Terms And Conditions Will Apply
Before the Fourth of July, I made a Facebook account for my summer job – I worked in Wash U’s Office of Scholar Programs and needed an account to invite scholars from the Class of 2023 to the official Facebook group of the Rodriguez Scholars Program. So I followed them, invited them all to the Facebook group and then went on vacation for a weekend. I always heard about Facebook abusing privacy and using our personal information to profit, but I thought it was probably harmless.
Like almost all Facebook users and ordinary consumers (more than 90% according to polls from Deloitte), when creating my account, I declined to read the terms and conditions – only after I created the account did I investigate them. I expected the terms to list out ways Facebook profits off our data (Facebook does not hide its mission – Mark Zuckerberg himself admitted to Congress on April of 2018 that Facebook uses its users’ data to strategically place advertisements based on individual preferences). I did not, however, expect the vagueness of Facebook’s terms and conditions. Facebook’s conditions state that “we may use all of the information we receive about” the user “to serve ads that are more relevant”; the terms and conditions say that this information includes “things we infer from your use of Facebook” – a statement that, once the consumer agrees, means Facebook can rely on unclear and unknown means to acquire personal data.
Facebook’s inferring can stem from “information from some of the websites and apps you use” on devices with which you use Facebook, meaning that Facebook can pull whatever you do on the internet to personalize ads and increase connection to others. That explains why when I returned to St Louis, Facebook tried to connect me to friends from my hometown and some distant relatives despite me only following Wash U students and declining to provide any information connecting me to my home or family. While connecting people together sounds great (after all, I would love to reconnect with my cousins), Facebook can only effectively do so by trying to manage billions of people’s data, which leads to three main defects: negligent mismanagement, commodifying personal information, and concentrating power in Facebook executives.
When billions of people trust large companies like Facebook with our web history and personal information, it leads to a highly volatile situation where everyone’s information is in the same place. Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm owned by hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, took full advantage by stealing personal information from 50 million Facebook users to target them with personalized political advertisements advancing Cambridge Analytica’s agenda. Facebook, however, not only failed to stop Cambridge Analytica from stealing information but in 2015 (according to documents originally leaked in the Observer and later confirmed in a Facebook statement) Facebook found out about the theft and took very limited steps to secure the data.
Cambridge Analytica, in turn, also exposed Facebook’s use of data as a means to turn us into commodities – like Cambridge Analytica merely sees users as voters to exploit for its agenda, personalized advertisements on Facebook exploit users’ information for profit. Facebook’s – and any other free social media company – business model revolves on selling our information for profit, turning Facebook users from consumers into products. As we post our entire lives on Facebook, the company uses our lives for its profit while marketing itself as a benevolent organization that (in its own words) “give[s] people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”.
With so many users (nearly 2.4 billion) and so much information, Facebook’s potential for connectivity and “bring[ing] the world closer together” also leads to a tremendous – and dangerous – concentration of power. Documents leaked to the Observer revealed how in Canada, India, Vietnam, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia, and the entire European Union, Facebook threatened to withhold investment and used the promise of building new data centers and headquarters (particularly in cases of Canada, Malaysia, and Ireland) to dissuade politicians from promoting privacy legislation.
While Facebook grew large enough to manipulate public policy worldwide, it somehow grew too large to control its media platforms on a global scale. For Myanmar, a country of over 50 million people, Facebook devoted only two Burmese speakers to reviewing problematic posts from abroad. In fact, to this day, no Facebook employees operate in Myanmar – a country where for many, Facebook is among the only accessible websites. In Myanmar, Facebook users grew from 1.2 million in 2014 to 18 million in 2018. Concurrently, Facebook posts in Myanmar popularized anti-Muslim sentiment and correlated with an increase in genocidal rhetoric in public policy and hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the country. Not only did Facebook neglect to employ people speaking Burmese, Myanmar’s native language, but even its algorithms failed to translate and recognize hate speech; for example, Facebook’s algorithm translated “Kill all the kalars that you see in Myanmar; none of them should be left alive” to “I shouldn’t have a rainbow in Myanmar”. Despite Facebook’s pledge to remedy the problem, it remains a platform used to incite violence and hate speech.
