On the 18th of June, 2010, the ‘Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy’ in San Jose, California, wrapped up its 20th meeting with an interesting proposal. The CCFP agreed on a ‘Social Network Users Bill of Rights,’ invoking the idea that Facebook had become “equivalent to the third-largest country in the world,” and asking “what rights do the citizens of that country have?”
The document that was approved by the conference is a simple 14 point, 200 word declaration of expectations directed to social network sites, including conference attendees Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Fittingly enough each numbered article fits snugly within the 140 character limit of a tweet. Here’s the full text, as provided by the San Jose Mercury News:
The Social Network Users Bill of Rights
“We the users expect social network sites to provide us the following rights in their Terms of Service, Privacy Policies, and implementations of their system:
1.Honesty: Honor your privacy policy and terms of service.
2.Clarity: Ensure that policies and terms of service are easy to understand.
3.Freedom of speech: Don’t censor without a clear policy and justification.
4.Empowerment: Support privacy-enhancing and assistive technologies.
5.Security: Treat my data as securely as your own, and notify me if it is compromised.
6.Data minimization: Minimize the information I am required to provide and share with others.
7.Control: Let me control my data, and don’t share it with others unless I agree first.
8.Predictability: Don’t change who or what sees my data without my consent.
9.Right to know: Show me how you are using my data and allow me to see who and what has access to it.
10.Right to self-define: Let me create more than one identity and use pseudonyms. Do not link them without my permission.
11.Right to appeal: Allow me to appeal disciplinary actions.
12.Right to leave: Allow me to delete my account, and take my data with me.”
While the document is topical considering Facebook’s recent privacy issues, this is hardly the first attempt to define a Social Network Users Bill of Rights, here’s one from 2007, but this is the most formal and democratic version yet, inviting voting and debate on both Twitter and Facebook, with petitioning continuing both on Facebook and Twitter activism site/link shortener act.ly. At the same time however, Facebook claimed opposition to some of the measures, Google refuted the document in favour of their own privacy policy, and Twitter spokespeople declined comment, denying us both their perspective and a potential 140 characters joke.
It is in Facebook’s comments that we can get some actual insight to the issues any crowd-sourced declaration has to face – while social media is driven by the people, it is facilitated by private companies. These are private companies with their own shareholders, needs and expectations. More importantly at least one of these companies holds a perceived mandate from ‘over 400 million active users.’ In contrast, the official CFPBillOfRights Facebook page is liked, at the time of writing, by 148 people. To have the power to force this Bill of Rights upon Facebook would take an unprecedented international uptake; the support of at least 3% of the world’s 7 billion-strong population would just about do it. Alternatively, the vocal minority could tempt Facebook into a change of heart and lead the social media sector into an era of freeness and fairness.
Facebook’s opposition is easily understood considering their business model – making money from violating articles 6, 7, and 9 of the Bill. Running enough servers to support 400 million users costs a lot of money. Take away the profitability from Facebook and we may well find ourselves wishing we had left it well enough alone. To fund its operation without the income from knowing more about you than anyone else, the world’s preferred social network could have to implement a subscription policy or fold altogether. Fortunately for Facebook, they are unlikely to be forced to opt-in to anything.
In all this political allusion, everybody seems to be forgetting the one thing agonised over in every election without mandatory voting – voter apathy. In this case, voters may not yet know the Bill exists but it’s early days and it has the potential to go massively viral – the real obstacle is the number, likely the majority, of that 400,000,000 that have never read the privacy policy. People are accustomed to clicking straight through terms of services and privacy policies, and it will take more than a crowd sourced document to change that.
Change in this generation of social networks seems highly unlikely as Facebook seem poised to continue to oppose the document until it fades into obscurity. However, what if it doesn’t fade into mere mentions in blog archives and comment boxes as so many other memes have? At the moment, the Bill is just a noble statement – but if it has some sticking power it will become a noble statement with the opportunity to influence the creators of the next big social network before they get too big to change.
To have your say on the Social Network Users Bill of Rights, voting continues on Twitter and Facebook. To sign a petition in favour of the Bill, head here or here. To sign one against, head to this Facebook page or here.
About The Author
David Shawcross is a Social Media advocate and commentator. He has a degree in History and Politics from the University of Reading. David interned at Social Media Library in Spring 2010. You can catch him on Twitter at @DaveyStonew12.
