Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook

Facebook privacy policies keep going down the drain. That's enough reason for many to abandon it. Here you will find nine more:

After some reflection, I've decided to delete my account on Facebook. I'd like to encourage you to do the same. This is part altruism and part selfish. The altruism part is that I think Facebook, as a company, is unethical. The selfish part is that I'd like my own social network to migrate away from Facebook so that I'm not missing anything. In any event, here's my "Top Ten" reasons for why you should join me and many others and delete your account.

10. Facebook's Terms Of Service are completely one-sided

Let's start with the basics. Facebook's Terms Of Service state that not only do they own your data (section 2.1), but if you don't keep it up to date and accurate (section 4.6), they can terminate your account (section 14). You could argue that the terms are just protecting Facebook's interests, and are not in practice enforced, but in the context of their other activities, this defense is pretty weak. As you'll see, there's no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. Essentially, they see their customers as unpaid employees for crowd-sourcing ad-targeting data.
9. Facebook's CEO has a documented history of unethical behavior

From the very beginning of Facebook's existence, there are questions about Zuckerberg's ethics. According to BusinessInsider.com, he used Facebook user data to guess email passwords and read personal email in order to discredit his rivals. These allegations, albeit unproven and somewhat dated, nonetheless raise troubling questions about the ethics of the CEO of the world's largest social network. They're particularly compelling given that Facebook chose to fork over $65M to settle a related lawsuit alleging that Zuckerberg had actually stolen the idea for Facebook.
8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy



Founder and CEO of Facebook, in defense of Facebook's privacy changes last January: "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." More recently, in introducing the Open Graph API: "... the default is now social." Essentially, this means Facebook not only wants to know everything about you, and own that data, but to make it available to everybody. Which would not, by itself, necessarily be unethical, except that ...
7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-switch

At the same time that they're telling developers how to access your data with new APIs, they are relatively quiet about explaining the implications of that to members. What this amounts to is a bait-and-switch. Facebook gets you to share information that you might not otherwise share, and then they make it publicly available. Since they are in the business of monetizing information about you for advertising purposes, this amounts to tricking their users into giving advertisers information about themselves. This is why Facebook is so much worse than Twitter in this regard: Twitter has made only the simplest (and thus, more credible) privacy claims and their customers know up front that all their tweets are public. It's also why the FTC is getting involved, and people are suing them (and winning).

Check out this excellent timeline from the EFF documenting the changes to Facebook's privacy policy.
6. Facebook is a bully

When Pete Warden demonstrated just how this bait-and-switch works (by crawling all the data that Facebook's privacy settings changes had inadvertently made public) they sued him. Keep in mind, this happened just before they announced the Open Graph API and stated that the "default is now social." So why sue an independent software developer and fledgling entrepreneur for making data publicly available when you're actually already planning to do that yourself? Their real agenda is pretty clear: they don't want their membership to know how much data is really available. It's one thing to talk to developers about how great all this sharing is going to be; quite another to actually see what that means in the form of files anyone can download and load into MatLab.
5. Even your private data is shared with applications

At this point, all your data is shared with applications that you install. Which means now you're not only trusting Facebook, but the application developers, too, many of whom are too small to worry much about keeping your data secure. And some of whom might be even more ethically challenged than Facebook. In practice, what this means is that all your data - all of it - must be effectively considered public, unless you simply never use any Facebook applications at all. Coupled with the OpenGraph API, you are no longer trusting Facebook, but the Facebook ecosystem.
4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted

Even if we weren't talking about ethical issues here, I can't trust Facebook's technical competence to make sure my data isn't hijacked. For example, their recent introduction of their "Like" button makes it rather easy for spammers to gain access to my feed and spam my social network. Or how about this gem for harvesting profile data? These are just the latest of a series of Keystone Kops mistakes, such as accidentally making users' profiles completely public, or the cross-site scripting hole that took them over two weeks to fix. They either don't care too much about your privacy or don't really have very good engineers, or perhaps both.
3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account