While I knew none of these details before creating my Facebook account, I did know the following about Facebook: it is among the largest companies in the world, it uses our personal information to sell advertisements and can spread information extremely quickly – impacting even those of us without Facebook accounts. So if I already knew sufficient information to scare me out of making a Facebook, why did I make one? Because the modern world demands it – after all, I created my account for my job.[su_pullquote align=”right”]If I already knew sufficient information to scare me out of making a Facebook, why did I make one? Because the modern world demands it.[/su_pullquote]
Despite scandal after scandal rattling Facebook, the number of Facebook users continues to climb. In fact, since the beginning of 2017, it climbed from under 2 billion to nearly 2.4 billion users. In January, the company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $16.9 billion and on the week of March 7 of 2019 Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth climbed $2.8 billion. If people like me – who hate Facebook and know its scandals – still exist on Facebook against our own opinions, and Facebook continues to profit, nobody should expect Facebook to change its ways. As a capitalist corporation, it behaves consistently with its ultimate goal – profit and expansion.[su_pullquote]As a capitalist corporation, Facebook behaves consistently with its ultimate goal – profit and expansion.[/su_pullquote]
If we cannot easily quit Facebook and cannot trust Facebook to regulate itself when it profits so tremendously, how can we ensure greater accountability in Facebook, greater protection of our privacy, and cut the negative impacts of connecting to Facebook while maximizing the positives ones for the public good? It stems from what me – and most other Facebook users – care least about: the terms and conditions.
By checking the box under Facebook’s (and any social media platform’s) terms and conditions, users allow Facebook to conduct whatever operations they want. Despite not knowing that Facebook can track your entire internet usage, we allow them to do so because we lack the time or motivation to read all the terms and conditions. Mark Zuckerberg publicly recognized while testifying before Congress that “long privacy policies are very confusing. And if you make it long and spell out all the detail, then you’re probably going to reduce the percent of people who read it and make it accessible to them.” Facebook knows its policy causes confusion and frustration.
During that same testimony, Republican Senator John Kennedy vocalized popular resentment over Facebook’s lack of transparency in its user agreement. “The purpose of a user agreement is to cover Facebook’s rear end, not inform users of their rights.” He continued, “I’m going to suggest you go home and rewrite it” so that “the average American user can understand.”
With respect to the Senator, his mere suggestion is insufficient. Comparatively, the European Union passed the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Europe’s privacy laws strictly maintain that companies like Facebook cannot use illegible terms and conditions with confusing language and industry jargon; moreover, users must easily access the user agreement and must have access to data companies process from them. The European Union simplified terms and conditions – in turn, simpler and more transparent user agreements ease users’ ability to revoke consent to Facebook and decrease Facebook’s ability to use vague and confusing rhetoric to gain consent to harvest more data than the average user would feel comfortable giving away.
With less power over its user agreement, Facebook will inherently own less authority in stealing information for personalized ads. Less authority over consumers will limit its power over advertisers because with fewer data to personalize ads, Facebook’s advertisements become less valuable and Facebook may see profits decrease. With smaller profits, Facebook must limit the money it spends lobbying politicians overseas because it will have less money to spend.[su_pullquote align=”right”]With less power over its user agreement, Facebook will inherently own less authority in stealing information for personalized ads. Less authority over consumers will limit its power over advertisers.[/su_pullquote]
Facebook proceeded to change its format in Europe to update what it shares; its advertising and the accessibility of information Facebook collects. Essentially, while European rules likely will not completely fix Facebook’s problems, forcing it to change its terms and conditions can increase transparency, which can reduce Facebook’s access to personal information, reduce the volatility of data to be stolen by third parties and cut Facebook’s ability to meddle in others’ affairs.
We need not unrealistically expect Facebook to change itself; transforming Senator Kennedy’s words into policy – as Europe did – can change it for us.
Christian Monzón ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at Christian.monzon@wustl.edu.