pre-altered source image - copperscaledragon-220121
An Unpleasant Suprise
Yesterday I took my family to the beach. My daughter is eighteen months old and couldn't remember the previous two times we'd been.....so everything was very new to her. Her astonishment and joy at all the new stimulae and experiences was wonderful to behold; running on sand and building castles, chasing her hat blown by the wind, jumping in sea puddles warmed by the sun, charging around at the edge of the sea with the spray shimmering and splashing her face. My fiancé and I took many photos, precious memories of fleeting moments.
Having spent the whole day at the beach, we returned home thoroughly worn out. Not long afterwards, Anna was looking through her photos when she received a Facebook notification requesting her to view a slideshow. She selected to view the slideshow, not really knowing what it was, and all the photos she had taken at the beach began to bloom all over the screen. So what's the problem? Well she found it super creepy for Facebook to be displaying her photographs in such a way, before she had even viewed them herself. She showed me and I agreed with her, it felt highly intrusive. Anna had made every attempt to prevent Facebook from accessing her photo library, but here she was, with Facebook's applications peeping at and using her photos with apparent impunity.
It is behaviour like this that makes me believe that Facebook's days are numbered. The pressure to access and monetise their user's data will continue to ensure that their interests fail to align with their users and what many would consider abuses will only continue.
I accept, some people may not have a problem with Facebook accessing user data in this way and that's ok. For us, Facebook just gets creepier every day.