin, Ireland. Under European law Facebook Ireland is the "data controller" for facebook.com, and therefore, facebook.com is governed by European data protection laws.^[96] Facebook Ireland Ltd. was established by Facebook Inc. to avoid US taxes (see Double Irish arrangement).^[98]

The group 'europe-v-facebook.org' made access requests at Facebook Ireland and received up to 1,222 pages of data per person in 57 data categories that Facebook was holding about them,^[99] including data that was previously removed by the users.^[100] Despite the amount of information given, the group claimed that Facebook did not give them all of its data. Some of the information not included was "likes", data about the new face recognition function, data about third party websites that use "social plugins" visited by users and information about uploaded videos. Currently the group claims that Facebook holds at least 84 data categories about every user.^[101]

The first 16 complaints target different problems, from undeleted old "pokes" all the way to the question if sharing and new functions on Facebook should be opt-in or opt-out.^[102] The second wave of 6 more complaints was targeting more issues including one against the "Like" button.^[103] The most severe could be a complaint that claims that the privacy policy, and the consent to the privacy policy is void under European laws.

In an interview with the Irish Independent a spokesperson said that the DPC will "go and audit Facebook, go into the premises and go through in great detail every aspect of security". He continued by saying: "It's a very significant, detailed and intense undertaking that will stretch over four or five days." In December 2011 the DPC has published a first report on Facebook. This report was not legally binding but suggested changes that Facebook should undertake until July 2012. The DPC is planning to do a review about Facebook's progress in July 2012.

Tracking of non-members of Facebook

An article published by USA Today in November 2011 claimed that Facebook creates logs of pages visited both by its members and by non-members. Relying on tracking cookies to keep track of pages visited, the United States Congress and the World Wide Web Consortium are attempting to set new guidelines to deal with Internet privacy concerns, potentially giving users the ability to limit or stop technology companies from tracking their activities.^[106]

In early November 2015, Facebook was ordered by the Belgian Privacy Commissioner to cease tracking non-users, citing European laws, or else risk fines of up to £250,000 per day.^[107] As a result, instead of removing tracking cookies, Facebook prevents non-users from seeing any material on Facebook, including publicly posted content. Arguing that the cookies provided better security, Facebook said in a statement: "We're disappointed we were unable to reach an agreement and now people will be required to log in or register for an account to see publicly available content on Facebook."^[108][109]

Divorce

Social networks, like Facebook, can have a detrimental effect on marriages, with users becoming worried about their spouse's contacts and relations with other people online, leading to marital breakdown and divorce.^[110] According to a 2009 survey in the UK, around 20 percent of divorce petitions included some kind of reference to Facebook.^{[111][112][113][114]} Facebook has given us a new platform for interpersonal communication. Researchers proposed that high levels of Facebook use could result in Facebook-related conflict and breakup/divorce.^[115] Previous studies have shown that romantic relationships can be damaged by excessive Internet use, Facebook jealousy, partner surveillance, ambiguous information, and online portrayal of intimate relationships.^{[116][117][118][119][120]} Excessive Internet users reported having greater conflict in their relationships. Their partners feel neglected and there's lower commitment and lower feelings of passion and intimacy in the relationship. According to the article, researchers suspect that Facebook may attribute to an increase in divorce and infidelity rates in the near future due to the amount of accessibility to connect with past partners.^[115]

Stalking

By statistics, 63% of Facebook profiles are automatically set "visible to the public", meaning anyone can access the profiles that users have updated. Facebook also has its own built-in messaging system that people can send message to any other user, unless they have disabled the feature to "from friends only". Stalking is not only limited to SNS stalking, but can lead to further "in-person" stalking because nearly 25% of real-life stalking victims reported it started with online instant messaging (e.g., Facebook chat).^[121][122]

Performative surveillance

Performative surveillance is the notion that people are very much aware that they are being surveiled on websites, like Facebook, and use the surveillance as an opportunity to portray themselves in a way that connotes a certain lifestyle—of which, that individual may, or may not, distort how they are perceived in reality.^[123]

2010 application privacy breach

In 2010, the Wall Street Journal found that many of Facebook's top-rated apps were transmitting identifying information to "dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies". The apps used an HTTP referer that exposed the user's identity and sometimes their friends' identities. Facebook said that "While knowledge of user ID does not permit access to anyone’s private information on Facebook, we plan to introduce new technical systems that will dramatically limit the sharing of User ID’s". A blog post by a member of Facebook's team further stated that "press reports have exaggerated the implications of sharing a user ID", though still acknowledging that some of the apps were passing the ID in a manner that violated Facebook's policies.^[124][125]

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica data scandal

In 2018, Facebook admitted^[126][127] that an app made by Global Science Research and Alexandr Kogan, related to Cambridge Analytica, was able in 2014^[128] to harvest personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users without their consent, by exploiting their friendship connection to the users who sold their data via the app.^[129] Following the revelations of the breach, several public figures, including industrialist Elon Musk and WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton, announced that they were deleting their Facebook accounts, using the hashtag "#deletefacebook".^{[130][131][132]}

Facebook was also criticized for allowing the 2012 Barack Obama presidential campaign to analyze and target select users by providing the campaign with friendship connections of users who signed up for an application. However, users signing up for the application were aware that their data, but not the data of their friends, was going to a political party.^{[133][134][135][136][137]}

Employer-employee privacy issues

In an effort to surveil the personal lives of current, or prospective, employees, some employers have asked employees to disclose their Facebook login information. This has resulted in the passing of a bill in New Jersey making it illegal for employers to ask potential or current employees for access to their Facebook accounts.^[138] Although, the U.S government has yet to pass a national law protecting prospective employees and their social networking sites, from employers, the fourth amendment of the US constitution can protect prospective employees in specific situations.^[139][140] Lots of companies look at Facebook profiles of job candidates looking for reasons to not hire them. According to a survey of hiring managers by CareerBuilder.com, the most common deal breakers they found on Facebook profiles include references to drinking, poor communication skills, inappropriate photos, and lying about skills and/or qualifications.^[141]

Users violating minimum age requirements

A 2011 study in the online journal First Monday examines how parents consistently enable children as young as 10 years old to sign up for accounts, directly violating Facebook's policy banning young visitors. This policy is in compliance with a United States law, the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires minors aged 13 or younger to gain explicit parental consent to access commercial websites. In jurisdictions where a similar law sets a lower minimum age, Facebook enforces the lower age. Of the 1,007 households surveyed for the study, 76% of parents reported that their child joined Facebook at an age younger than 13, the minimum age in the site's terms of service. The study also reported that Facebook removes roughly 20,000 users each day for violating its minimum age policy. The study's authors also note, "Indeed, Facebook takes various measures both to restrict access to children and delete their accounts if they join." The findings of the study raise questions primarily about the shortcomings of United States federal law, but also implicitly continue to raise questions about whether or not Facebook does enough to publicize its terms of service with respect to minors. Only 53% of parents said they were aware that Facebook has a minimum signup age; 35% of these parents believe that the minimum age is merely a recommendation or thought the signup age was 16 or 18, not 13.^[142]

