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Facebook: An Open Letter By Joel Leyden On Being Disabled, Google Buzz
By
Joel Leyden Jerusalem ---- February 11, 2010…… Upon returning to Israel from an humanitarian mission with Israel Flying Aid in Haiti I have been asked several times - how was it? At first, I usually state that the horror of human suffering in Haiti goes beyond articulation. What I do not mention is how many lives could have been lost as a result of relying upon Facebook to communicate with other humanitarian, governmental and media organizations. I have been on the Internet since co-creating the first commercial Website in Israel in 1995. The first Website for the Israel Defense Forces, the Office of the Israel Prime Minister and the first online news organization - Israel News Agency. In this time I have reported through the Israel News Agency and Google News the good, the bad and the Islamic terrorism for which Israel has suffered. I have also reported on one Website which I see to be nothing more and nothing less than evil - Wikipedia. Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit", had the honor of hurting more people through slander and libel then any other medium. Now comes Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg you have truly broken my heart. You created greatness, a global forum for friends to find friends, friends to find business and friends to find help in true emergencies. But you just could not control your beautiful bride from turning into an ugly monster. It's called scale or not being able to keep up with over 350 million users. For myself, I used Facebook to promote democracy, health, friendship and Israel. In doing so I created dozens of Facebook groups with some having over 100,000 members. I advocated Facebook every chance I could through Google News, YouTube, Twitter and dozens of other new media, social media, social networking sites utilizing SEO - search engine optimization to place these news stories with the highest ranking on the Net. From TIME Magazine, FOX, CNN to the Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish Week, I spoke only praise of Facebook. Mark, I actually spoke to an ex-wife after a few decades, started warm dialogue with high school friends and defended Israel as a tiny democracy that has a large heart and a right to exist - something illustrated by the field hospital for which the IDF set up in Haiti. In fact, the last news story I wrote before I was disabled by Facebook was entitled: Israel Rushes Humanitarian Aid, IDF Rescue Units To Haiti, Opens Facebook Group. I had enjoyed having over 4,500 friends on Facebook. Their news links and status updates would often make me smile. But the very day that I stepped into Haiti and needed to share life saving logistics - the locations of trapped people and starving children - Mark, your social networking site said good-bye to me. This was not the first time. I had my Facebook account disabled a few times in the past by Islamic cyber terrorists, impostors and even some jealous Jewish hackers. Each time after being disabled by Facebook, after about two long weeks of not being in communication with friends, governmental, non-profit contacts and business associates, one of your employees would apologize and state that they were sorry for the inconvenience. Today, Mark - your security sucks! I cannot articulate the number of times that hackers have penetrated your servers. How long it would take for your abuse@facebook.com to take action against death threats thrown at me and others. And today, I can't even communicate with your corporate public relations or support staff as some hacker or hackers have placed a filter on our email communications between my hard drive and your Facebook servers. Mark, your support people even requested that I send them a government issued ID, just to verify that the Facebook account that I was using was really mine. Mark, please make some coffee for your security staff. If my and your email communications have been compromised, why then would your staff insist on having government issued ID flowing through an open and unsecure Internet? Why could Facebook Support staff not accept a secure fax number for this? Funny thing. Facebook demands complete and total transparency by the end user, yet we - the end users cannot even find one telephone or fax number at Facebook! We the end users are not even provided with the most basic protection at Facebook to avoid ID theft. I love Facebook. But can Facebook kill people? Yes, if we rely upon facebook for emergency and or disaster communications. Something I did in Haiti. Please do not apologize to me this time around. Apologize to those kids in Haiti that we could not reach because my Facebook account had been disabled and your Facebook staff could not take the effort nor the time to make a telephone call or provide a secure fax number to the IDF Field Hospital in Haiti or the orphanage that we rebuilt in Port au Prince. Mark, either keep up with the 350 million users of Facebook by retaining more staff and reforming your present security procedures to take into consideration crisis communications management, or just create a general disclaimer stating that: "you are using Facebook at your own risk." Enter Google Buzz. I pray that we can rely upon this new, creative Google development team to meet new friends, create better understanding between various cultures, close the gap between political, religious enemies and perhaps even save some children during the next disaster.
The Israel News Agency, which is accredited by Israel Government Press Office, was the first on line news organization in Israel. The INA reaches up to 60 million readers through Google News and Internet social networking channels such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube from New York, London, Moscow and Paris to Toronto, Los Angeles, China and India. Leyden is presently launching the United States News Agency using the INA as a successful working model.
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