Dear Facebook, Stop Bullying People for Their Exact Birthdate
Because I'm a programmer I never entered my exact birthdate into Facebook's system. I was working in ad tech at the time Facebook grew in popularity. Our ad tech company, a startup later acquired by a larger tech company known more within the industry than the public at large, strove *not* to store names or ages or ethnicities or addresses of people we profiled for ad-retargeting. We only stored certain shopping events - they buy baby clothes, the system (an ad-auctioning system, one run then by Yahoo a competing one by Google, that processes which ad to fill in which spaces as your browser loads a webpage) produces a related ad for, say, branded laundry detergent.
I knew Facebook didn't need my birthdate, and I was uneasy they were forcing it from users to to proceed through registration.
At some point Facebook had become so popular, several friends were no longer responding to my emails and phone calls. The few occasions I ran into them "IRL," in real life, friends said they'd get in touch with me via Facebook. No, I said, I'm not on Facebook. They LOVED it and could not understand my hesitation in joining. It occurs to me as I write this I had very few friends who worked in computer programming jobs.
I joined Facebook, reluctantly, scrambling my birthdate by a few days and a few years through registration.
Also because I'm a programmer, I'm in front of the screen all day long and look so forward to activating my other senses when I'm off the clock. I want a voice conversation over a landline, or a facetime (not the app) after-work chat with a friend before we go our separate ways on the ferry and subway, respectively, to get home.
The last thing I wanted was to transfer those connections to a screen-only "image" relationship. And no, Facebook voice communication, which one friend tried to start with me back in 2014, is not the answer. Get me out of that platform -- that should not be recording our genders, ages, ethnicities incomes in the first place -- as soon as possible, so we can relax, and have fun.
About three years after reluctantly registering with Facebook, I was the victim of ID theft. I was instructed by the post office to file both a report with the Postal Inspector and Police Department, before filing fraud alerts with the credit agencies. Three months later, in December, a store from Wisconsin called to confirm I wanted to open a line of credit before proceeding with checkout. The fraud alert worked as it was supposed to - I've never been to Wisconsin. The store clerk who called me was very polite and patient, and agreed to read me the information the "customer" (my ID thief) had filled out in the credit application form.
The thief had my name, but it was misspelled. And what was most surprising was what the thief was purchasing: ceramic Santa Clause figurines, a wreath, and other holiday decorations. Thieves sometimes will do a "test run" on a smaller dollar amount before trying to use stolen credit on expensive luxuries. Also, it's much easier to waste money on ceramic Santas when you didn't earn it in the first place.
After processing the oddity of this thief using stolen credit to spread the spirit of Christmas, I logged into Facebook to scramble my birthdate even further. The app threw up a screen telling me that entering a fraudulent birthdate was a "serious violation" of their terms of service.
For about a second, I believed them and stopped. Then I came to my senses. "Excuse me? A 'serious violation'?" It's not like I was applying for a driver's license. Once realizing they didn't need my birthdate except to sell to targeting advertisers, I went ahead and scrambled the birthdate again to change my age to 92 years old. Then Facebook presented a screen telling me I'd hit my limit of birthdate changes and was no longer allowed to adjust it further. It wasn't bluffing - I can no longer go in and change that profile data point.
I was angry. I let it go.
A few months later another friend who is not a programmer was spooked as someone had stolen her tax return from the mail. I told her filing a police report activates a fraud alert on her behalf, and she was really grateful to know properly sequencing the steps after ID theft can save a victim a lot of work. But the police strongly advised her to quit Facebook, because that's where ID thieves can get more of her information. She didn't really understand this was optional. Her family lives on the other coast. She's going through more frequent medical treament this year for a life-long health problem that flared up. She really misses Facebook especially since her family doesn't show consideration to members who are not on the platform. Her family members (some siblings, siblings-in-law, and young adult nieces and nephews,) don't send photos and updates through email. They post updates to the platform, so the app can connect them to their loved ones on their behalf.
I advised my friend to rejoin Facebook then change up her birthdate, and remember not to post pictures of where she lives. I'm not sure why she never rejoined or reactivated her account - the police officer must have really driven home the message that Facebook means more ID theft in her future.
But I remain disturbed that if she'd reactivated her account then attempted to scramble her birthdate, Facebook would present on the overlay screen the threatening "serious violation" message they'd shown to me. To users like my friend, who work way outside of ad tech, that "serious violation" message wouldn't flag their B.S. detectors as it did mine.
