The Facebook Backlash

Facebook is done. The New York Times has declared an exodus from the popular social networking site started by two enterprising Harvard University students in 2004. “If you ask around, as I did,” writes Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times, “you'll find quitters.”

Why this disillusioned departure? “It was suddenly clear that Facebook was not just a social club but also an expanding force on the web, beholden to corporate interests,” says Heffernan. If this concern doesn't sound familiar, it should.

Consider GeoCities, the online homesteading service which debuted in 1995. When they were purchased by Yahoo in 1999, users bemoaned the new corporate owners, who disbanded a popular community leader programme and declared ownership over anything users posted to their pages. “They wanted our 'community' but they pretty much have altered it and made it into something else … exactly what they told us they would not do,” one user explained to CNET.

via The Facebook backlash | Phoebe Connelly | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.