If you haven’t heard, Monday, May 31st has been named Quit Facebook Day. The website is comprised of a growing group of people upset with the decisions the social networking giant has made in recent weeks regarding users’ privacy. The 23,427 (and counting) people that have committed to quitting feel that Facebook has grown careless or greedy (or both), and are leaving to protect their data and make a statement.
Will you quit? With Facebook’s member count over 400 million, these twenty-five thousand users will hardly be missed. In fact, they will most likely not even eclipse the number of new users who join on Monday. Even if 100,000 users deleted their accounts on Monday, it would only represent .025% of Facebook users.
So what’s the point? Even though the number of users committed to quitting is relatively small, I believe they had an effect. In response to the backlash, Facebook was very quick to roll out revised Privacy Settings that were designed to be simpler and give users clearer control over who has access to their information. It may not have been enough to appease the members of QuitFacebookDay.com, but many people were surely relieved by the quick action. So the question remains: Will you quit? Whether you’re choosing to stay or go, it will be interesting to see how many people voice their opinion on Monday by deleting their profile…and how many will rejoin three months from now.