There was no way to contact Facebook customer service and explain to them my friend and others really needed to scramble their birthdates for a very legitimate reason. Or there was no contacting link that I could see. With no customer service to contact, I simply deactivated my account. Then I logged back on and unfriended everyone over the course of a few years.
A few people really don't want to quit Facebook and they shouldn't have to quit if they don't want to. But #DeleteFacebook as a culturally trending hashtag was such a relief for me to see.
If it's more widely understood that some people use Facebook, and many sane, technical, even youthful people don't, we can re-route those social communication habits back through channels Facebook doesn't oversee like phone trees, email, and the forums on the open web.
I try not to live with anger, life is too short to corrupt your soul. But my short term visceral reaction to that blue 'f' logo and the thumbs-up like sign is visceral unease. My muscle memory tells me to resist Facebook. As a company it's aggressive - which comes with capitalism. We know companies want to make money. But Facebook is covertly aggressive with the cover story of "building community." It's inconsiderate in promising to offer privacy settings then retroactively loosening them when you're not logged in. Retroactive privacy-loosening either intentionally, or unintentionally requires people like me and my friend to remain all times on Facebook-standby.
And it's very manipulative. Why don't they enable hypertext? They want to keep you inside their little container.
I remind myself not to get too angry about this. Some people love Facebook and continue to share links on the open web that point to conversation threads inside the blue silo, which we can't see. We just see a wall telling us to either sign in or register with Facebook.
I hope more people -- people like me, who never wanted to join -- quit. To really wean myself off Facebook I joined Twitter as a replacement vice, and Twitter never forced my birthdate out of me. Gmail and my old Yahoo keep pestering me for my phone number, "in case you lose your password" which I haven't given them. Apparently Instagram is a better app, even though it's owned by Facebook. But I won't join them anytime soon. I'm happy to be off of Facebook engaging with the open web, and life.
---------------
Further Reading:
Schneier says security is: 1) prevention 2) detection 3) response. Could this concept regulate political ads on platforms? Prevention, Detection, and Response: Feasibility of Honest Ads Act in Digital Space: offlinreport.blogspot.com
While Google doesn't hand your private messages to app developers using their API, Facebook does: "Wylie, explaining how the data mining of Facebook users worked, said, 'With their profiles, likes, even private messages, [Cambridge Analytica] could build a personality profile on each person and know how to best target them with messages.'" law.com
I knew Facebook didn't need my birthdate, and I was uneasy they were forcing it from users to to proceed through registration.
At some point Facebook had become so popular, several friends were no longer responding to my emails and phone calls. The few occasions I ran into them "IRL," in real life, friends said they'd get in touch with me via Facebook. No, I said, I'm not on Facebook. They LOVED it and could not understand my hesitation in joining. It occurs to me as I write this I had very few friends who worked in computer programming jobs.
I joined Facebook, reluctantly, scrambling my birthdate by a few days and a few years through registration.
Also because I'm a programmer, I'm in front of the screen all day long and look so forward to activating my other senses when I'm off the clock. I want a voice conversation over a landline, or a facetime (not the app) after-work chat with a friend before we go our separate ways on the ferry and subway, respectively, to get home.
The last thing I wanted was to transfer those connections to a screen-only "image" relationship. And no, Facebook voice communication, which one friend tried to start with me back in 2014, is not the answer. Get me out of that platform -- that should not be recording our genders, ages, ethnicities incomes in the first place -- as soon as possible, so we can relax, and have fun.
About three years after reluctantly registering with Facebook, I was the victim of ID theft. I was instructed by the post office to file both a report with the Postal Inspector and Police Department, before filing fraud alerts with the credit agencies. Three months later, in December, a store from Wisconsin called to confirm I wanted to open a line of credit before proceeding with checkout. The fraud alert worked as it was supposed to - I've never been to Wisconsin. The store clerk who called me was very polite and patient, and agreed to read me the information the "customer" (my ID thief) had filled out in the credit application form.
The thief had my name, but it was misspelled. And what was most surprising was what the thief was purchasing: ceramic Santa Clause figurines, a wreath, and other holiday decorations. Thieves sometimes will do a "test run" on a smaller dollar amount before trying to use stolen credit on expensive luxuries. Also, it's much easier to waste money on ceramic Santas when you didn't earn it in the first place.
