It’s beginning to look as if there’s not a single honest social networking system on the internet … and I’m sad to have to acknowledge that Facebook has joined the ranks of all of the other losers who decide that what’s yours, is theirs.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

– John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron of Acton (1834–1902)

We’ve had some recent experiences with some of these “great men” … whom I won’t name, because we all know who they are. They weren’t the first; years ago, there were other “pioneers” who allowed a bit of success to go their heads … and at that time, I figured out a few ways to get on top of the problem, and keep my intellectual property out of the greedy hands of those who would take advantage of me. It takes a bit of work, but if done properly, will allow you to disentangle yourself from a thief while leaving very little of your information and intellectual property behind.

First of all, you need to not only delete your information, you need to change …. and save it … not once, but at least twice. Hold off on changing your name and login for last, so that you can continue to log in until the job is done. It’s tedious, and may take a while.

Birthdays, and all other personal information can be overwritten with random bits of trivia, all unrelated to reality. Fill it all out again with bogus information, and save it … make another small change to anything there, then save it again. Doing it this way, the second save should not only overwrite the current information, but should also cause the backed up information to be overwritten by the bogus info you provided on the first save.

Regarding photographs, you can upload anything you want under the name of the photograph you want to replace. For example, rename a blank graphic, or any other graphic you’d like to use (I’ve made some that intend to use ¹ – and you’re welcome to copy and use them too) and rename it to the same name as the photo you’d like to replace.

That will overwrite the photo that was already there. It’s tedious, renaming a graphic over and over, and uploading it to replace what was already there, but it’s the only way that I believe you can actually “take back” your photographs and graphics.

Remember to delete your RSS links to Facebook from your blogs. Also, replace any written text with a nonsense line of text, and be certain to save it at least twice, using a tiny change in the sentence to ensure that it actually does get overwritten on the second save.

Don’t leave anything of yours behind for them to use. If you get stuck with something that you can’t seem to delete, post it in the comments, and we’ll try to figure it out together.

Let’s send out a message to all of the greedy social networking big shots who think they can get away with this stuff … let’s let them know: We won’t let them!

More info:

How to Find Your Facebook Status RSS Feed

RSS feeds on Facebook

Facebook CEO to Scared Users: Trust Us

People Against the new Terms of Service (TOS)

1) Replacement banners:

Thanks to Deneen Ballard for initially calling the information to my attention.

Here we go again …

I’m going to really miss this one … :o(

Keep an eye out for a followup post: how to protect yourself as you back out of the door …

.Excerpt from Fox News

Once a Facebook member, always a member.

The Consumerist blog noticed Sunday that the social-networking giant had quietly made a change to its user Terms of Service (TOS) on Feb. 4.

Facebook now declares that it has a perpetual license to use anything you post to your own Facebook page — even if you terminate your account.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the change as necessary in a blog posting Monday afternoon.

Here’s the licensing part of the legalese, which sounds bad enough:

“You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.”

In other words, while it doesn’t actually own your photos, scribblings and status updates — you do — Facebook can do whatever it wants with it, whenever it wants, in order to promote itself or create or sell ads.

Theoretically, it can even “license” a picture of your kids for use in a third party’s ad campaign.

Most of that has been part of the Facebook Terms of Service for a while. After all, without user-generated content, Facebook would be nothing.

What’s been removed is this: “If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however (sic) you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.”

And what’s been added is this: “The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service” — after which follows a list of most of the sections on the Terms of Service page.

So even if you decide Facebook isn’t for you, the site can still use anything you posted. It’s all been archived.

“I’m done with Facebook,” declared blogger Ed Champion upon learning of the TOS changes.

He seemed more annoyed at the older blanket license than the new never-say-die part of the legalese — ironic considering that if he’d deleted his account before Feb. 4 his account really would have been gone for good.

In his blog posting, Zuckerberg explained that the language had to be tweaked to resolve a conflict over ownership of messages posted by one Facebook user onto another user’s page.