Student-related issues

Phishing

The term phishing is one kind of online fraud in which criminals try to trick people into revealing passwords, credit card information, and other sensitive information. Phishing takes the form of a message or Wall post that appears to come from someone on the user's Friend List but in actuality the message was sent by phishers using the friend's login information. The phishers are hoping the user takes the bait resulting in the phishers gaining access to the Facebook user's account . Soon afterwards, the user's other friends will start getting phishing messages from what appears to be from the Facebook user. The point of the post is to get the Facebook user to visit a website with viruses and malware.^[141]

Envy

Facebook has been criticized for making people envious and unhappy due to the constant exposure to positive yet unrepresentative highlights of their peers. Such highlights include, but are not limited to, journal posts, videos, and photos that depict or reference such positive or otherwise outstanding activities, experiences, and facts. This effect is caused mainly by the fact that most users of Facebook usually only display the positive aspects of their lives while excluding the negative, though it is also strongly connected to inequality and the disparities between social groups as Facebook is open to users from all classes of society. Sites such as AddictionInfo.org^[158] state that this kind of envy has profound effects on other aspects of life and can lead to severe depression, self-loathing, rage and hatred, resentment, feelings of inferiority and insecurity, pessimism, suicidal tendencies and desires, social isolation, and other issues that can prove very serious. This condition has often been called "Facebook Envy" or "Facebook Depression" by the media.^{[159][160][161][162][163][164]}

A joint study conducted by two German universities demonstrated Facebook envy and found that as many as one out of three people actually feel worse and less satisfied with their lives after visiting the site. Vacation photos were found to be the most common source of feelings of resentment and jealousy. After that, social interaction was the second biggest cause of envy, as Facebook users compare the number of birthday greetings, likes, and comments to those of their friends. Visitors who contributed the least tended to feel the worst. "According to our findings, passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations; and socialize," the study states.^[165]

A 2013 study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that the more people used Facebook, the worse they felt afterwards.^[166]

Stress

Research performed by psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University indicated that Facebook adds stress to users' lives. Causes of stress included fear of missing important social information, fear of offending contacts, discomfort or guilt from rejecting user requests or deleting unwanted contacts or being unfriended or blocked by Facebook friends or other users, the displeasure of having friend requests rejected or ignored, the pressure to be entertaining, criticism or intimidation from other Facebook users, and having to use appropriate etiquette for different types of friends.^[167] Many people who started using Facebook for positive purposes or with positive expectations have found that the website has negatively impacted their lives.^[168]

Next to that, the increasing number of messages and social relationships embedded in SNS also increases the amount of social information demanding a reaction from SNS users. Consequently SNS users perceive they are giving too much social support to other SNS friends. This dark side of SNS usage is called ‘social overload’. It is caused by the extent of usage, number of friends, subjective social support norms, and type of relationship (online-only vs offline friends) while age has only an indirect effect. The psychological and behavioral consequences of social overload include perceptions of SNS exhaustion, low user satisfaction, and high intentions to reduce or stop using SNS.^[169]

Facebook addiction

The "World Unplugged" study, which was conducted in 2011, claims that for some users quitting social networking sites is comparable to quitting smoking or giving up alcohol.^[170] Another study conducted in 2012 by researchers from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in the United States found that drugs like alcohol and tobacco could not keep up with social networking sites regarding their level of addictiveness.^[171] A 2013 study in the journal CyberPsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking found that some users decided to quit social networking sites because they felt they were addicted. In 2014, the site went down for about 30 minutes, prompting several users to call 9-1-1.^[172]

Other psychological effects

It has been admitted by many students that they have experienced bullying on the site, which leads to psychological harm. Students of high schools face a possibility of bullying and other adverse behaviors over Facebook every day. Many studies have attempted to discover whether Facebook has a positive or negative effect on children’s and teenagers’ social lives, and many of them have come to the conclusion that there are distinct social problems that arise with Facebook usage. British neuroscientist Susan Greenfield stuck up for the issues that children encounter on social media sites. She said that they can rewire the brain, which caused some hysteria over whether or not social networking sites are safe. She did not back up her claims with research, but did cause quite a few studies to be done on the subject. When that self is then broken down by others by badmouthing, criticism, harassment, criminalization or vilification, intimidation, demonization, demoralization, belittlement, or attacking someone over the site it can cause much of the envy, anger, or depression.^{[173][174][175][176]}

Sherry Turkle, in her book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, argues that social media bring people closer and further apart at the same time. One of the main points she makes is that there is a high risk in treating persons online with dispatch like objects. Although people are networked on Facebook, their expectations of each other tend to be lessened. According to Turkle, this could cause a feeling of loneliness in spite of being together.^[177]

User influence experiments

Academic and Facebook researchers have collaborated to test if the messages people see on Facebook can influence their behavior. For instance, in "A 61-Million-Person Experiment in Social Influence And Political Mobilization," during the 2010 elections, Facebook users were given the opportunity to "tell your friends you voted" by clicking on an "I voted" button. Users were 2% more likely to click the button if it was associated with friends who had already voted.^[178]

Much more controversially, a 2014 study of "Emotional Contagion Through Social Networks" manipulated the balance of positive and negative messages seen by 689,000 Facebook users.^[179] The researchers concluded that they had found "some of the first experimental evidence to support the controversial claims that emotions can spread throughout a network, [though] the effect sizes from the manipulations are small."^[180]

Unlike the "I voted" study, which had presumptively beneficial ends and raised few concerns, this study was criticized for both its ethics and methods/claims. As controversy about the study grew, Adam Kramer, a lead author of both studies and member of the Facebook data team, defended the work in a Facebook update. A few days later, Sheryl Sandburg, Facebook's COO, made a statement while traveling abroad. While at an Indian Chambers of Commerce event in New Delhi she stated that "This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was. It was poorly communicated and for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you."^[181]

Shortly thereafter, on July 3, 2014, USA Today reported that the privacy watchdog group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) had filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission claiming that Facebook had broken the law when it conducted the study on the emotions of its users without their knowledge or consent. In its complaint, EPIC alleged that Facebook had deceived it users by secretly conducting a psychological experiment on their emotions: "At the time of the experiment, Facebook did not state in the Data Use Policy that user data would be used for research purposes. Facebook also failed to inform users that their personal information would be shared with researchers."^[182]

Beyond the ethical concerns, other scholars criticized the methods and reporting of the study's findings. John Grohol, writing for Psych Central, argued that despite its title and claims of "emotional contagion," this study did not look at emotions at all. Instead, its authors used an application (called "Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count" or LIWC 2007) that simply counted positive and negative words in order to infer users' sentiments. He wrote that a shortcoming of the LIWC tool is that it does not understand negations. Hence, the tweet "I am not happy" would be scored as positive: "Since the LIWC 2007 ignores these subtle realities of informal human communication, so do the researchers." Grohol concluded that given these subtleties, the effect size of the findings are little more than a "statistical blip."