After processing the oddity of this thief using stolen credit to spread the spirit of Christmas, I logged into Facebook to scramble my birthdate even further. The app threw up a screen telling me that entering a fraudulent birthdate was a "serious violation" of their terms of service.
For about a second, I believed them and stopped. Then I came to my senses. "Excuse me? A 'serious violation'?" It's not like I was applying for a driver's license. Once realizing they didn't need my birthdate except to sell to targeting advertisers, I went ahead and scrambled the birthdate again to change my age to 92 years old. Then Facebook presented a screen telling me I'd hit my limit of birthdate changes and was no longer allowed to adjust it further. It wasn't bluffing - I can no longer go in and change that profile data point.
I was angry. I let it go.
A few months later another friend who is not a programmer was spooked as someone had stolen her tax return from the mail. I told her filing a police report activates a fraud alert on her behalf, and she was really grateful to know properly sequencing the steps after ID theft can save a victim a lot of work. But the police strongly advised her to quit Facebook, because that's where ID thieves can get more of her information. She didn't really understand this was optional. Her family lives on the other coast. She's going through more frequent medical treament this year for a life-long health problem that flared up. She really misses Facebook especially since her family doesn't show consideration to members who are not on the platform. Her family members (some siblings, siblings-in-law, and young adult nieces and nephews,) don't send photos and updates through email. They post updates to the platform, so the app can connect them to their loved ones on their behalf.
I advised my friend to rejoin Facebook then change up her birthdate, and remember not to post pictures of where she lives. I'm not sure why she never rejoined or reactivated her account - the police officer must have really driven home the message that Facebook means more ID theft in her future.
But I remain disturbed that if she'd reactivated her account then attempted to scramble her birthdate, Facebook would present on the overlay screen the threatening "serious violation" message they'd shown to me. To users like my friend, who work way outside of ad tech, that "serious violation" message wouldn't flag their B.S. detectors as it did mine.
There was no way to contact Facebook customer service and explain to them my friend and others really needed to scramble their birthdates for a very legitimate reason. Or there was no contacting link that I could see. With no customer service to contact, I simply deactivated my account. Then I logged back on and unfriended everyone over the course of a few years.
A few people really don't want to quit Facebook and they shouldn't have to quit if they don't want to. But #DeleteFacebook as a culturally trending hashtag was such a relief for me to see.
If it's more widely understood that some people use Facebook, and many sane, technical, even youthful people don't, we can re-route those social communication habits back through channels Facebook doesn't oversee like phone trees, email, and the forums on the open web.
I try not to live with anger, life is too short to corrupt your soul. But my short term visceral reaction to that blue 'f' logo and the thumbs-up like sign is visceral unease. My muscle memory tells me to resist Facebook. As a company it's aggressive - which comes with capitalism. We know companies want to make money. But Facebook is covertly aggressive with the cover story of "building community." It's inconsiderate in promising to offer privacy settings then retroactively loosening them when you're not logged in. Retroactive privacy-loosening either intentionally, or unintentionally requires people like me and my friend to remain all times on Facebook-standby.
And it's very manipulative. Why don't they enable hypertext? They want to keep you inside their little container.
I remind myself not to get too angry about this. Some people love Facebook and continue to share links on the open web that point to conversation threads inside the blue silo, which we can't see. We just see a wall telling us to either sign in or register with Facebook.
I hope more people -- people like me, who never wanted to join -- quit. To really wean myself off Facebook I joined Twitter as a replacement vice, and Twitter never forced my birthdate out of me. Gmail and my old Yahoo keep pestering me for my phone number, "in case you lose your password" which I haven't given them. Apparently Instagram is a better app, even though it's owned by Facebook. But I won't join them anytime soon. I'm happy to be off of Facebook engaging with the open web, and life.
---------------
Further Reading:
Schneier says security is: 1) prevention 2) detection 3) response. Could this concept regulate political ads on platforms? Prevention, Detection, and Response: Feasibility of Honest Ads Act in Digital Space: offlinreport.blogspot.com
While Google doesn't hand your private messages to app developers using their API, Facebook does: "Wylie, explaining how the data mining of Facebook users worked, said, 'With their profiles, likes, even private messages, [Cambridge Analytica] could build a personality profile on each person and know how to best target them with messages.'" law.com
