I've been a casual Facebook user for three years or so now. Joining on a whim, I wanted to see what this whole ecosystem of apps and connections was all about. Even so, I never actively used the site extensively aside from letting Twitter cross-post to it and replying to comments.

Facebook is a huge accessibility nightmare. Many of its links aren't reported as such to assistive technologies–or at least, they aren't to Orca–and sometimes it's impossible to trigger some of its functionality via the keyboard. Until recently, there was a lite interface that gave increased accessibility at the cost of functionality, but this was abandoned and I'm now back to casual use.

Furthermore, Facebook's privacy policies are slowly eroding. For clear proof of this, see this timeline demonstrating the changes. Facebook hooked a huge demographic by offering tight privacy controls, then is gradually letting those slip away over time.

So why do I care? After all, don't I myself claim that I'm just a casual user? Yes, but the information associated with me on Facebook isn't always determined by me. Sure, I probably have control over that aspect of my profile as well, but if so then it's hidden behind some inaccessible privacy setting control made difficult to locate. Also, even if I have access to such things today, nothing says I will tomorrow.

Let me illustrate with a concrete example. I personally have never uploaded photos to Facebook. Being blind, I generally don't associate pics with my profile unless there's some tangible benefit–for dating sites and such. Despite this, there are five photos associated with me in which I've been “tagged.” I didn't upload these. I have no idea what they are, if they're pics I want anyone and everyone associating with me. Sure, I could probably delete my tags on these, but the photos could just as easily be flattering and I'd not mind the association. But Facebook never asked me to confirm this. It just unilaterally decided that “hey, someone says you're in this picture, so here it goes on your profile.”

In the past, the way to control your privacy online was to only disclose what you're comfortable sharing. If you don't want someone to know that you're eating a biscuit or going to the bathroom then don't tweet about it. If you don't want people knowing where you are then don't use services like Foursquare which share such details. But what Facebook does takes this out of my hands. Those things which are associated with me are not under my control, and while I haven't been bitten by that yet (at least, I don't think that I have) I don't know that waiting until that happens is a wise choice either. If you know that a stove burner is heating up, is touching it until your hand sizzles a good way to test how hot it is?

So where am I now if not on Facebook? There's my infrequently updated blog which is seeing more steady updates of late. I'm also on Identi.ca and Twitter. These sources are either under my control, or their scope is more narrowly defined to only those things I choose to share.

I like the Facebook model, just not what it stands for. To that end, I'm keeping tabs on the efforts of groups like Onesocialweb which will offer Facebook-like functionality over decentralized, federated networks.

So where to from here? I'll leave this note up for a few days so that anyone wishing to keep in touch can do so, but after that I'm deactivating my account. I think that Facebook requires a two-week delay between account deactivation and deletion, but I'm just not attached enough to this account to want to keep it in light of my concerns, and the two-week delay is in my mind another effort to retain someone's information for marketing reasons should they forget to delete. I'm not doing this out of any great anger or affront at how Facebook treats its users. As far as I'm concerned, it can do what it wishes. But, in every instance, Facebook continues to do what it does ultimately due to the actions of two parties–Facebook themselves and each user who quietly decides that it's OK. In my case, I've decided that it isn't, and it now falls to me to terminate my consent.