CHILD PROTECTION AND IDENTITY THEFT
Times Online: To what extent are you responsible for the safety of children
who use Facebook?
Chris Kelly: There are multiple layers of responsibility and the core for us
is to provide the tools that will be effective at protecting kids. Kids have
to be educated to recognise inappropriate approaches and advances and how to
report them. Parents need to be aware of what their kids are doing online
and how available or not available their information is.
One of the things that you have to do is to educate kids not to meet anyone
that they only know online, and to tell their parents where they’re going
and what they’re doing, and have the parents be an active participant in
their lives.
What tools do you have to help protect users?
We’ve always had special rules for under 18s versus over 18s. Even though the
London network may be a very large network, there are really two London
networks, one for under 18s and one for over 18s. An over 18 in the London
network cannot see the profile of an under 18 in the London network.
We do have several of our own tools besides the privacy settings. We have
systems that operate behind the scenes to detect anomalous behaviour, which
we use for anti-spam and anti-phishing as well as against inappropriate
approaches to minors. For instance, a 45yo attempting to befriend a 14yo is
a situation that gets detected fairly quickly.
Is there any technical way in which you can determine the age of a member?
Generally there’s not a comprehensive database of who is what age,
particularly for under 18s. For adults there are a number of databases:
driver’s licenses, for instance, although we’ve seen in the UK the problems
that can happen with these databases and who can access them.
Do you have any idea of the scale of the problem within Facebook?
We think that any inappropriate approach is a problem, but it’s also very
important to note that there’s really actually no way to attack a child
through a website.
Do you think that some of the fear and criticism is based on a lack of
understanding about social networks?
There is a lot of misunderstanding, particularly about the way that our site
is operated versus a lot of others. The constant refrain is that you put
something up and it’s available to everyone, and that’s never been the case
with Facebook.
We’ve had a lot more rules in place and a lot more controls in place than I
think we’ve generally got credit for. … We’ve always had reporting links in
place for people to say ‘this person shouldn’t be a member of this network’,
for example a high-school network, and we do regularly remove people for
that.
The information on Facebook can be very attractive to identity thieves.
What can the company do about it?
Facebook’s approach is very consistent with the object of European data
regulations, which is to allow users to make their own choices about what
they share. … There should be and there are on Facebook privacy tools to say
only my friends can see this. We also have a setting on Facebook which is
‘only me’, which is in some ways defeats the purpose – you could just not
put the information up at all – but we do provide it because we want that to
be there as a possibility.
Do you think that some people didn’t realise they were revealing
information to as many people as they were?
I think there were situations in which people were using a tool which was new
to them and hadn’t fully appreciated what this would mean. But identity
theft at its root is a security problem for the financial system. It’s using
insufficient sources of data for the granting of credit, the opening of bank
accounts, etc.
COMMERCIALISING FACEBOOK
After Beacon (an advertising tool that revealed information about purchases
made outside Facebook to other people in a member’s network, and which
prompted complaints about invasion of privacy), will Facebook be more
cautious when introducing new products?
Yes. We said at the time about Beacon that we rushed it out the door and we
messed it up. Avoiding over-caution is still a core issue for us, but we
certainly are learning lessons from the issues that we had.
In months and years to come, will we see more commercial activity on
Facebook?
I wouldn’t characterise it as being more or less, but there are a variety of
way that we think the objectives of users and advertisers can be matched
more effectively. The vast majority – maybe not 100 per cent but close to
100 per cent – would say, “I want to see something that’s relevant to me
rather than something that isn’t.”
We want to be crystal clear with users about how tools operate and what
controls they have. If a film company wants to promote a new movie that’s
coming out, we allow them to target against movies that they think are
similar, but we don’t give them a list that says you’re a fan of Rear
Window, for example. … We don’t sell that information in a personally
identifiable form to advertisers.
Are people perhaps more worried about the concept of these tools than the
reality of them when they see them in action?
Understanding these systems and the way that they work and realising how much
control they have about how it’s used and how it’s not, and – from our
perspective, being transparent about that – is critical to user acceptance.
CHINA
Are there many Facebook users in China?
We have some presence in China right now. It’s not large by any stretch of the
imagination. There have been a number of copy-cat sites that have grown
quite rapidly. … We expect out presence to grow, particularly with the
launch of the translation tool [Facebook launched a tool this week that
invites users to supply translations in 22 languages, including Mandarin].
A lot of Western sites have struggled to establish themselves in China. Do
you have plans to overcome this problem?
We’re looking into exactly how we’re going to do that. Given that we’ve
launched the translation tool we’re obviously thinking about it.
How will you respond to the issue of regulation and censorship in China?
It will inevitably be a challenge. Obviously as a US site we have a great deal
of dedication to freedom of expression. It’s not the first time this problem
has been faced by a US company and we have been in contact with various US
groups to learn from their experiences.
What do you think of, for example, Google’s approach?
I don’t think I would characterise any particular approach as being the one we
would take or not take. Obviously there have been some challenges for a
number of the companies that have opened up there and I’m sure we’ll face
the same challenges.
Do you have any sense of how you would respond to the challenges?
We have policies in place about requiring proper legal process for requests of
information and we will continue to follow those processes. We have been
very concerned about protecting user privacy and that’s not going to change
in a different environment.
Do you think that Facebook and social networking in general could benefit
freedom in China?
Any connection system reduces social barriers and allows people to connect in
a more effective fashion, and you’re seeing that already in the Chinese
market with home-grown companies, with us and with a number of other players
that are opening in China. I think that it’ll ultimately be all to the good.