It's one thing to make data public or even mislead users about doing so; but where I really draw the line is that, once you decide you've had enough, it's pretty tricky to really delete your account. They make no promises about deleting your data and every application you've used may keep it as well. On top of that, account deletion is incredibly (and intentionally) confusing. When you go to your account settings, you're given an option to deactivate your account, which turns out not to be the same thing as deleting it. Deactivating means you can still be tagged in photos and be spammed by Facebook (you actually have to opt out of getting emails as part of the deactivation, an incredibly easy detail to overlook, since you think you're deleting your account). Finally, the moment you log back in, you're back like nothing ever happened! In fact, it's really not much different from not logging in for awhile. To actually delete your account, you have to find a link buried in the on-line help (by "buried" I mean it takes five clicks to get there). Or you can just click here. Basically, Facebook is trying to trick their users into allowing them to keep their data even after they've "deleted" their account.
2. Facebook doesn't (really) support the Open Web

The so-called Open Graph API is named so as to disguise its fundamentally closed nature. It's bad enough that the idea here is that we all pitch in and make it easier than ever to help Facebook collect more data about you. It's bad enough that most consumers will have no idea that this data is basically public. It's bad enough that they claim to own this data and are aiming to be the one source for accessing it. But then they are disingenuous enough to call it "open," when, in fact, it is completely proprietary to Facebook. You can't use this feature unless you're on Facebook. A truly open implementation would work with whichever social network we prefer, and it would look something like OpenLike. Similarly, they implement just enough of OpenID to claim they support it, while aggressively promoting a proprietary alternative, Facebook Connect.
1. The Facebook application itself sucks

Between the farms and the mafia wars and the "top news" (which always guesses wrong - is that configurable somehow?) and the myriad privacy settings and the annoying ads (with all that data about me, the best they can apparently do is promote dating sites, because, uh, I'm single) and the thousands upon thousands of crappy applications, Facebook is almost completely useless to me at this point. Yes, I could probably customize it better, but the navigation is ridiculous, so I don't bother. (And, yet, somehow, I can't even change colors or apply themes or do anything to make my page look personalized.) Let's not even get into how slowly your feed page loads. Basically, at this point, Facebook is more annoying than anything else.

Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook

Facebook is clearly determined to add every feature of every competing social network in an attempt to take over the Web (this is a never-ending quest that goes back to AOL and those damn CDs that were practically falling out of the sky). While Twitter isn't the most usable thing in the world, at least they've tried to stay focused and aren't trying to be everything to everyone.

I often hear people talking about Facebook as though they were some sort of monopoly or public trust. Well, they aren't. They owe us nothing. They can do whatever they want, within the bounds of the laws. (And keep in mind, even those criteria are pretty murky when it comes to social networking.) But that doesn't mean we have to actually put up with them. Furthermore, their long-term success is by no means guaranteed - have we all forgotten MySpace? Oh, right, we have. Regardless of the hype, the fact remains that Sergei Brin or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett could personally acquire a majority stake in Facebook without even straining their bank account. And Facebook's revenue remains more or less a rounding error for more established tech companies.

While social networking is a fun new application category enjoying remarkable growth, Facebook isn't the only game in town. I don't like their application nor how they do business and so I've made my choice to use other providers. And so can you.

Dan Yoder is a serial entrepreneur and the VP of Engineering at Border Stylo, a Hollywood-based social media startup. He can be reached on Twitter as @dyoder.

Disclosure by Dan Yoder: I'm the VP of Engineering for a Hollywood-based social media startup, BorderStylo. The opinions expressed here are purely my own and are not in any way endorsed by my employer. While I do not see our applications as directly competitive to Facebook, nor have I presented them as such, it would be disingenuous not to mention this.

Thanks to David Harthcock for creating the great "Ban Facebook" graphic.

The author of this post can be contacted at tips@gizmodo.com
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7 Things Never to Say to Your Boss

Everyone has a boss. Even if you "work for yourself," you're still an employee to your client.

