It depends who you ask
Privacy concerns are leading to “virtual identity suicide” with large numbers of Facebook users deleting their accounts, according to new scientific research.
A study investigating the phenomenon identified privacy as the biggest reason people are turning against the social network giant.
The new scientific research (not linked, journal not named)
The primary source for our convenience sample of Facebook quitters was the Website of the online initiative Quit Facebook Day. On this Website, Facebook users had the possibility to announce their intention to delete their account on May 31, 2010, which was declared as the Quit Facebook Day.
And what was the point of Quit Facebook Day?
In our view, Facebook doesn’t do a good job in either department. Facebook gives you choices about how to manage your data, but they aren’t fair choices, and while the onus is on the individual to manage these choices, Facebook makes it damn difficult for the average user to understand or manage this. We also don’t think Facebook has much respect for you or your data, especially in the context of the future.
So, how surprising is it that Quit Facebook Day quitters are more concerned about privacy than people who keep using Facebook?
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »