With the
amount of users that Facebook has accumulated, it would be a shock if it turned
out to be yet another social media site that went down the drain. Facebook has
over 800 million users and according to digitalbuzzblog.com, “Facebook is now used by
1 in every 13 people on earth, with over 250 million of them (over 50%) who log
in every day.” With statistics like these, it was surprising to find that
Facebook was named one of the ten most hated companies by 24/7 Wall Street, “an
online news outlet that provides analysis and commentary for U.S. and global
equity investors.”
Sure, Facebook
has been disappointing me lately with all the constant changes it’s making to
the site, like the new timeline that I absolutely can’t stand, but I would have
never guessed it would be categorized as one of the most hated companies. According
to 24/7 Wall Street, “Compared to other leading social media sites, however,
Facebook has the lowest customer satisfaction score from the American Customer
Satisfaction Index. The site has repeatedly irked users by neglecting personal
privacy” (http://247wallst.com/2012/01/13/the-10-most-hated-companies-in-america/2/).
Maybe it’s the
fact that Facebook has had some issues with privacy numerous times, and that
has caused them to get complaints from users. I can recall plenty of times
where my friends have had their accounts hacked and started to post spam on all
of their friends’ profiles. After that started happening, I didn’t feel that
secure when posting things on Facebook, which led me to limit the things I did
post. I also felt uneasy about posting photos and other personal information. I
would always be paranoid of where they would end up, especially after I learned
that even after you delete pictures, they never actually get deleted
permanently from the site. Arstechnica investigated this three years ago and
found that it continues to be true.
Arstechnica
discovered that “photos "deleted" from Facebook seemingly never go
away if you have a direct link to the image file on Facebook's servers. So users
who might have had second thoughts about posting a photo because was something
they didn’t want their employer to know, not something they would want their
parents to see—could certainly remove the image from Facebook's main user
interface, but as long as someone had a direct link to the .jpg file in
question, the photo would remain accessible for an indefinite amount of time” (http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/nearly-3-years-later-deleted-facebook-photos-are-still-online.ars
).
This is
something that users definitely kept in mind before posting pictures they would
later come to regret sharing with the world. It also made users lose a sense of
trust with the social media site. Having pictures just floating out there for
anyone to see, would make me feel the same way.
So with the
million users that Facebook has, and the negative comments that have been
coming from some of the users, can we expect the social media site to grow or
decrease in the next couple of years? I guess that all depends on how loyal the
users are and if Facebook cares enough to fix all of its problems and increase
user satisfaction. As of now, I don’t see anyone giving up Facebook for good.
Sources:
Who could hate Facebook? That's a first for me. I've heard some people not having account because they like to keep their lives private, but hate oh no.
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