A big part of maintaining the boss-employee relationship is to never allow a boss to think you dislike your work, are incapable of doing it, or--worse--consider it beneath you.


These sound like no-brainers, but many statements heard commonly around the workplace violate these basic rules. Looking for an example? Here are seven heard in workplaces all the time. They may seem ordinary, even harmless. But try reading these from your boss's point of view. You'll see right away why it's smart to never allow these seven sentences to pass your lips:

"That's not my job." You know what? A lot of bosses are simple souls who think your job is to do what's asked of you. So even if you're assigned a task that is, indeed, not your job, refrain from saying so. Instead, try to find out why your boss is assigning you this task--there may be a valid reason. If you believe that doing the task is a bad idea (as in, bad for the company) you can try explaining why and suggesting how it could be better done by someone else. This may work, depending on the boss. In any case, remember that doing what's asked of you, even tasks outside your job description, is good karma.

"It's not my problem." When people say something is not their problem it makes them look like they don't care. This does not endear them to anybody, especially the boss. If a problem is brewing and you have nothing constructive to say, it's better to say nothing at all. Even better is to pitch in and try to help. Because, ultimately, a problem in the workplace is everyone's problem. We're all in it together.

"It's not my fault." Yet another four words to be avoided. Human nature is weird. Claiming that something is not our fault often has the result of making people suspect it is. Besides, what's the real issue here? It's that something went wrong and needs to be fixed. That's what people should be thinking about--not who is to blame.

"I can only do one thing at a time." News flash: Complaining you are overworked will not make your boss feel sorry for you or go easier on you. Instead, a boss will think: (1) you resent your job, and/or (2) you aren't up to your job. Everybody, especially nowadays, feels pressured and overworked. If you're trying to be funny, please note that some sarcasm is funny and lightens the mood. Some just ticks people off.

"I am way overqualified for this job." Hey, maybe you are. But the fact is, this is the job you have. You agreed to take it on and, while you may now regret that decision, it's still your job. Complaining that it's beneath you only makes you look bad. Plus, coworkers doing similar jobs may resent and dislike you. And guess what? Bosses will not think, "Oh, this is a superior person whom I need to promote." Nope, they'll think, "What a jerk."

"This job is easy! Anyone could do it!" Maybe what you're trying to convey here is that you're so brilliant your work is easy. Unfortunately, it comes off sounding more like, "This work is stupid." Bosses don't like hearing that any work is stupid. Nor do they really like hearing that a job is easy peasy. It belittles the whole enterprise. If a task is simple, be glad and do it as quickly as you can. Even "stupid" work needs to get done.

"It can't be done." Saying something can't be done is like waving a red flag in a boss's eyes. Even if the thing being suggested truly is impossible, saying it is can make you look ineffectual or incapable. Better to play detective. Why is the boss asking you to do whatever it is? What's the problem that needs to be solved? What's the goal? Search for doable ways of solving that problem or reaching that goal. That's what bosses really want. Most of them do not expect the impossible.

Last words: When in doubt, remember that silence really is golden.

Karen Burns is the author of the illustrated career advice book The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real-Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use, recently released by Running Press. She blogs at www.karenburnsworkinggirl.com.

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Managing Yourself: Five Ways to Bungle a Job Change

The average baby boomer will switch jobs 10 times, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The worker as free agent—a concept popularized in the 1990s—remains a reality regardless of economic conditions, making it incumbent on all of us to take greater control of our own careers. The corporate ladder is still being disassembled like a Jenga tower, and even the CEO position is no longer a terminus. As one independent financier we interviewed put it, “There are no final destinations. Your career is a process of continuous development.”

But while job moves are just about inevitable, they are seldom easy and nearly always emotionally fraught—and too often they lead to a noticeable decline in performance, in both the short and the long term. For instance, in previous research we found that star equities analysts moving to new investment banks experienced drops in performance that lasted as long as five years. People who switch organizations—whether they’re wide receivers changing football teams or general managers going to new companies—all face similar problems. It’s not just about the learning curve. Moves of all kinds entail significant internal and external challenges and transaction costs: upheaval in your home and social life; potential relocation expenses; adjustments to new cultural and political norms; navigation of unclear expectations; and the need to learn a new canon, skill set, and jargon.

