As I scrolled down this page, I saw this link on the left side of the page:
Which led me nowhere productive! I tried several other links that looked like they would provide me with information about the rules of this site - actually I tried many links with no luck. Finally, after looking for a good 45 minutes to an hour, at the bottom of the homepage, I saw a tiny link called Terms, which got me to the rules of the site. Did everyone else but me know to click there immediately?
The set of rules that I found there is what Grimes (2008) calls the civil code. The civil code is determined by legal documents and policies which contain all of the written codified laws for a virtual world. These governing documents provide the framework for the community in the same way that Hawaii Administrative Rules and Hawaii Revised Statutes define the laws of our State in the off-line world. At URL http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf , the civil code of Facebook can be found. There are guidelines about:
- Eligibility: (over 13 years of age, in college or high school if between 13 & 18, or over 18),
- Registration Data: provide accurate profile information, keep it updated and secure
- Proprietary Rights: all content belongs to Facebook. Neither the content nor the trademarks can be reproduced without permission.
- User Conduct (This is a huge section!): For example, the number one rule with lots of word space attributed to it is - don’t use the site for commercial use. In addition other highlights from the code of conduct include: don’t include any content that Facebook deems to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; no videos allowed on this site that the user didn’t take, only register as yourself – no pseudonyms, use your correct age and affiliations, no groups or businesses; don’t solicit anything especially from anyone under 18, including anyone’s social security numbers, address, phone numbers, etc.; don’t send junk mail, spam, chain letters, etc.; don’t access anybody else’s site
- User Content: basically, you’re responsible to upload your own stuff (pictures, videos words) but Facebook has all rights to it and by using the site you agree to let the company use it anyway they want, forever and for no charge.
- Copyright: don’t infringe on anyone else’s copyright
- Repeat Infringer: following the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Facebook can kick you off their site if you violate copyrights, even once but certainly if you do it a lot
- Third Party Websites: Users can link to other sites and Facebook isn’t responsible for the content found there
- Information about specific pages: There are lots of paragraphs containing info about the uses of the various pages, basically explaining that the content put there is created by an individual, not Facebook
- User Disputes: basically, settle it among yourselves.
- Privacy: When you put anything on the Facebook site, you give permission for them to transfer information into servers within the United States.
- Disclaimers: I think they’re repeating all of the above information again here.
- Governance & Jurisdiction: The laws of Delaware apply to this site
- Indemnity: You can’t sue the company, any of its subsidiaries or anyone who ever before, currently or will ever work at Facebook, either now or in the future
The governing documents found on Facebook include all of the four types Grimes lists: software license agreements, terms of service or use agreements, privacy policies, and community standards and practices.
RULE BREAKERS:
OK, I’m going to admit it right off. I’m one example of a rule breaker. Because I’m concerned about security, I provided the wrong birth date on Facebook:
Well, I’m not too far off.
Would this qualify me as a rogue user? Using the loose definition of the term found in computer science literature as “individuals who are not full-fledged hackers but who have gained access to files or functions beyond their permission level” (Gazan, 2007) the answer would be, no, I sure don’t have the computer expertise to do that! Using the definition of rogue user defined by McNee et al. (in Gazan, 2007), as individuals who undermine the rating system in a collaborative filtering environment, I would again not fall under this definition. However, according to Gazan’s definition, a rogue user is an active participant in an online community who violates any of the community’s rules or spirit. Yikes, I did break a rule, I’m ‘fessing up to it – I am a rogue user! The reason why I posted an incorrect birth date is that I’m concerned that someone will use this in an inappropriate way, however, as Suler and Phillips (in Gazan, 2007) state, online participants seek the reward of recognition. Therefore, I didn’t change myself into an 18 year old or even a 37 year old, but kept my age within the 50ish range due to the recognition factor. Enough explaining and justifying – I’m guilty!
In this situation, I believe that there should be no action by the site administrator. In my opinion, it’s such a minor thing that no one would know, notice or care. There is no harm done to any of the other users on this site and I feel more secure knowing that no one can steal my identity by getting my real birthdate on Facebook. As for actions the other users should take, they should send me a birthday card around that date and they will get the card to me at just about the right time.
Another example of a violation of Facebook’s code of conduct is in the case of Akamai Coffee.