Kramer et al. (2014) found a 0.07%—that's not 7 percent, that's 1/15th of one percent!!—decrease in negative words in people's status updates when the number of negative posts on their Facebook news feed decreased. Do you know how many words you'd have to read or write before you've written one less negative word due to this effect? Probably thousands.^[183]

The consequences of the controversy are pending (be it FTC or court proceedings) but it did prompt an "Editorial Expression of Concern" from its publisher, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as an blog posting from OkCupid that "We experiment on human beings!" In September 2014, law professor James Grimmelmann argued that the actions of both companies were "illegal, immoral, and mood-altering" and filed notices with the Maryland Attorney General and Cornell Institutional Review Board.^[184]

In the UK, the study was also criticised by the British Psychological Society which said, in a letter to The Guardian, "There has undoubtedly been some degree of harm caused, with many individuals affected by increased levels of negative emotion, with consequent potential economic costs, increase in possible mental health problems and burden on health services. The so-called 'positive' manipulation is also potentially harmful."^[185]

Intellectual property infringement

Facebook has also been criticized for having lax enforcement of third-party copyrights for videos uploaded to the service. In 2015, some Facebook pages were accused of plagiarizing videos from YouTube users and re-posting them as their own content using Facebook's video platform, and in some cases, achieving higher levels of engagement and views than the original YouTube post. Videos hosted by Facebook are given a higher priority and prominence within the platform and its user experience (including direct embedding within the News Feed and pages), giving a disadvantage to posting it as a link to the original external source.^[195][196] In August 2015, Facebook announced a video-matching technology aiming to identify reposted videos, and also stated its intention to improve its procedures to remove infringing content faster.^[197] In April 2016, Facebook implemented a feature known as "Rights Manager", which allows rightsholders to manage and restrict the upload of their content onto the service by third-parties.^[198]

Violent content

In 2013, Facebook was criticized for allowing users to upload and share videos depicting violent content, including clips of people being decapitated. Having previously refused to delete such clips under the guideline that users have the right to depict the "world in which we live", Facebook changed its stance in May, announcing that it would remove reported videos while evaluating its policy.^[199] The following October, Facebook stated that it would allow graphic videos on the platform, as long as the intention of the video was to "condemn, not glorify, the acts depicted",^[200] further stating that "Sometimes, those experiences and issues involve graphic content that is of public interest or concern, such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism, and other violence. When people share this type of graphic content, it is often to condemn it. If it is being shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate violence, Facebook removes it."^[201] However, Facebook once again received criticism, with the Family Online Safety Institute saying that such videos "crossed a line" and can potentially cause psychological damage among young Facebook users,^[200] and then-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron calling the decision "irresponsible", citing the same concerns regarding young users.^[201] Two days later, Facebook removed a video of a beheading following "worldwide outrage", and while acknowledging its commitment to allowing people to upload gory material for the purpose of condemnation, it also stated that it would be further strengthening its enforcement to prevent glorification.^[201] The company's policies were also criticized as part of these developments, with some drawing particular attention to Facebook's permission of graphic content but potential removal of breastfeeding images.^[202] In January 2015, Facebook announced that new warnings would be displayed on graphic content, requiring users to explicitly confirm that they wish to see the material.^[203][204]

Pro-anorexia groups

In 2008, Facebook was criticized for hosting groups dedicated to promoting anorexia. The groups promoted dramatic weight loss programs, shared extreme diet tips, and posted pictures of emaciated girls under "Thinspiration" headlines. Members reported having switched to Facebook from Myspace, another social networking service, due to a perceived higher level of safety and intimacy at Facebook.^[223] In a statement to BBC News, a Facebook spokesperson stated that "Many Facebook groups relate to controversial topics; this alone is not a reason to disable a group. In cases where content is reported and found to violate the site's terms of use, Facebook will remove it."^[224]

Pro-mafia groups' case

In Italy in 2009, the discovery of pro-mafia groups, one of them claiming Bernardo Provenzano's sainthood, caused an alert in the country^{[225][226][227]} and brought the government to rapidly issue a law that would force Internet service providers to deny access to entire websites in case of refused removal of illegal contents. The amendment was passed by the Italian Senate and now needs to be passed unchanged by the Chamber of Deputies to become effective.^{[228][229][230]}

Facebook criticized the government's efforts, telling Bloomberg that it "would be like closing an entire railway network just because of offensive graffiti at one station", and that "Facebook would always remove any content promoting violence and already had a takedown procedure in place."^[231]

Trolling

On March 31, 2010, The Today Show ran a segment detailing the deaths of three separate adolescent girls and trolls' subsequent reactions to their deaths. Shortly after the suicide of high school student Alexis Pilkington, anonymous posters began trolling for reactions across various message boards, referring to Pilkington as a "suicidal CUSS", and posting graphic images on her Facebook memorial page. The segment also included an exposé of a 2006 accident, in which an eighteen-year-old student out for a drive fatally crashed her father's car into a highway pylon; trolls e-mailed her grieving family the leaked pictures of her mutilated corpse.^[232]

There have been cases where Facebook "trolls" were jailed for their communications on Facebook, particularly memorial pages. In Autumn 2010, Colm Coss of Ardwick, Britain, was sentenced to 26 weeks in jail under s127 of the Communications Act 2003 of Great Britain,^[233] for "malicious communications" for leaving messages deemed obscene and hurtful on Facebook memorial pages.^[234][235]

In April 2011, Bradley Paul Hampson was sentenced to three years in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of using a carriage service, the Internet, to cause offense, for posts on Facebook memorial pages, and one count each of distributing and possessing child pornography when he posted images on the memorial pages of the deceased with phalluses superimposed alongside phrases such as "Woot I'm dead".^[236][237]

Rape pages

A series of pro-rape and 'rape joke' content on Facebook drew attention from the media and women's groups.^[238] Rape Is No Joke (RINJ), a group opposing the pages, argued that removing "pro-rape" pages from Facebook and other social media was not a violation of free speech in the context of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the concepts recognized in international human rights law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.^[239] RINJ repeatedly challenged Facebook to remove the rape pages.^[240] RINJ then turned to advertisers on Facebook telling them not to let their advertising be posted on Facebook's 'rape pages'.^[241]

Following a campaign that involved the participation of Women, Action and the Media, the Everyday Sexism Project and the activist Soraya Chemaly, who were among 100 advocacy groups, Facebook agreed to update its policy on hate speech. The campaign highlighted content that promoted domestic and sexual violence against women, and used over 57,000 tweets and more than 4,900 emails to create outcomes such as the withdrawal of advertising from Facebook by 15 companies, including Nissan UK, House of Burlesque and Nationwide UK. The social media website initially responded by stating that "While it may be vulgar and offensive, distasteful content on its own does not violate our policies",^[242] but then agreed to take action on May 29, 2013 after it had "become clear that our systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively as we would like, particularly around issues of gender-based hate".^[243]

Child abuse images

In June 2015, the UK National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children raised concerns about Facebook's apparent refusal when asked to remove controversial video material which allegedly showed a baby in emotional distress.^[244]

In March 2017, BBC News reported in an investigation that Facebook only removed 18 of the 100 groups and posts it had reported for containing child exploitation images. The BBC had been granted an interview with Facebook policy director Simon Milner under the condition that they provide evidence of the activity. However, when presented with the images, Facebook cancelled the interview, and told the BBC that it had been reported to the National Crime Agency for illegally distributing child exploitation images (the NCA could not confirm whether the BBC was actually being investigated).^[245] Milner later stated to the BBC that the investigation had exposed flaws in its image moderation process that have since been addressed, and that all of the reported content was removed from the service.^[246]

