Facebook has been catching a lot of heat in Europe lately. A 61 page critical analysis of Facebook’s data use policy was recently produced by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium’s designated privacy watchdog. The report claimed that Facebook’s Data Use Policy (DUP) was violating European privacy law, or, to put the claim more crudely (and less accurately), that Mark Zuckerberg is a douche-bag for creating Facebook.
In this post, I present an imaginary (philosophical) dialog between Belgium and Mark Zuckerberg. Imaginary Zuckerberg will try to fend off the specific criticisms lodged by Belgium. I’m hoping the dialog will kick off a discussion on whether imaginary Zuckerberg’s defense was successful and what other responses Zuckerberg might have that could be philosophically compelling. In other words, I want this post to kick off a discussion in which we’ll try to settle the question of whether Zuckerberg is a douche-bag.
Btw, I work at a social media startup that has a better privacy that some folk might find appealing. We’re still in beta, but you can check us out here.