Debating the merits of a particular offer might seem like a luxury when jobs are scarce. And of course there are times when you have no choice but to accept a less-than-perfect fit for financial reasons. Even so, a job is never just a job. This is your career we’re talking about. The occasional misstep can be forgiven, but a careful and conscious assessment of the risks and realities will help you avoid making too many mistakes or ones that amount to a major setback.

The Most Common Missteps

To identify the most frequent job-hopping errors, we analyzed data from three research streams: a survey of executive search consultants, a survey of HR heads at multinational companies, and interviews with C-level executives around the world. (See “About Our Research.”)


The job-change mistakes we outline in this article are by far the ones most commonly cited by the search consultants; the themes are echoed in the HR heads’ survey comments and in the executives’ stories about their best and worst decisions. The mistakes are: not doing enough research, leaving for money, going “from” rather than “to,” overestimating yourself, and thinking short term. They follow predictable patterns and persist throughout the course of a career.

These mistakes are not independent of one another; they play out as a system of maladaptive behaviors, dissatisfaction, unrealistic hopes, ill-considered moves, and more dissatisfaction. Fixating on money, for instance, can obscure the need for research. Overestimating yourself can cause you to ignore a bad fit—a problem that research might have helped you anticipate. Some job seekers make all five mistakes at once: Because they overvalue themselves, they feel unjustly treated at year-end review time and leave for the first company that promises a signing bonus, without doing due diligence on the firm’s long-term prospects.

The executives we surveyed and spoke to were not young, untested managers. We zeroed in on seasoned individuals (mostly in the C-suite) with substantial experience making hiring decisions of their own at the very highest levels. But, as one search consultant reminded us, many successful people haven’t looked for a job for years—sometimes decades—and thus are surprisingly ignorant about job-market realities. In the words of another consultant, “They assume that companies will be as flexible about having them learn new areas of business as they were when they were young.” They have unrealistic expectations about how long it will take to find a job, and if they’re high up in the hierarchy, it may have been some time since they received truly honest feedback about their strengths and weaknesses. That’s one reason they stumble into such predictable traps. (The blame doesn’t fall solely on the recruits, though. Companies chase these stars, hoping to simply plug them into an existing org chart. Too often, they are minimally strategic in their selection and even less strategic in integrating their new hires.)

Mistake 1: Not doing enough research.

Search consultants told us that job hunters neglect due diligence in four important areas.

First, they often don’t do their homework on the job-market realities for their industry or function. Since they’re not fully informed, they have unrealistic expectations when it comes to the search.

Second, they don’t pay enough attention to a potential employer’s financial stability and market position. Executives who would scrutinize the balance sheet of any firm they might acquire nevertheless assume that companies offering them a job must be on solid ground. Yet plenty of businesses will hire for senior jobs even when they know there’s trouble ahead, so it’s up to the applicant to assess how likely it is that the new job will still exist in six months.

Third, executives fail to consider cultural fit. Although hiring managers are supposed to attend to that, they often don’t—and it’s the new hire who will suffer most if the fit is a poor one.

Fourth, recruits assume that the official job title and description accurately reflect the role. But companies have been known to sweeten a title to attract top talent. Additionally, in a badly managed organization, people may find themselves in ill-defined jobs that have little relationship to their formal titles. One executive described his worst career move as leaving one company for a much smaller firm, where he was given the CFO title even though the bulk of his duties were really those of a COO. He found it hard to establish the credibility he needed to get the job done, given the misalignment of his tasks and title. Job candidates frequently fail to press potential employers for such specifics, including how their performance will be measured. Without that information, the success of any move depends on the luck of the draw.

Mistake 2: Leaving for money.