Objectification of women

In July 2017, GMA News reported that "a number" of secret Facebook groups that had been engaging in illegal activity of sharing "obscene" photos of women had been exposed, with the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation warning group members of the possibility of being liable for violating child pornography and anti-voyeurism laws. Facebook stated that it would remove the groups as violations of its community guidelines.^[247] A few days later, GMA News had an interview with one of the female victims targeted by one of the groups, who stated that she received friend requests from strangers and inappropriate messages. After reporting to authorities, the Philippine National Police's anti-cybercrime unit promised to take action in finding the accounts responsible.^[248] Senator Risa Hontiveros responded to the incidents with the proposal of a law that would impose "stiff penalties" on such group members, stating that "These people have no right to enjoy our internet freedom only to abuse our women and children. We will not allow them to shame our young women, suppress their right to express themselves through social media and contribute to a culture of misogyny and hate".^[249]

Anti-Semitism

Facebook has been suspected of having a double-standard when it came to pages and posts regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. When it comes to so-called incitement, Facebook has been accused of being unfair, removing only posts and pages that attack Palestinians, while turning a blind eye to similar posts that are violently anti-Semitic. The NGO Shurat Hadin-Israel Law Center conducted an experiment over the incitement issue, which sought to expose what it viewed as double standards regarding anti-Israel sentiment vis-a-vis the simultaneous launch of two Facebook pages: "Stop Palestinians" and "Stop Israel". Following the launch of the two nearly identical pages, the NGO posted hateful content simultaneously on both pages. Next, Shurat Hadin's reported both faux-incitement pages to Facebook to see which, if either, would be removed. According to them, despite featuring nearly identical content, only one was removed from the online platform. They said the page inciting against Palestinians was closed by Facebook (on the same day that it was reported) for "containing credible threat of violence" which "violated our [Facebook's] community standards", but not the page inciting against Israelis. Shurat Hadin said that Facebook claimed that this page was "not in violation of Facebook's rules". Shurat Hadin's staged anti-Israel group "Stop Israel" still remains active on Facebook.^[250] ProPublica stated in September 2017 that a website was able to target ads at Facebook users who were interested in "how to burn Jew" and "Jew hater". Facebook removed the categories and said it would try to stop them from appearing to potential advertisers.^[251]

Incitement of terrorism

Facebook has been accused of being a public platform used to incite terrorism. In October 2015, 20,000 Israelis claimed that Facebook was ignoring Palestinian incitement on its platform and filed a class-action suit demanding that Facebook remove all posts "containing incitement to murder Jews".^[252]

Israeli politicians have complained that Facebook does not comply or assist with requests from the police for tracking and reporting individuals when they share their intent to kill or commit any other act of terrorism on their Facebook pages. In June 2016, following the murder of Hallel Ariel, 13, by a terrorist who posted on Facebook, Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan charged that "Facebook, which has brought a positive revolution to the world, has become a monster...The dialogue, the incitement, the lies of the young Palestinian generation are happening on the Facebook platform." Erdan accused Facebook of "sabotaging the work of Israeli police" and "refusing to cooperate" when Israel Police turns to the site for assistance. It also "sets a very high bar" for removing inciteful content.^[253]

In July 2016, a civil action for $1 billion in damages was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of the victims and family members of four Israeli-Americans and one US citizen killed by Hamas terrorists since June 2014.^[254][255] The victims and plaintiffs in the case are the families of Yaakov Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas operatives in 2014; Taylor Force, a 29-year-old American MBA student and US Army veteran killed in a stabbing spree in Jaffa in 2016; Chaya Braun, a three-month-old thrown from her stroller and slammed into the pavement when a Hamas attacker drove his car into a light rail station in Jerusalem in an October 2014; 76-year-old Richard Lakin who was killed in an October 2015 shooting and stabbing attack on a Jerusalem bus; and Menachem Mendel Rivkin, who was seriously wounded in a January 2016 stabbing attack in Jerusalem.^[255] The plaintiffs claimed that Facebook knowingly provided its social media platform and communication services to Hamas in violation of provisions of US Anti-Terrorism laws which prohibits US businesses from providing any material support, including services, to designated terrorist groups and their leaders. The government of the United States has designated Hamas as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" as defined by US law. The suit claims that Hamas "used and relied on Facebook's online social network platform and communications services to facilitate and carry out its terrorist activity, including the terrorist attacks in which Hamas murdered and injured the victims and their families in this case".^[254][255]

In August 2016, Israel's security service, the Shin Bet, reported that it had arrested nine Palestinians who had been recruited by the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist organization. Operatives of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Gaza Strip recruited residents of the West Bank, Gaza and Israel through Facebook and other social media sites. After recruiting cell leaders on Facebook, Hezbollah and the recruits used encrypted communications to avoid detection, and the leaders continued to recruit other members. The terror cells received Hezbollah funding and planned to conduct suicide bombings and ambushes and had begun preparing explosive devices for attacks, said the security service, which claimed credit for preventing the attacks. The Shin Bet said it also detected multiple attempts by Hezbollah to recruit Israeli Arabs through a Facebook profile.^{[256][257][258]}

Currently, legislation is being prepared in Israel, allowing fines of 300,000 shekels for Facebook and other social media like Twitter and YouTube for every post inciting or praising terrorism that isn't removed within 48 hours, and could possibly lead to further acts of terrorism.^[259]

Fake news

Facebook has been criticized for not doing enough to limit the spread of fake news stories on their site, especially after the 2016 United States presidential election, which some have claimed Donald Trump would not have won if Facebook had not helped spread what they claim to have been fake stories that were biased in his favor.^[264] Mark Zuckerberg has begun to take steps to eliminate the prevalence of fake news on Facebook as a result criticisms of Facebook's influence on the presidential election.^[265] At a conference called Techonomy Mark Zuckerberg stated in regards to Donald Trump, "There's a profound lack of empathy in asserting that the only reason why someone could have voted the way that they did is because they saw some fake news". Zuckerberg affirms the idea that people do not stray from their own ideals and political leanings. He stated, "I don't know what to do about that" and, "When we started, the north star for us was: We're building a safe community".^[266]

Zuckerberg has also been quoted in his own Facebook post, "Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic".^[267] In addition, The Pew Research Center, stated that "62% of Americans obtain some, or all, of their news on social media-the bulk of it from Facebook".^[268] The former editor at Facebook leaked inflammatory information about the websites' algorithm's pointing to certain falsehoods and bias by the news created within Facebook. Although Facebook initially denied claims of issues with fake new stories and their algorithms, they fired the entire trending team involved with a fake news story about Megyn Kelly being a "closeted liberal".^[269]

Incitement of violence in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan telecommunications minister Harin Fernando stated that Facebook had been too slow removing content and banning users who were using its platforms to facilitate violence during the 2018 anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka.^[270] Facebook stated that it is increasing the number of Sinhalese-speakers it employs to review content.^[270]

Myanmar abuses

Facebook removed accounts owned by the Myanmar Armed Forces for inciting hatred against the Rohingya people.^{[271][272][273]}