“When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created — one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox,” he writes. “Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message.”

Zuckerberg then makes a subtle but persuasive legal argument.

“People also want to be able to bring the information others have shared with them — like email addresses, phone numbers, photos and so on — to other services and grant those services access to those people’s information,” he points out.

“These two positions are at odds with each other. There is no system today that enables me to share my email address with you and then simultaneously lets me control who [sic] you share it with and also lets you control what services you share it with.”

(All emphases mine)

Excerpt from Fox News

When I wrote the last post regarding my phone conversation with Dr. Rutledge, I said that I would be posting my own opinion in a separate post. I waited a while to do so, because I wanted some time to pass between the hype of the moment … and I also wanted to have time to mull it all over again before giving my own impression.

The entire situation has left me with a very bad taste in my mouth … and among other things, has taught me that whatever is hidden in the fine print is what you want to read first … before you read the stuff that seems too good to be true (and most like is.)

Now that it’s over, I can say that I found Dr. Rutledge to be an intelligent and solicitous individual. He sounded quite genuine in his dismay at what was happening, and I do believe that the distress was not feigned. He tried very hard to explain his own personal position, and I felt as if we both had an excellent opportunity to express ourselves without holding back.

My own impression … I believe him when he says that he never set out to deceive anyone, or with the idea of selling Wellsphere. He also insisted that the entire Wellsphere company felt the same way. I believe that he might not have had those intentions himself … although I’m not quite as charitable when I think of other people in the company. On this score, I give Dr. Rutledge a “maybe” … I do believe him when he tells me about his own personal intentions, but when it comes to a blanket explanation for the entire group at Wellshere … then no, I don’t believe it.

When pressed on whether they had removed all of the material they were asked to removed, I was confused, because his initial response sounded disingenuous. He said that the material had been removed from their server … and it could well be that it was – however, Bongi mentioned that his information was still there, although he’d made the same request as the rest of us. Also, the careful wording made me wonder if he could be “Jesuitizing” … perhaps the material was removed from the server, but there might be backups someplace? Else, why would he have said that whatever someone did at a later time, without his knowledge or consent, would be out of his control? When pressed further, he told me that there were “no copies”. Could be true … at least as far he knows, and might not be, too. Sites like that generally back things up quite often. Again, on this subject, I give Dr. Rutledge a “maybe”.

Although I stressed that as long as he was associated with the people at Wellsphere, his reputation would suffer the same damage overall, he still continued to defend his own, and their, position.

I also encouraged him several times to give the public an explanation – like he was giving me over the phone, but I got the impression that they were not going to do so. That left me feeling frustrated, because all of the angry/distraught/upset ex-Wellsphere people deserve an explanation … a public explanation. Those who are still with Wellsphere deserve one too. It made me feel as if either the head honcho thought he was so clever he could just pull it off without a word, without an explanation, without an apology … but I don’t think that’s going to happen. The situation might have toned down to a general roar, but the Medical Blogosphere has a long memory … and it’s not going to completely go away. A public word could have helped in that department, depending on what was said.

Finally, my own gripe was not quite the same as most other people’s. The sale of Wellsphere and all of the angry Twitters gave me the courage to speak up. The problem is still an issue with me. As far as I can tell from a casual visit, Wellsphere is still encouraging “Mavens” to “help” people with their health questions. What is a Maven? As far as I could tell, anyone in the Medical Blogosphere whose blog they liked, and who wasn’t practicing professional medicine (not nurses, doctors, etc.)

When I joined, I was encouraged to answer questions in the “general health” community. I tried replying to things that I knew from personal experience, but my conscience bothered because I know full well that my own experience may not be another person’s … and I could do a tremendous amount of damage. Unlike WebMD, there was practically – as far as I was able to tell, no oversight of the responses Mavens were giving the public. More questions went unanswered than were dealt with by Mavens, and far fewer were fielded by physicians. And even then … practicing medicine online is a very dangerous thing to do, no matter who or what you are.