It’s easy to fall for a financially attractive offer. Search consultants told us that executives contemplating a job change rank income fourth or fifth in terms of importance but bump it to first place when making their decision. Our executive interviewees occasionally owned up to this error. Here’s how the vice president of talent and engagement at an international casino company characterized his own move based on pay: “I was doing the identical role for $10K more, but leaving behind the relationships and connections was just not worth it in hindsight.” Excessive focus on money is a frequently cited reason for inadequate research. “Opportunity for advancement and more money overrides the need to pursue core information,” said one search consultant.

Mistake 3: Going “from” rather than “to.”

Often, job seekers have become so unhappy with their present positions that they are desperate to get out. Instead of planning their career moves, they lurch from one place to the next, applying artificial urgency to the job hunt rather than waiting for the right offer. Candidates not only skimp on research in the belief that the grass has to be greener elsewhere but also fail to look strategically at their current companies for opportunities that might still exist for them.

Mistake 4: Overestimating yourself.

According to one search consultant, people “believe they contribute more than they actually do and undervalue the strengths of their organization in helping them achieve their objectives.” Job seekers, we found, tend to have an unrealistic view of their skills, their prospects, and occasionally their culpability. They often can’t identify the sources of success and failure at their existing jobs. Candidates are “looking at the current company as being the problem and not acknowledging that they themselves may be a part of the problem,” one consultant explained. Another put it this way: “People fail to be realistic sometimes [and] to be self-critical, and [they therefore think] that external circumstances and environments have more to do with their frustrations or failures than their own issues.”

Their excessively optimistic view of themselves leads them to underestimate how long a job search will take and what the switching costs will be. Such job seekers also overestimate the salary they can command and their capacity to deal with the challenges of the new position—particularly the difficulty of creating change in a large organization. This last error resonated with many of the executives we interviewed. One software CFO regretted taking a job at a large multinational, where it was “so much bigger, more unwieldy, difficult to make an impact, and impersonal,” he says. “No matter what I did, it didn’t make a difference.”

Mistake 5: Thinking short term.

Having a short-term perspective can feed into each of the other four mistakes. For instance, if you overestimate yourself, you may believe you deserve rewards now, not in five years. Leaving a firm because of money and going “from” rather than “to” are both overly influenced by immediate information and considerations. “How much money can I make right now?” the executive wonders. “How can I escape an unpleasant work environment?” Still, many of the search consultants rated short-term thinking as a serious career misstep in its own right—citing it separately, not just including it as a footnote to the other mistakes.

Making Moves Under Pressure

Job seekers’ mistakes aren’t random. All of us feel certain psychological, social, and time pressures that can lead to any of the five we’ve described. Though nobody is immune, we can ask questions of ourselves and others to help ameliorate these pressures’ effects.

Psychological pressure.

We are all motivated to maintain a sense of psychological safety by nurturing a positive self-image, by looking at the world as a knowable and predictable place, and by avoiding risk. This can lead to an overestimation of the self and to a habit of attending only to information that bolsters your existing beliefs. Psychologists call this selective attention “confirmation bias,” and it can play havoc with a strategic job search. A hiring company presumably wants to present itself in the most flattering light, and if a candidate is motivated to move, he or she will be more than willing to see only the bright side.

Our self-protective desires go beyond the ego. We also seek to protect our material well-being by minimizing losses. Because what people give up when they leave a job is so clear (at the very worst, it’s still the devil you know), excessive focus on short-term rewards and money may be a way of hedging against long-term risks that cannot really be evaluated.

Here are the fundamental questions to ask through every step of the job-change process: “What if I’m wrong? What is the evidence that this new company would be a good fit?” Do at least as much research on a company you’re planning to join as you would on a company you’re planning to buy stock in. Develop alternative scenarios. Consider how you’d feel about your present job if your boss left, for instance, or if the company secured an enticing new client. And rethink self-serving interpretations of events—how, for example, did your colleagues contribute to your success? This is difficult work, and it’s tough to manage by yourself. Many of the executives we interviewed rely on a mentor, network, or personal “board of directors” to provide this kind of reality check.
Social pressure.