Real-name policy controversy and compromise

Facebook has a real-name system policy for user profiles. The real-name policy stems from the position "that way, you always know who you're connecting with. This helps keep our community safe."^[16] The real-name system does not allow adopted names or pseudonyms,^[274] and in its enforcement has suspended accounts of legitimate users, until the user provides identification indicating the name.^[275] Facebook representatives have described these incidents as very rare.^[275] A user claimed responsibility via the anonymous Android and iOS app Secret for reporting "fake names" which caused user profiles to be suspended, specifically targeting the stage names of drag queens.^[276] On October 1, 2014, Chris Cox, Chief Product Officer at Facebook, offered an apology: "In the two weeks since the real-name policy issues surfaced, we've had the chance to hear from many of you in these communities and understand the policy more clearly as you experience it. We've also come to understand how painful this has been. We owe you a better service and a better experience using Facebook, and we're going to fix the way this policy gets handled so everyone affected here can go back to using Facebook as you were."^[277]

On December 15, 2015, Facebook announced in a press release^[278] that it would be providing a compromise to its real name policy after protests from groups such as the gay/lesbian community and abuse-victims.^[279] The site is developing a protocol that will allow members to provide specifics as to their "special circumstance" or "unique situation" with a request to use pseudonyms, subject to verification of their true identities. At that time, this was already being tested in the U.S. Product manager Todd Gage and vice president of global operations Justin Osofsky also promised a new method for reducing the number of members who must go through ID verification while ensuring the safety of others on Facebook. The fake name reporting procedure will also be modified, forcing anyone who makes such an allegation to provide specifics that would be investigated and giving the accused individual time to dispute the allegation.^[280]

Deleting users' statuses

There have been complaints of user statuses being mistakenly or intentionally deleted for alleged violations of Facebook's posting guidelines. Especially for non-English speaking writers, Facebook does not have a proper support system to genuinely read the content and make decisions. Sometimes the content of a status did not have any "abusive" or defaming language, but it nevertheless got deleted on the basis that it had been secretly reported by a group of people as "offensive". For other languages than English, Facebook till now is not able to identify the group approach that is used to vilify humanitarian activism. In another incident, Facebook had to apologize after it deleted a free speech group's post about the abuse of human rights in Syria. In that case, a spokesman for Facebook said the post was "mistakenly" removed by a member of its moderation team, which receives a high volume of take-down requests.^[281]

Enabling of harassment

Facebook instituted a policy by which it is now self-policed by the community of Facebook users. Some users have complained that this policy allows Facebook to empower abusive users to harass them by allowing them to submit reports on even benign comments and photos as being "offensive" or "in violation of Facebook Rights and Responsibilities" and that enough of these reports result in the user who is being harassed in this way getting their account blocked for a predetermined number of days or weeks, or even deactivated entirely.^[282]

Facebook UK policy director Simon Milner told Wired Magazine that "Once the piece of content has been seen, assessed and deemed OK, (Facebook) will ignore further reports about it." ^[283]

Lack of customer support

Facebook lacks live support, making it difficult to resolve issues that require the services of an administrator or are not covered in the FAQs, such as the enabling of a disabled account. The automated emailing system used when filling out a support form often refers users back to the help center or to pages that are outdated and cannot be accessed, leaving users at a dead end with no further support available.^[284]

Downtime and outages

Facebook has had a number of outages and downtime large enough to draw some media attention. A 2007 outage resulted in a security hole that enabled some users to read other users' personal mail.^[285] In 2008, the site was inaccessible for about a day, from many locations in many countries.^[286] In spite of these occurrences, a report issued by Pingdom found that Facebook had less downtime in 2008 than most social-networking websites.^[287] On September 16, 2009, Facebook started having major problems with loading when people signed in. On September 18, 2009, Facebook went down for the second time in 2009, the first time being when a group of hackers were deliberately trying to drown out a political speaker who had social networking problems from continuously speaking against the Iranian election results.^[288]

In October 2009, an unspecified number of Facebook users were unable to access their accounts for over three weeks.^{[289][290][291][292]}

Tracking cookies

Facebook has been criticized heavily for 'tracking' users, even when logged out of the site. Australian technologist Nik Cubrilovic discovered that when a user logs out of Facebook, the cookies from that login are still kept in the browser, allowing Facebook to track users on websites that include "social widgets" distributed by the social network. Facebook has denied the claims, saying they have 'no interest' in tracking users or their activity. They also promised after the discovery of the cookies that they would remove them, saying they will no longer have them on the site. A group of users in the United States have sued Facebook for breaching privacy laws.^[293]

As of December 2015, to comply with a court order citing violations of the European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications—which requires users to consent to tracking and storage of data by websites, Facebook no longer allows users in Belgium to view any content on the service, even public pages, without being registered and logged in.^[294]

Email address change

In June 2012, Facebook removed all existing email addresses from user profiles, and added a new @facebook.com email address. Facebook claimed this was part of adding a "new setting that gives people the choice to decide which addresses they want to show on their timelines". However, this setting was redundant to the existing "Only Me" privacy setting which was already available to hide addresses from timelines. Users complained the change was unnecessary, they did not want an @facebook.com email address, and they did not receive adequate notification their profiles had been changed.^[295] The change in email address was synchronised to phones due to a software bug, causing existing email addresses details to be deleted.^[296] The facebook.com email service was retired in February 2014.^[297]

Safety Check bug

On March 27, 2016, following a bombing in Lahore, Pakistan, Facebook activated its "Safety Check" feature, which allows people to let friends and loved ones know they are okay following a crisis or natural disaster, to people who were never in danger, or even close to the Pakistan explosion. Some users as far as the US, UK and Egypt received notifications asking if they were okay.^[298][299]

Censorship on the Kashmir Freedom Movement

In 2016, Facebook banned and also removed content regarding the Kashmir dispute, triggering a response from The Guardian, BBC and other media group on the Facebook's policies on censorship.^[300][301] Facebook censorship policies have been criticised especially after the company banned the posts about the Indian army's attack on protesters, including children, with pellet guns.^[302] A human rights group superimposed pellet injuries similar to those inflicted on Kashmiri people on the faces of popular Indian actors, famous people including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a response, which went viral.^[303][304]

Kurdish opposition censorship

Facebook has a policy to censor anything related to Kurdish opposition against Turkey, such as maps of Kurdistan, flags of opposing parties (such as PKK and YPG), and criticism of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of Turkey.^[305][306]

Search function

Facebook's search function has been accused of preventing users from searching for certain terms. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has written about Facebook's possible censorship of "Ron Paul" as a search term. MoveOn.org's Facebook group for organizing protests against privacy violations could for a time not be found by searching. The very word privacy was also restricted.^[307]

Censorship of editorial content

On February 4, 2010, a number of Facebook groups against the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) were removed without any reason given.^[308] The DAB is one of the largest pro-Beijing political parties in Hong Kong. The affected groups have since been restored.

Censorship of the word "moskal"

Around July 1, 2015 Facebook started to automatically ban accounts that use the word "moskal", which is a widely used historical slang term for people of Russia (formerly Moskovia until 1721), which may be seen offensive by some individuals. However, use of similar words such as "khokhol", which are widely used by Russian nationalists against Ukrainians, as well as insulting uses of "ukrop" (literally dill), were not prosecuted. In an experiment, journalist Max Kononenko has posted the poem "Моя родословная" by Alexander Pushkin for this account to be banned automatically within minutes.^[309] Posts of vice minister of Roskomnadzor, Max Ksenzov, were similarly automatically deleted.^{[310][311][312]} Ksenzov has accused Facebook of censorship and double standards and has removed his account in protest.

