Facebook at the crossroads

I have to admit, I followed into Facebook like a lemming, but unlike when I set up a Myspace page, I was actually happy I followed along, as I mentioned previously, it seemed to be that Facebook was like MySpace for intelligent people.  But it would seem that the intelligent part stops at the user interface, as some of the decisions that I have seen coming out of Facebook lately have left me scratching my head.

First of all, the seemingly stupid story where Facebook apparently didn’t learn a lesson from the debacle that hit LiveJournal a year ago, and decided that a picture of a woman breastfeeding is against their Terms of Service because it is obscene.  I have linked to some better sources on this already, and there are more popping up, as the likes of this conversation with Facebook representatives.  Motherhood Uncensored suggests just deactivating your account.  Now I have to admit, I have not done so (yet), and thought the measure a bit extreme.  But this not the end.

While Facebook apparently is making the world safe from the sight of breastfeeding because it is a “family friendly” sight, that hasn’t stopped them from ignoring reapeated requests from the NY Attorney Generals office investigating the company to ensure they are taking proper measures to keep kids safe from online predators.  So now Facebook is being subpoenaed for the records.

In case that isn’t enough to get you scratching your head, this next piece of news certainly will, if it doesn’t have you running to remove your profile.  It seems that now Facebook has decided to make profiles available to Search Engines.  Privacy be damned I guess.  You have to specificaly OPT OUT of the new program if you don’t want your “Name” or Picture showing up n a search engine.  Depending how much of your information they are going to let the Search Engienes have, a lot of information will be out there in what I can only describe as a telemarketers dream come true.

Add to that, the fact that people are already getting leery of Facebook because of the proposed influx of cash by Microsoft , where Microsoft will (if it goes through) own 5% of Facebook; and potentially you have a real chance of a major exodus of users, at least until Facebook earns some credibility back.

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