Awkward social situations can trigger fight-or-flight instincts, putting strategic thinking squarely on the back burner—and they frequently lead people to make “from” rather than “to” decisions. The CFO of a marketing agency recounts such a situation from his own career, in which he changed jobs rather than have an awkward conversation or two: “Even though I enjoyed the company and had a great relationship with the CFO, I never spoke with him about my concerns before quitting. In retrospect, I realize that the CFO could have been instrumental in advancing my career within that company. If I had stayed...I could see myself being very happy and secure today.”

Stress management techniques like yoga and meditation can help alleviate this kind of social anxiety. So can rehearsing difficult conversations, alone or with a partner. By practicing clear communication, and by repeatedly restating your concerns, you can suppress your emotional reactions and remain rational in an actual conversation. Through candid conversations with colleagues or your boss, you might be able to redeem your current job rather than make an ill-advised change.

If you are seriously contemplating a move, don’t be afraid to ask tough questions at a job interview. When an interviewer can’t handle direct, relevant questions, what does that say about the corporate culture?

Social discomfort intimidates us far beyond its power to harm us; as is widely known, most people rank public speaking as a fear greater than death. Deconstructing such irrational fear can help free you from the social pressures that may lead you to make hurried, unhappy career moves.

Time pressure.

A hasty job change, made with insufficient information, is inherently compromised. When under time pressure, people tend to make certain predictable mistakes. They focus on readily available details like salary and job title instead of raising deeper questions, and they set their sights on the immediate future, either discounting or misreading the long term. Many also have an egocentric bias, thinking only of what affects them directly and ignoring the larger context.

Nonetheless, a career move will always involve some time pressure. To manage it, one COO in our study says he always keeps an ear to the ground with respect to industry trends, both in the U.S. and abroad. He explains that this is a way to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to career decisions. But no matter how well informed you are, you need strategies to jar yourself out of traditional ways of thinking and to make sure you aren’t heeding only the nearest, loudest, quickest source of information. With the help of your mentor or network, create a list of unknowns. Engage in counterfactual-thinking exercises: Consider whether you’d take the new job if the salary were the same as your current pay. Plot the most likely three-year trajectory at each company, working out the most optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. What decision would be right in each situation?

What if you do take the wrong job? The executives we interviewed were unanimous in their views: Cut your losses and move on. Fleeing to another bad situation is not the answer, though. We suggest making your next move strategically—and wherever you are in the search process, don’t hesitate to go down another road if it becomes evident that a certain kind of change wouldn’t be right.

Perhaps the best protection against career-management mistakes is self-awareness. It’s a broad concept, encompassing not only an understanding of your career-relevant strengths and weaknesses but also insight into the kinds of mistakes you are prone to make. It involves knowing how to correct for those tendencies, how others perceive you, when to consult a trusted mentor or network, what elements of a job make it truly satisfying for you, and what constitutes a healthy work-life balance.


About Our Research

For this article, we conducted a survey of 400 executive search consultants from more than 50 industries, interviews with more than 500 C-level executives in 40 countries, and a survey of HR heads at 15 multinational companies.

The search consultants had extensive experience placing the best and brightest: In our sample, 67% had 10-plus years of experience, and 70% recruited for stars at the senior-executive level or higher. We asked the consultants to name the most common mistakes people make when contemplating a job change and the reasons for those mistakes. We posed similar questions to the HR heads. The interviews with executives were conducted by students in Boris Groysberg’s 2008 class Managing Human Capital.

The consultants referred to a total of 738 mistakes. The top five kinds discussed in this article represent nearly two-thirds of them: We had 127 references to not doing enough research, 117 to leaving for money, 104 to going “from” rather than “to,” 76 to overestimating yourself, and 60 to thinking short term.

The smaller survey of HR heads matched the consultants’ feedback almost perfectly. Out of a total of 15 responses, not doing enough research was mentioned five times; leaving for money and going “from” rather than “to,” three times each; overestimating yourself, twice; and thinking short term, once.

From: Harvard Business Review

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