Image censorship

Facebook has a policy of removing photos which they believe violate the terms and conditions of the website. Images have been removed from user pages on topics such as breastfeeding, nudes in art, apparent breasts, naked mannequins, kisses between persons of the same sex and family photos.^[313]

In September 2016, a Norwegian newspaper has published an open letter to Zuckerberg after banning "Napalm Girl", a Pulitzer Prize-winning documentary photograph from the Vietnam War made by Nick Ut.^[314] Half of the ministers in the Norwegian government shared the famous Nick Ut photo on their Facebook pages, among them prime minister Erna Solberg from the Conservative Party (Høyre). But after only a few hours, several of the Facebook posts, including the Prime Minister's post, were deleted by Facebook.^[315]

As a reaction to the letter, Facebook reconsidered its opinion on this picture and republished it, recognizing "the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time".^[316]

Breastfeeding photos

Facebook has been repeatedly criticized for removing photos uploaded by mothers breastfeeding their babies.^[317] Although photos that show an exposed breast violate Facebook's decency code, even when the baby covered the nipple, Facebook took several days to respond to criticism and deactivate a paid advertisement for a dating service that used a photo of a topless model.^[318]

The breastfeeding photo controversy continued following public protests and the growth in membership of a Facebook group titled "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene! (Official petition to Facebook)."^[317] In December 2011, Facebook removed photos of mothers breastfeeding and after public criticism, restored the photos. The company said it removed the photos they believed violated the pornographic rules in the company's terms and conditions.^[318] During February 2012, the company renewed its policy of removing photos of mothers breastfeeding. Founders of a Facebook group "Respect the Breast" reported that "women say they are tired of people lashing out at what is natural and what they believe is healthy for their children."^[319]

Censorship of 'blasphemous' content

Facebook has worked with Pakistani government to censor 'blasphemous' pages and speech inside Pakistan.^[320]

Censorship of hate speech

In Germany, Facebook actively censors anti-refugee hate speech.^{[321][322][323]}

In May 2016, Facebook and other technology companies agreed to a new "code of conduct" by the European Commission to review hateful online content within 24 hours of being notified, and subsequently remove such content if necessary.^{[324][325][326]} A year later, Reuters reported that the European Union had approved proposals to make Facebook and other technology companies tackle hate speech content on their platforms, but that a final agreement in the European Parliament is needed to make the proposals into law.^[327][328] In June 2017, the European Commission praised Facebook's efforts in fighting hateful content, having reviewed "nearly 58 percent of flagged content within 24 hours".^[329][330]

Censorship of conservative news

In May 2016, Facebook was accused by a former employee for leaving out conservative topics from the trending bar.^[331] Although Facebook denied these allegations, the site planned to improve the trending bar.^[332]

In August 2018, Facebook deleted videos posted to it by PragerU. Facebook later reversed its decision and restored the PragerU content, saying that PragerU content was falsely reported to have hate speech.^[333][334]

As a result of perception that conservatives are not treated neutrally on Facebook alternative social media platforms have been established.^[335] This perception has lead to a reduction of trust in Facebook, and reduction of usage by those who consider themselves to be conservative.^[336]

Government censorship

Several countries have banned access to Facebook, including Syria,^[337] China,^[338] and Iran.^[339] In 2010, the Office of the Data Protection Supervisor, a branch of the government of the Isle of Man, received so many complaints about Facebook that they deemed it necessary to provide a "Facebook Guidance" booklet (available online as a PDF file), which cited (amongst other things) Facebook policies and guidelines and included an elusive Facebook telephone number. This number when called, however, proved to provide no telephone support for Facebook users, and only played back a recorded message advising callers to review Facebook's online help information.^[340]

In 2010, Facebook reportedly allowed an objectionable page, deemed by the Islamic Lawyers Forum (ILF), to be anti-Muslim. The ILF filed a petition with Pakistan's Lahore High Court. On May 18, 2010, Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry ordered Pakistan's Telecommunication Authority to block access to Facebook until May 31. The offensive page had provoked street demonstrations in Muslim countries due to visual depictions of Prophet Mohammed, which are regarded as blasphemous by Muslims.^[341][342] A spokesman said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority would move to implement the ban once the order has been issued by the Ministry of Information and Technology. "We will implement the order as soon as we get the instructions", Khurram Mehran told AFP. "We have already blocked the URL link and issued instruction to Internet service providers yesterday", he added. Rai Bashir told AFP that "We moved the petition in the wake of widespread resentment in the Muslim community against the Facebook contents". The petition called on the government of Pakistan to lodge a strong protest with the owners of Facebook, he added. Bashir said a PTA official told the judge his organization had blocked the page, but the court ordered a total ban on the site. People demonstrated outside court in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistan, carrying banners condemning Facebook. Protests in Pakistan on a larger scale took place after the ban and widespread news of that objectionable page. The ban was lifted on May 31 after Facebook reportedly assured the Lahore High Court that it would remedy the issues in dispute.^{[343][344][345]}

In 2011, a court in Pakistan was petitioned to place a permanent ban on Facebook for hosting a page called "2nd Annual Draw Muhammad Day May 20th 2011".^[346][347]

Organizations blocking access

Ontario government employees, Federal public servants, MPPs, and cabinet ministers were blocked from access to Facebook on government computers in May 2007.^[348] When the employees tried to access Facebook, a warning message "The Internet website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for government business purposes". This warning also appears when employees try to access YouTube, MySpace, gambling or pornographic websites.^[349] However, innovative employees have found ways around such protocols, and many claim to use the site for political or work-related purposes.^[350]

A number of local governments including those in the UK^[351] and Finland^[352] imposed restrictions on the use of Facebook in the workplace due to the technical strain incurred. Other government-related agencies, such as the US Marine Corps have imposed similar restrictions.^[353] A number of hospitals in Finland have also restricted Facebook use citing privacy concerns.^[354][355]

Schools blocking access

The University of New Mexico (UNM) in October 2005 blocked access to Facebook from UNM campus computers and networks, citing unsolicited e-mails and a similar site called UNM Facebook.^[356] After a UNM user signed into Facebook from off campus, a message from Facebook said, "We are working with the UNM administration to lift the block and have explained that it was instituted based on erroneous information, but they have not yet committed to restore your access." UNM, in a message to students who tried to access the site from the UNM network, wrote, "This site is temporarily unavailable while UNM and the site owners work out procedural issues. The site is in violation of UNM's Acceptable Computer Use Policy for abusing computing resources (e.g., spamming, trademark infringement, etc.). The site forces use of UNM credentials (e.g., NetID or email address) for non-UNM business." However, after Facebook created an encrypted login and displayed a precautionary message not to use university passwords for access, UNM unblocked access the following spring semester.^[357]

The Columbus Dispatch reported on June 22, 2006, that Kent State University's athletic director had planned to ban the use of Facebook by athletes and gave them until August 1 to delete their accounts.^[358] On July 5, 2006, the Daily Kent Stater reported that the director reversed the decision after reviewing the privacy settings of Facebook.

