From: James Deagle
Subject: Letter to the Editor
To: letters@usatoday.com
Received: Sunday, January 1, 2012, 10:13 AM
Dear Editor:
Just today I was reading Anick Jesdanun's article on your website (How to get your Facebook in order),
and wanted to leave a comment advising people about the pitfalls of
Facebook, and why they'd be better off simply deactivating their
account. You can imagine my dismay when I finished rattling off a quick
paragraph's worth of my two cents and realized that the only way to
leave a comment is to log in through a Facebook profile.
I find
it troubling that you limit your online conversation to Facebook
members, as there are plenty of us out there who have either not signed
up or have deactivated our accounts on a matter of serious principle due
to ongoing (and unresolved) privacy concerns. Additionally, many of us
refuse to provide a map of our social life and consumer preferences to
an
organization that has yet to prove itself a trustworthy guardian of
that information.
By allowing your online conversation to be 'branded' by Facebook, can we as readers trust that USA Today
will also provide objective news coverage of Facebook when privacy,
copyright and other legal issues arise, and perhaps even dare to publish
editorials critical of it when warranted? By allowing Facebook to own
and control your online forums, you allow a shadow of doubt to be cast
over said objectivity, and as such I am less inclined to count myself
among your readership.
James Deagle
Ottawa,Canada