Had I followed the request I got each time a Wellshere email appeared, I would have been pushing … trying to accumulate enough “answers” (dangerous or not) to hit the magic number of 50 … at which time would be transformed into a “Top Maven”. Yet more reason for the poor ignorants who came looking for medical advice to think that I was a safe person to give it to them!

The entire scene was competitive … the more you did, the more you advanced. This is not an environment that promotes “health” … far less common sense.

Dr. Rutledge told me that it was expected that no one would do more than they were qualified to do where questions are concerned … however, when I asked him about the oversight for all of the questions, he didn’t have an answer.

I think I can guess the answer … there just weren’t enough people dealing with the situation, and at the very least, things got badly out of control. Inviting people to ask questions of the Mavens in different communities (Chronic Conditions, Mental Health, Men’s Health, Digestive System … about 25 in all in the Health section) and then not providing oversight … or direction … or review by someone in medicine … was not only dangerous, it was also criminal. Making it competitive by promotions in rank was an exacerbation of the existing condition.

And so … my take: Dr. Rutledge appears to be a very nice person to speak with over the phone. I believe him when he says that he, personally, had no intentions of ever providing more than a good, helpful site for people to frequent, but I’m not sure I believe that he really thought that all of the “Mavens” were not overstepping their bounds.

That’s a lot of trust … if it were safe to do that, then since I’m in ESRD, I should be able to give medical advice in my nephrologists’ stead, eh?

Imagine the medmal lawyers rubbing their hands together in glee!

To sum up … I don’t think this is going to go away. We may not be Twittering about it all the time anymore, but it was a painful lesson in trust for all of us. We’ve been through a lot as a community … from the injustice done to Dr. Flea, all the way to pulling together after an impostor broke our communal sense of trust. We’ve seen blog scraping, trolling by rabid, cynical medmal lawyers (anyone remember Matt? *cough) … and we’ve survived all and continued to grow.

We’re not finished yet … and we’re wiser than we were.

Indeed!

Several of my fellow bloggers and I have decided to crosspost our ideas concerning the woman with six children who just delivered octuplets. I’ve tried to not read their posts because I didn’t want to be influenced, but I did end up getting sneak peeks at Dr. Bate’s and Dr. Rob’s posts. I agree with both of them … although I think I’m approaching the issues from a different perspective.

Please visit their blogs and consider leaving comments … do you agree? Disagree? Why? Let’s have an interesting, civil exchange of ideas concerning this rather controversial event.

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I’m a very conservative person. We’ve had some really good discussions here in the past about abortion, suicide where Alzheimers is concerned, the ownership of guns … etc. … those of you who know me well won’t be surprised that I would begin by tackling this very ticklish issue before moving on to the others: fetal reduction.

I understand that a reduction might have made the pregnancy “safer” for the mother and the remaining infant(s), but seriously, in what manner was safety even part of the equation from the outset? Things were already so badly out of control once the ova were implanted that there really was no safe path to follow from that point. How many should have been killed? 2? 4? More? And which ones? Would the woman have simply been able to say: “Okies now, leave me one of each, and get rid of the rest”?

When I think of that sort of thing, I can’t help but picture an old farmer drowning the latest batch of kittens because he doesn’t want any more cats in the barn. People today would be outraged if they knew someone was drowning little kittens and puppies … but where’s the outrage when someone terminates the life of the tiniest and most helpless of our own species? They’re genetically unique individuals, who, if allowed to live, could grow into someone’s husband, or wife, or best friend … or even into someone who might have been able to heal some of the world’s problems. I feel that once a human child is conceived due to the actions of other people, he shouldn’t be the one to pay the ultimate price.

My own babies are now adults, and have become my precious friends. I don’t know what I would do without them. I was told to abort two of them, and wouldn’t. I look at them today and I remember what other people wanted me to do, and I can’t even begin to describe what I feel. Just because unborn babies haven’t shown you who they are yet, doesn’t mean that they’re not people.