Closed social networks

Several web sites concerned with social networking, such as Plugtodo.com and Salesforce.com have criticized the lack of information that users get when they share data. Advanced users cannot limit the amount of information anyone can access in their profiles, but Facebook promotes the sharing of personal information for marketing purposes, leading to the promotion of the service using personal data from users who are not fully aware of this. Facebook exposes personal data, without supporting open standards for data interchange.^[359] According to several communities^[360] and authors^[361] closed social networking, on the other hand, promotes data retrieval from other people while not exposing one's personal information.

Openbook was established in early 2010 both as a parody of Facebook and a critique of its changing privacy management protocols.^[362]

ConnectU.com lawsuit

Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss, and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of the social network ConnectU, filed a lawsuit against Facebook in September 2004. The lawsuit alleged that Zuckerberg had broken an oral contract to build the social-networking site, copied the idea,^[363][364] and used source code that they provided to Zuckerberg to create competing site Facebook.^{[365][366][367][368]} Facebook countersued in regards to Social Butterfly, a project put out by The Winklevoss Chang Group, an alleged partnership between ConnectU and i2hub. It named among the defendants ConnectU, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, Divya Narendra, and Wayne Chang, founder of i2hub.^[369] The parties reached a settlement agreement in February 2008, for $20 million in cash and 1,253,326 Facebook shares. On August 26, 2010, The New York Times reported that Facebook shares were trading at $76 per share in the secondary market, putting the total settlement value now at close to $120 million.^[370][371]

ConnectU filed another lawsuit against Facebook on March 11, 2008,^[372] attempting to rescind the settlement, claiming that Facebook, in settlement negotiations, had overstated the value of stock it was granting the ConnectU founders as part of the settlement. ConnectU argued that Facebook represented itself as being worth $15 billion at the time, due to the post-money valuation arising from Microsoft's purchase in 2007 of a 1.6% stake in Facebook for US $246 million. Facebook announced that valuation in a press release.^[373] However, Facebook subsequently performed an internal valuation that estimated a company value of $3.75 billion.^[374] ConnectU then fired the law firm Quinn Emanuel that had represented it in settlement discussions. Quinn Emanuel filed a $13 million lien against the settlement proceeds and ConnectU sued for malpractice.^[375] On August 25, 2010, an arbitration panel ruled that Quinn Emanuel had "earned its full contingency fee". It also found that Quinn Emanuel committed no malpractice.^[376] ConnectU's lawsuit against Facebook to quadruple its settlement remains ongoing.

In January 2010, it was reported that i2hub founder Wayne Chang and The i2hub Organization launched a lawsuit against ConnectU and its founders, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, seeking 50% of the settlement. The complaint states "Through this litigation, Chang asserts his ownership interest in The Winklevoss Chang Group and ConnectU, including the settlement proceeds."^[377] Lee Gesmer (of Gesmer Updegrove, LLP) posted the detailed 33-page complaint online.^[378][379] On April 12, 2011, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the Winklevoss brothers, whose fight over Facebook's origins was a major narrative arc of the film The Social Network, cannot back out of a settlement they signed with the company in 2008.

Aaron Greenspan

Aaron Greenspan created a web portal as a Harvard undergraduate called houseSYSTEM that launched in August 2003.^[380] In February 2004, when thefacebook.com launched, Greenspan recognized aspects of his own work in the site, and later came to believe that Zuckerberg was copying his work one feature at a time—a claim that Zuckerberg denied. Regarding Greenspan's allegations, Zuckerberg was described in The New York Times as "saying through a spokeswoman that he was not sure how to respond".^[381] Greenspan's company filed a Petition to Cancel the "Facebook" trademark, which included claims of prior use and fraud by Facebook, Inc. against the USPTO.^[382] Facebook, Inc. agreed to a formal settlement with Greenspan in late May 2009 and issued a press release, but the terms were not disclosed.^[383]

2009 class action lawsuit

On November 17, 2009, Rebecca Swift, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, filed a class action lawsuit against Zynga Game Network Inc. and Facebook, Inc. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for violation of the Unfair competition law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and for unjust enrichment.^[384][385]

Paul Ceglia

On June 30, 2010, Paul Ceglia, the owner of a wood pellet fuel company in Allegany County, New York, filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, claiming 84% ownership of Facebook as well as additional monetary damages. According to Ceglia, he and Zuckerberg signed a contract on April 28, 2003, that for an initial fee of $1,000, entitles Ceglia to 50% of the website's revenue, as well as additional 1% interest per each day after January 1, 2004, until website completion. Zuckerberg was developing other projects at the time, among which was Facemash, the predecessor of Facebook, but did not register the domain name thefacebook.com until January 1, 2004. Facebook management has dismissed the lawsuit as "completely frivolous". Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt issued a statement indicating that the counsel for Ceglia had unsuccessfully attempted to seek an out-of-court settlement. In an interview to ABC World News, Zuckerberg stated he is confident of never signing such an agreement. At the time, Zuckerberg worked for Ceglia as a code developer on a project named "StreetFax". Judge Thomas Brown of Allegany Court issued a restraining order on all financial transfers concerning ownership of Facebook until further notice; in response, Facebook management successfully filed for the case to be moved to federal court. According to Facebook, the order does not affect their business but lacks legal basis.^{[386][387][388][389][390][391]}

Young v. Facebook, Inc.

In Young v. Facebook, Inc., plaintiff Karen Beth Young alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and related state laws on disability as well as breach of contract and negligence. A District Court judge dismissed the complaint, ruling that Facebook is a website, not a physical place, so the Americans with Disabilities Act does not apply.^[392]

Lane v. Facebook, Inc.

In March 2010, Judge Richard Seeborg issued an order approving the class settlement in Lane v. Facebook, Inc.^[393] This lawsuit charged that user's private information was being posted on Facebook without consent using Facebook's Beacon program.

Fraley v. Facebook, Inc.

Fraley v. Facebook, Inc. was a class-action case that alleged that Facebook had misappropriated users' names and likenesses in advertisements.^[394] The case settled in 2013,^[394] with checks to class members mailed in November 2016.^[395]

Lawsuits over privacy

Facebook’s strategy of making revenue through advertising has created a lot of controversy for its users as some argue that it is "a bit creepy… but it is also brilliant."^[414] Some Facebook users have raised privacy concerns because they do not like that Facebook sells user’s information to third parties. In 2012, users sued Facebook for using their pictures and information on a Facebook advertisement.^[415] Facebook gathers user information by keeping track of pages users have "Liked" and through the interactions users have with their connections.^[416] They then create value of the gathered data by selling it.^[416] In 2009 users also filed a lawsuit for Facebook’s privacy invasion through Facebook Beacon system. Facebook’s team believed that through the Beacon system people could inspire their friends to buy similar products, however, users did not like the idea of sharing certain online purchases with their Facebook friends.^[417] Users were against Facebook’s invasion of privacy and sharing that privacy with the world. Facebook users became more aware of Facebook’s behavior with user information in 2009 as Facebook launched their new Terms of Service. In Facebook’s terms of service, Facebook admits that user information may be used for some of Facebook’s own purposes such as sharing a link to your posted images or for their own commercials and advertisements.^[418]

