Facebook Breaks the Social Media Social Contract

It seems that Facebook's attempt to revise it's T&Cs has resulted in a rapid backtrack. Admitedly, Zuckerberg and his team seem to have handled this well - going straight back to the community to discuss issues rather than sticking with the "Well, it's our site" line. In the past - particularly with the redesign issue - the community's voice went unheard but with this particular issue Facebook has promised to listen to everyone.

It's interesting to draw contrasts between this situation and the OCLC response - essentially both revolve around rights issues but in the case of OCLC there's money - and a client/provider relationship - involved and that's not true of Facebook. The money in Facebook comes through advertising and not (directly) from the user.

Facebook - like many similar Web 2.0 services - is 'free'. Free software evangelists talk about "Free as in speech, not as in beer" and Facebook (and the ilk) are closer to the free beer than free speech. Although, of course, free access doesn't mean that there's no cost to users in terms of attention.

In addition, Facebook has something more complex; an implied relationship which is directly contradicted by Terms and Conditions - a kind of Social Contract for Social Media. Only when there's an attempt to enforce, change or highlight the 'actual' rules does this implicit set of responsibilities come out.

For better or worse, people have extended the Google mantra of 'Don't be evil' to other web companies. Rights grabbing and restrictions are expected of 'old' leviathans like Microsoft and (to some extent) Apple - often far more than they actually deserve.

Google may own pretty much everything we do in their part of the cloud but how many people really expect them to do anything about it? And what would the reaction to a (truly) evil act be?

Social Networks for Digital Natives

Generally, there are two reactions to Facebook (and the ilk): What an opportunity! and What a waste of time!

Whatever your view, Facebook is an environment which allows libraries to connect to users (particularly 16-35 year old, middle class users...) and some libraries have made great use of the resource (example, example, example).

But, you'll find that it's mostly Higher Education (and some Further Education)-type libraries that are really engaging with Facebook. Why? Because lots of organisations have banned access - especially council authorities hosting public libraries.

Here's an interesting post on why Social Networking sites shouldn't be blocked [via Library Stuff]. It's a fair point, those of us who are 'heavy' web users don't find it easy to differentiate between 'work' and 'play' (and that swings both ways!). Those social networks are in both arenas and the tools are used in both ways. Ironically, the blurring of work and play which is often blamed for wasting time is probably going to be as essential as email over the coming years.

IT and personnel departments need to think carefully about exactly what they are preventing access to when they block these kind of sites (even if it's for 'ideological' reasons). Closing the door on opportunities by using technology to try and replace sensible and pragmatic management is never a good long term strategy and will only result in librarians losing out on skills, and patrons losing out on services.