Why is Facebook blocking you from taking your social graph elsewhere?

I’ve argued about this for a LONG time with Facebook. Remember, I got kicked off of Facebook for a day for trying to scrape email addresses out.

They do have a point that it’s not actually your social data. It’s intermingled with everyone else’s social data.

What do I mean by that?

Well, let’s say you have set privacy features or have the expectation of being able to change such in the future and I take your contact out of Facebook. Now you, nor Facebook, has control of your privacy anymore.

Maybe you’d like to change your phone number. Problem is, I have your old one.

Maybe you don’t want to ever hear from me again. Problem is, I have your email address and whatever else you’ve shared with me.

Maybe you just want to delete all your data and disappear off the face of the virtual world. I still have your data.

Facebook’s employees have always thought that taking that control away from users is evil, which is why they have consistently blocked these kinds of tools (I was blocked back in 2008, so none of you can realistically complain because most of you joined Facebook after I was blocked. You joined that system knowing their power and knowing their stance toward taking your data elsewhere. More on my getting kicked off of Facebook back in 2008:

Anyway, I still think I should be able to take my social graph wherever I want, but I do understand this argument.

Of course it also helps lock in hundreds of millions of people inside Facebook too, so it helps Facebook’s business model.

Facebook is a roach motel: your social data can go in, but it can never leave.

I prefer open systems and I hope Google does force Facebook to change but I doubt it. If I were Zuckerberg I would resist that move as long as possible and he actually does have a good reason to resist it (as per above).