While Akamai makes the best coffee and chai that I have ever tasted anywhere, (no, they’re not paying me to say this!) they are using the name of their company as the first and last name of a person which is a violation of Facebook’s code of conduct. Not to give Mr. Coffee all the blame (or all the credit which ever it might be), the same technique was used by several other businesses such as Skyline Adventures and Maui BrewingCo so it must be a fairly common use of Facebook. However, the Facebook code of conduct (which, as you recall took me an inordinate amount of time to find) specifies that businesses can’t sign up – individuals have to sign up as themselves. Although I hope the site administrators don’t do anything about this as this is a tiny family owned business struggling to make ends meet, Facebook does put out a lot of warnings on their rules page about situations in which money might be made. I personally think it’s a good marketing tool, and in these tough economic times, small businesses need all the help the can get to stay afloat. I’m not a business person, so I’m not sure what, if any, ethical issues this may bring up as far as business practices go. Facebook administrators may feel that this issue may be somewhat like Kollock and Smith (1996) termed, the free-rider problem. Although I’m using the term in a very different way than Kollock and Smith intended it, Facebook administrators may not be willing for Mr. Coffee to get free advertising when other businesses pay them for it. To go along with Kollock and Smith’s logic, when ever a person cannot be excluded from the benefits that others provide (in this case, money other businesses paid to the Facebook company for advertising), each person is motivated not to contribute to the joint effort, but to free-ride. I know I’m stretching the analogy here and going in another direction than Kollock and Smith with this analysis. It just seemed that this article was the only one that I could remotely use to comment on this situation (rogue user again, huh?)
Looking
Because it was so difficult to find violations of the Facebook code of conduct, Facebook has met what Cosley et al. describe as the key challenge – creating interfaces, algorithms and social structures that encourage users to provide high quality contributions. In the study by Cosley, they state that administrative or user oversight increased both the quantity and quality of contributions while reducing antisocial behavior. This appears to have been the case with Facebook. As recommended by Cosley, Facebook appears to have expert oversight by their company staff and they also invite users to contribute recommendations to the sites governance. This creates an online social network system in which users' behavior and the content they post to this site basically complies with the site rules.
I have an example for you. I have broken the rules for Facebook a well! In the guidelines it says, that no one should "register for more than one User account..." We discussed a few weeks back about the value of separating personal and professional lives on social networking services. I have created two profiles on Facebook because my job required me to create a group for the UH Special Education department. I didn't want to have my employers and co-workers to have free range of my personal information, so I created a double with the minimum profile requirements to keep up with my job. Whoops! I think this is probably a common thing. All you need is two different e-mails and you're set. Can we be considered rougue users? There seems to be levels of misbehavior...
ReplyDeleteOne more thought: It's also against the rules to pose as another person when creating a profile. What about all those celebrity profiles? This is known to be misrepresentation. How would the site prove it, though? Is this really harmful to the community? Does it destroy trust?
ReplyDeleteI too have given Facebook the wrong birth date. I just don't think it's smart to give your birth date to anyone. If that constitutes a "rogue user" then I'm with you. I wonder if it is more difficult to find violations of Facebook's user conduct because it's one of the online communities in which people are personally vested. I connect with my IRL (in real life) friends through Facebook, people who know who I am. It is hard to commit many violations without suffering repercussions. In other online communities where I don't really know anyone, I may be more inclined (hypothetically of course) to be a rogue user. Carrie, I think many people have a Facebook profile for work and another for personal information. That seems to be an acceptable and smart Facebook “violation.”
ReplyDeleteFacebook needs to update its ToS, because companies and famous people have been signing up for pages for a long time. There's so many and it's so lucrative for Facebook in terms of traffic that I'm sure they know about it. (Unless there's another ToS that businesses see when they sign up - maybe.) They've had promotions with American Eagle underwear and other businesses before so they've even profited on it.
ReplyDeleteI find the "sign up with your real name" rule to also be thwarted within Facebook's system, because after you've registered you can change your name to whatever you want. I don't know if it's still this way, but it used to be it would have to be approved by an admin, and I saw friends get their names changed to ridiculous things. So in practice this rule doesn't seem to be kept either. (What's in a name? Is it my "real name" if it's a writing pseudonym, for example?) If Facebook also fixed their massively confusing privacy filter system and publicly explained how to use it, people might not need two accounts.
I don't think either of these examples are good examples of a rogue user, because the very idea of a rogue encompasses someone who doesn't follow norms. The fact that so many people have started to make second accounts and businesses have made accounts makes it mainstream, not rogue.
The "User Content" clause recently caused a whole bunch of controversy and is what started the whole "Voting on Governing the Facebook Site" business. People don't want Facebook just using their content for whatever they want.
Per Manda's observation, does it mean then that the FB community is establishing their own boundaries? Their own sense of what's acceptable behavior versus not? How, then, do the admin in FB respond? If they don't respond to "rogue" users such as those people who don't use their "real" identity or "fake" birthdays, will it continue? To what extend do we "misbehave" until someone says stop it?