As Dijck argues in his book that, "the more users know about what happens to their personal data, the more inclined they are to raise objections."^[416] This created a battle between Facebook and Facebook users described as the "battle for information control."^[416] Facebook users have become aware of Facebook’s intentions and people now see Facebook "as serving the interests of companies rather than its users."^[419] In response to Facebook selling user information to third parties, concerned users have resorted to the method of "Obfuscation."^[420] Through obfuscation users can purposely hide their real identity and provide Facebook with false information that will make their collected data less accurate.^[420] By obfuscating information through sites such as "FaceCloak," Facebook users have regained control of their personal information.^[420]

Rewards for vulnerability reporting

On August 19, 2013, it was reported that a Facebook user from Palestinian Autonomy, Khalil Shreateh, found a bug that allowed him to post material to other users' Facebook Walls. Users are not supposed to have the ability to post material to the Facebook Walls of other users unless they are approved friends of those users that they have posted material to. To prove that he was telling the truth, Shreateh posted material to Sarah Goodin's wall, a friend of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Following this, Shreateh contacted Facebook's security team with the proof that his bug was real, explaining in detail what was going on. Facebook has a bounty program in which it compensates people a $500+ fee for reporting bugs instead of using them to their advantage or selling them on the black market. However, it was reported that instead of fixing the bug and paying Shreateh the fee, Facebook originally told him that "this was not a bug" and dismissed him. Shreateh then tried a second time to inform Facebook, but they dismissed him yet again. On the third try, Shreateh used the bug to post a message to Mark Zuckerberg's Wall, stating "Sorry for breaking your privacy ... but a couple of days ago, I found a serious Facebook exploit" and that Facebook's security team was not taking him seriously. Within minutes, a security engineer contacted Shreateh, questioned him on how he performed the move and ultimately acknowledged that it was a bug in the system. Facebook temporarily suspended Shreateh's account and fixed the bug after several days. However, in a move that was met with much public criticism and disapproval, Facebook refused to pay out the 500+ fee to Shreateh; instead, Facebook responded that by posting to Zuckerberg's account, Shreateh had violated one of their terms of service policies and therefore "could not be paid." Included with this, the Facebook team strongly censured Shreateh over his manner of resolving the matter. In closing, they asked that Shreateh continue to help them find bugs.^{[425][426][427]}

On August 22, 2013, Yahoo News reported that Marc Maiffret, a chief technology officer of the cybersecurity firm BeyondTrust, is prompting hackers to help raise a $10,000 reward for Khalil Shreateh. On August 20, Maiffret stated that he had already raised $9,000 in his efforts, including the $2,000 he himself contributed. He and other hackers alike have denounced Facebook for refusing Shreateh compensation. Maiffret said: "He is sitting there in Palestine doing this research on a five-year-old laptop that looks like it is half broken. It's something that might help him out in a big way." Facebook representatives have since responded, "We will not change our practice of refusing to pay rewards to researchers who have tested vulnerabilities against real users." Facebook representatives also claimed they'd paid out over $1 million to individuals who have discovered bugs in the past.^[428]

Click fraud

In July 2012, startup Limited Run claimed that 80% of its Facebook clicks came from bots.^{[437][438][439]} Limited Run co-founder Tom Mango told TechCrunch that they "spent roughly a month testing this" with six web analytics services including Google Analytics and in-house software.^[437] Click fraud (Allege reason) Limited Run said it came to the conclusion that the clicks were fraudulent after running its own analysis. It determined that most of the clicks for which Facebook was charging it came from computers that weren’t loading Javascript, a programming language that allows Web pages to be interactive. Almost all Web browsers load Javascript by default, so the assumption is that if a click comes from one that isn’t, it’s probably not a real person but a bot.^[440]

Like fraud

Facebook offers an advertising tool for pages to get more "likes".^[441] According to Business Insider, this advertising tool is called "Suggested Posts" or "Suggested Pages", allowing companies to market their page to thousands of new users for as little as $50.^[442]

Global Fortune 100 firms are increasingly using social media marketing tools as the number of "likes" per Facebook page has risen by 115% globally.^[443] Biotechnology company Comprendia investigated Facebook’s "likes" through advertising by analyzing the life science pages with the most likes. They concluded that at as much as 40% of "likes" from company pages are suspected to be fake.^[444] to Facebook’s annual report, an estimated 0.4% and 1.2% of active users are undesirable accounts that create fake likes.^[445]

Small companies such as PubChase have publicly testified against Facebook’s advertising tool, claiming legitimate advertising on Facebook creates fraudulent Facebook "likes". In May 2013, PubChase decided to build up its Facebook following through Facebook’s advertising tool, which promises to "connect with more of the people who matter to you". After the first day, the company grew suspicious of the increased likes as they ended up with 900 likes from India. According to PubChase, none of the users behind the "likes" seemed to be scientists. The statistics from Google Analytics indicate that India is not in the company’s main user base. PubChase continues by stating that Facebook has no interface to delete the fake likes; rather, the company must manually delete each follower themselves.^[446]

In February 2014, Derek Muller used his YouTube account Veritasium to upload a video titled "Facebook Fraud". Within three days, the video had gone viral with more than a million views (it has reached 2,521,614 views as of June 10, 2014). In the video, Muller illustrates how after paying US$50 to Facebook advertising, the "likes" to his fan page have tripled in a few days and soon reached 70,000 "likes", compared to his original 2,115 likes before the advertising. Despite the significant increase in likes, Muller noticed his page has actually decreased in engagement – there were fewer people commenting, sharing, and liking his posts and updates despite the significant increase in "likes". Muller also noticed that the users that "liked" his page were users that liked hundreds of other pages, including competing pages such as AT&T and T-Mobile. He theorizes that users are purposely clicking "like" on any and every page in order to deter attention away from the pages they were paid to "like". Muller claims, "I never bought fake likes, I used Facebook legitimate advertising, but the results are as if I paid for fake likes from a click farm".^[447]

In response to the fake "likes" complaints, Facebook told Business Insider:

Advertiser concerns

On August 3, 2007, British companies including First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, The Automobile Association, Halifax and the Prudential removed their advertisements from Facebook. A Virgin Media spokeswoman said "We want to advertise on social networks but we have to protect our brand". The companies found that their services were being advertised on pages of the British National Party, a far-right political party in the UK. New Media Age magazine was first to alert the companies that their ads were coming up on BNP's Facebook page.^[448]

Upgrades

"Free basics" controversy in India

In February 2016, TRAI ruled against differential data pricing for limited services from mobile phone operators effectively ending zero-rating platforms in India. Zero rating provides access to limited number of websites for no charge to the end user. Net-neutrality supporters from India (SaveTheInternet.in) brought out the negative implications of Facebook Free Basic program and spread awareness to the public.^[475] Facebook's Free Basics program^[476] was a collaboration with Reliance Communications to launch Free Basics in India. The TRAI ruling against differential pricing marked the end of Free Basics in India.^[477]

Earlier, Facebook had spent $44 million USD in advertising and it implored all of its Indian users to send an email to the Telecom Regulatory Authority to support its program.^[478] TRAI later asked Facebook to provide specific responses from the supporters of Free Basics.^[479][480]