Facebook, Photos and the Right to be Forgotten

Another day, another story about the right to be forgotten. This time it's another revelation about how hard it is to delete stuff from Facebook. In this case it's photos - with Ars Technica giving an update on their original story from 2009 about how 'deleted' photos weren't really deleted. Now, according to their new story, three years later, the photos they tried to remove back then are STILL there.

The Ars Technica story gives a lot more detail - and does suggest that Facebook are at least trying to do something about the problem, though without much real impact at this stage. As Ars Technica puts it:

"....with the process not expected to be finished until a couple months from now—and unfortunately, with a company history of stretching the truth when asked about this topic—we'll have to see it before we believe it."

I'm not going to try to analyse why Facebook has been so slow at dealing with this - there are lots of potential reasons, from the technical to the political and economic - but from the perspective of someone who's been watching developments over the years one thing is very important to understand: this slowness and apparent unwillingness (or even disinterest) has had implications. Indeed, it can be seen as one of the main drivers behind the push by the European Union to bring in a 'right to be forgotten'.

I've written (and most recently ranted in my blog 'Crazy Europeans') about the subject many times before, but I think it bears repeating. This kind of legislative approach, which seems to make some people in the field very unhappy, doesn't arise from nothing, just materialising at the whim of a few out-of-touch privacy advocates or power-hungry bureaucrats. It emerges from a real concern, from the real worries of real people. As the Ars Technica article puts it:

"That's when the reader stories started pouring in: we were told horror stories about online harassment using photos that were allegedly deleted years ago, and users who were asked to take down photos of friends that they had put online. There were plenty of stories in between as well, and panicked Facebook users continue to e-mail me, asking if we have heard of any new way to ensure that their deleted photos are, well, deleted."


When people's real concerns aren't being addressed - and when people feel that their real concerns aren't being addressed - then things start to happen. Privacy advocates bleat - and those in charge of regulation think about changing that regulation. In Europe we seem to be more willing to regulate than in the US, but with Facebook facing regular privacy audits from the FTC in the US, they're going to have to start to face up to the problem, to take it more seriously.

There's something in it for Facebook too. It's in Facebook's interest that people are confident that their needs will be met.  What's more, if they want to encourage sharing, particularly immediate, instinctive, impulsive sharing, they need to understand that when people do that kind of thing they can and do make mistakes – and they would like the opportunity to rectify those mistakes. Awareness of the risks appears to be growing among users of these kinds of system – and privacy is now starting to become a real selling point on the net. Google and Microsoft's recent advertising campaigns on privacy are testament to that - and Google's attempts to portray its new privacy policy as something positive are quite intense.

That in itself is a good sign, and with Facebook trying to milk as much as they can from the upcoming IPO, they might start to take privacy with the seriousness that their users want and need. Taking down photos when people want them taken down - and not keeping them for years after the event - would be a good start. If it doesn't happen soon, and isn't done well, then Facebook can expect an even stronger push behind regulation like the Right to be Forgotten. If they don't want this kind of thing, then they need to pre-empt it by implementing better privacy, better user rights, themselves.