ReplyDeleteLove this post, Denise. Love the comments, too. It's like how we can say words like "a**" on TV and the radio now versus a time when we couldn't. Society's tolerance and standards have changed. I'm sure FB developers didn't want Mr. Coffee and the like to use FB for profit, but there are so many businesses out there who use FB to connect with their customers. Why not? The members are okay with it...so let it go? Your fault if your company doesn't join, right?
On finding instances of Facebook violations, there are several articles on imposters who created accounts with malicious intentions. The more common ones are imposters posing as celebrities. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1152006/Fakebook-scandal-Website-closes-false-Kate-Winslet-profile-brands-Angelina-Jolie-crazy-cow.html Another imposter posed as a university student, Dan Gore, announcing a fake Obama rally. The imposter changed his or her profile picture to match Gore’s. Gore reported the imposter’s account to Facebook and feels that Facebook (and not the imposter) removed the account in accordance to the Facebook terms of use. The Dan Gore incident is an example of community members working with Facebook to identify imposters.
ReplyDeleteI agree that businesses using Facebook is a free-rider problem. There are many businesses using Facebook to promote themselves without consequence. Also, I think that the difference between using Facebook accounts for “personal, non-commercial use” and “non-personal, commercial use” is not well defined allowing businesses to create Facebook accounts. I found many instances of musicians http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gwen-Stefani/19074699872#/pages/Gwen-Stefani/19074699872?v=info&viewas=0 and recording companies http://www.facebook.com/pages/Interscope-Geffen-AM-Records/42553810029?ref=mf using Facebook to promote albums and tours. I would consider both accounts as “non-personal, commercial” use accounts. It’s obvious that Gwen Stefani did not personally create and does not personally maintain the account. As with Akamai Coffee, Interscope-Geffen-AM Records should not join Facebook as a business. However, these accounts are not used to directly sell albums or concert tickets so they may be considered “non-commercial use” accounts. I’m not a lawyer so it’s difficult for me to categorize an account as “personal, non-commercial use.”
For one of our earlier sessions, I created a Facebook account with an incorrect age. Yes, I too am guilty… In our case where we posted an incorrect age to protect our identity no action should be taken, but some regulations should be enforced in cases where children pose as adults. I’m sure that this is a major concern for the Facebook considering all of the media attention that MySpace received regarding kids using MySpace. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/06/eveningnews/main1288944.shtml
Have you heard of the Whopper Sacrifice? It was basically a Burger King marketing strategy, where if you defriend 10 people from your list, you get a free Whopper. The downside is that those people will get message saying that they've been defriended, and this, according to Facebook, was a violation of user privacy. Here is a NY Times article on this, and the Facebook Application.
ReplyDeleteAs others pointed out, there are many examples of retail and restaurant businesses that have a facebook presence (Jack Box). Maybe there's a legitimate reason or exception facebook makes for companies now? I read the portion of the civil code about not being responsible for content on third party sites. I think facebook for rss type feeds to be used in pages where the content is created and resides on third party sites. This could create a gray area because blog posts can have questionable content that feeds into facebook.
ReplyDeleteI think it may have been difficult to provide examples of rule violation because you're limited to a social circle. If you were able to quickly search throughout the community, my guess is that you'd come across many clear examples.
I am also using Facebook for my final project and found that the timing of the user voting on governance rather serendipitous for this assignment. Unfortunately my blog post appears to have gotten misplaced in the void and I hope I can recreate it. The results of the vote are not yet "official" as they need to be audited by outside parties, but there seems to be a clear consensus for the new governing documents that take into account user comments and concerns. The resulting documents appear to have clearer "lay" language. The legalese has been clarified or replaced, and the documents adjust some Terms to better meet user expectations and interpretations.
ReplyDeleteBefore I get to worked up about "commercial" entities with Facebook pages, I think I'd like to know if there is a Facebook allowed exception as many companies and organizations have profiles, and many of these are useful sources of information and places to network with other fans etc.
I did have a hard time finding violations...Dean is right in pointing out that the limited social circle environment limits one's resources for searching for "rogue users."
Sounds very interesting ! According to this definition, most of the online users, maybe over 80% are "rogue user". I find that many people try to hide their personal information online. They maybe give a wrong birth date, use nickname etc. Sometimes I find that they just use the default value no matter what it is. That is: they just press "Yes" all the way to finish their registion. It turns out they generate some informations which they don't even know themself.
ReplyDelete