Put your face in the book

If you’re on Facebook, you may have noticed that I’ve been gradually deleting the photo albums and videos I’ve had posted on there forever. I probably had close to a thousand pictures on there, from various gaming and other events, birthdays, visits to the zoo, all sorts of fun stuff like that. I’ve been taking all of it down.

With the frequency and vague wording with which Facebook changes its privacy policies, I’ve decided that it can’t be trusted.

Just last week, Instagram – purchased earlier in the year by Facebook – released a new privacy policy/terms of service that made it obvious to everyone that their photos might as well have been sold to a stock photo syndicator without their knowledge (and certainly without either the photographers or subjects of the pictures seeing a dime from it). Within 24 hours, Instagram was in full-blown oh-shit backpedal mode, trying unsuccessfully to soothe everyone and convince them that the TOS said something other than what it actually said. 24 hours after that, the new TOS was revoked so it could be reworked.

If anyone actually thinks that the reworked version is honestly going to be worded to the end user’s advantage, I’m going to assume that they’re from the segment of the population that still fervently believes in Santa Claus.

If anyone thinks that this was anything but a trial rollout of a major privacy policy change on a more-or-less expendable tentacle of Facebook’s empire, I’m going to assume that they also fervently believe in unicorns and leprechauns and the Tooth fairy too.

If you’ve been paying much attention at all, you’ll notice that I’ve been posting photos and stuff here, and just linking to them via Facebook. Pretty soon I’ll be echoing even my pithiest comments and goofiest one-liners here as well, because, well, why not? Why leave my stuff at the mercy of someone else’s server?

Also, sometime before he gets into grade school, I’m going to begin locking anything Little-E-related down to where registered users only can see it. (Here’s where you sign up.) Up until now it’s been something everyone can look in on, because I love my son and I’m terribly proud of him. But it’s not just the kids Zuckerberg’s age that I worry about. It’s the kids younger than that who have been brought up with absolutely no expectation of privacy whatsoever, who may or may not be the kid’s friends as he grows up. I have no doubt the growing-up part will be difficult for him like it was for me. Friends and irritants will be made along the way; I will provide no ammo to the latter, not even inadvertently.

I’ll still be on Facebook for a while yet, primarily because it provides a venue – via theLogBook.com’s page (be sure to “like” it if you haven’t already, and if its content interests you) – to promote new books and other projects. But if things continue to change to the point that I see no advantage in even sticking around for that, I’ll be gone in a flash.

I know that asking people to sign up on my blog is asking them to put up with yet another login name and password to keep track of, all so they can see what’s up with the fam, so I understand that there’ll be very little transfer from the Facebook friend list to user signups or participation here. I’m not expecting everyone to come over here in droves. Just know that, eventually, here is where not only the pictures, but the stories, will be. And where I’ll be.

Facebook is an incredibly neat idea, but one that has gotten corrupted, perhaps inevitably, because Zuckerberg was always more of a Jobs than a Wozniak. Just ask Apple, whose most recent product in my possession is a still-working Apple IIc with a missing “6” key: once you get too Jobs, people like me back away and stop falling for the okeydoke.

Besides, we’ve known for many years what would happen if we put our face in the book.