And in summary: I don’t believe that we can arrogate the right to chose life or death for any other individual – at any stage of life. I know that a lot of you will disagree with me, some of you vehemently, and that’s fine. I don’t want to do your thinking for you, and I will respect your opinion. Please, if you’re going to comment, respect mine.

Funny thing – how a person who is simply trying to express what they feel so often seems to sound as if s/he is preaching when you don’t agree with what is being said, isn’t it?

Now … for the rest of the story …

In the last few days, bits and pieces of information about this woman and her living conditions have leaked out …

She’s unmarried, and lives with her parents in what we’ve been told is a 3 bedroom house. She has six other babies at home, the oldest of which is 7, and the youngest are a pair of twins who were born about two years ago. According to her mother, she’s been obsessed about having babies since she was a teenager, and conceived each of her children through in vitro fertilization. The grandmother told reporters that she was not supportive of what her daughter was doing, and that she had warned her daughter that when she got home from the hospital, “[She was] going to be gone.” ¹

Now, seems likely to me that the young woman involved must have been a least a french fry short of a “happy meal” to not only do this sort of thing once, but to continue until she hit a double jackpot at the one-armed-bandit of the obstetrics world! A person can love children and babies to the point of foolishness, but even then – deliberately going on to have more in vitro babies after already having six, seems a bit over the top to me.

We don’t know much about her personally, and if the mother follows through with her decision and leaves, this young woman could be coming home to 14 kids to raise by her lonesome. Everyone who knows her says that she’s a good mother, and that, at least, is a relief, but I honestly don’t see how one person can give 14 children everything they need to be fully nurtured. I just hope for her sake (and her children’s) that she’s able to find a lot of helping hands … because in my mind’s eye, I can just about see the child protection people looking for excuses to “trim back the herd”. I don’t think their lives are going to be all that peachy and rosy … however I do wish them all the absolute best now that the deed has been done. It’s not the children’s fault.

The only individual I’m really perturbed with in this entire drama is the obstetrician who actually gave this woman fertility treatments! I’m assuming that her physician knows her well enough, if s/he’s going to agree to do this, that s/he’s aware that she’s been through successful implantations on 5 previous occasions. This was not a childless couple who were yearning for a baby of their own! This is a single mother … with 6 children at home, all under the age of 10! If s/he is the same one who did the other implantations, then s/he must also have had some idea that the woman would be likely to refuse a reduction if a ridiculous number of the ova actually took.

If the young woman wasn’t responsible enough to know when to quit, I don’t understand why the authority figure didn’t just refuse to be a partner in this insanity! Why wasn’t the obstetrician able to tell her:

“No! Absolutely not! I just can’t do that. It would be dangerous, you could even die and leave 6 children orphaned! That would just be crazy. In fact, here’s a referral to a very nice doctor I know that I’m sure you’ll like very much … ”

Someone in that room should have had the common sense to put on the brakes! It wouldn’t have stopped her from trying other doctors, but each well meant refusal would at least have given her enough time and information to realize that what she wanted to do wasn’t particularly wise.

And finally, I’m FrancoAmerican (of the Canadian persuasion), and I am not personally against having large families. My French Canadian ancestors all had (or tried to have) big families. The child mortality rate was so high that you had to have at least two or three if you wanted one to live into adulthood. The families lived off the land, and the older children helped with chores and taking care of the younger children. Short of some sort of disaster, no one was hungry. Although it wasn’t really that long ago, it was still a different world than the one we live in now. Now families of that size are very rare, and incomprehensibly expensive to maintain. Enabling this single woman to have so many children – and more than half of them in one swoop, is unconscionably reckless. The physician who caused this to actually happen is doing well to stay out of the public eye, I believe, but s/he really should have to do a bit of explaining to the powers that be.

Sean Hannity with Ainsley Earhardt … interesting points which I han’t heard anyplace else …

1) Grandma: Octuplets mom obsessed with having kids