Criticism of Facebook

Facebook has made changes throughout its lifespan from user interface, to the addition and removal of features, to policy changes. These changes often have their supporters and detractors. The user-created content of some user pages, public pages, and groups, has been criticized for promoting or dwelling upon controversial and often divisive topics (e.g., politics, religion, sex, etc). There have been several issues, both on the website and off the website. Of particular note are the new user interface format launched in 2008, and the changes in Facebook's Terms of Use, which removed the clause detailing automatic expiry of deleted content.

In 2015, it was reported that a growing number of Facebook users are being wrongfully and inexplicably suspended from their accounts by Facebook to give up copies of their private identification information. If such information is not given up, users suffer permanent restriction from their accounts with no alternative way of retrieving them. The private identification being summoned by the website from its users include copies of their driver's license, state-issued ID cards, passports, military cards, photo IDs, etc. This has created great displeasure for users who practice discretion with such information. It's also worthy to note that Facebook does not require the release of such information when individuals sign up for the site. With this kind of personal information having the potential to seriously harm individuals, the method has been described by users as a presumptuous, dictatorial move and an offensive invasion of privacy by Facebook. Other popular websites have only asked for verification of identities through an e-mail confirmation link, or in some cases, a cellular phone text message confirmation.

In 2010, the Electronic Frontier Foundation identified two personal information aggregation techniques called "connections" and "instant personalization". They demonstrated that anyone could get access to information saved to a Facebook profile, even if the information was not intended to be made public. A "connection" is created when a user clicks a "Like" button for a product or service, either on Facebook itself or an external site. Facebook treats such relationships as public information, and the user's identity may be displayed on the Facebook page of the product or service.

Instant Personalization was a pilot program which shared Facebook account information with affiliated sites, such as sharing a user's list of "liked" bands with a music website, so that when the user visits the site, their preferred music plays automatically. The EFF noted that "For users that have not opted out, Instant Personalization is instant data leakage. As soon as you visit the sites in the pilot program (Yelp, Pandora, and Microsoft Docs) the sites can access your name, your picture, your gender, your current location, your list of friends, all the Pages you have Liked—everything Facebook classifies as public information. Even if you opt out of Instant Personalization, there's still data leakage if your friends use Instant Personalization websites—their activities can give away information about you, unless you block those applications individually."

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Wikipedia