Scoble, Facebook & Entitlement
So, Scoble got banned from Facebook for running a script that pulled all sorts of data off the social network. Uproar ensues. In addition to all the “Facebook is the tool of the devil” blogging there was some, “well, he did break the terms of use and take information that wasn’t his own personal information…” blogging. I find Techdirt’s piece to be particularly good, Nicholas Carr’s, too.
Scoble then busted out a video to answer all the issues people have raised. Which I find to be mildly infuriating. He knows he broke the terms of use, but of course puts it in such a way that you know he doesn’t care and that wink wink nudge nudge, Facebook is still the devil. It all stems from his sense of absolute entitlement.
All the data in Facebook is his and dammit he can do what he wants with it. Whether or not the data should be his is not the question, the fact is the data is not his - it’s Facebook’s as outlined in their terms of use. This is, generally speaking, the problem that all the Free Software guys have with proprietary stuff - you don’t have control. Their answer (and a perfectly reasonable one) - don’t use it. If you can’t live with the restrictions don’t use it - find a free solution, build your own or campaign to change it. Those are hard to do when the proprietary one is there and good - but you know what? If you use it, stop whining when you break the rules and get a slap on the wrist.
Second - all the data he scraped? It’s not his personal data, it’s his friends’ personal data. Their names, email addresses, and birthdays - I didn’t give anyone my permission to use that nor did his friends. Yet in that video he not only feels entitled to it, he mocks you if you don’t think he should be allowed to have it.
Third - he suggests that there’s no difference between manual pulling of data and automated. That’s crazy talk - it is incredibly different to write down an email address or two or automatically pull thousands at once - it is the difference between wiretapping phones and wholesale surveillance where everything is routed to computers that analyze every phone call. Scale makes a lot of difference. Imagine if spammers wrote out each individual email instead of using their thousands of zombie computer networks to send out their millions of missives. Or if they went to each website in their browser writing down down any emails they happen to come across to note that they should send an email there later.
Just because his particular use was benign isn’t the point. Just because everyone probably would have been fine with his grabbing that info isn’t the point. It’s the potential for abuse that lies in systems that work that way - if he can do it so could anyone - and their uses for a database of names, email addresses and birthdays of thousands of people might not be so nice.
So it’s not that I don’t think it’d be nice to have a lot of this information be portable but it isn’t a simple question. He has a naive solution and condescends to everyone who doesn’t agree with it. It isn’t all his data and he isn’t entitled to it.
Want to keep Scoble banned? Join the Ban Scoble from Facebook group. Think he’s crusading for your rights? Join the Facebook re-open Robert Scoble Account !!!!! group. Tired of it all? Join the The Don’t Join Any Groups To Do With Scoble And Facebook Group group.
