What Happens When Facebook is Gone?

Frank McCown Michael L. Nelson

Carlton NorthernOld Dominion UniversityComputer Science Dept.

Norfolk, Virginia, USA

Old Dominion UniversityComputer Science Dept.

Norfolk, Virginia, USA

Harding UniversityComputer Science Dept.Searcy, Arkansas, USA

http://www.despair.com/somevedi.html

July15, 2009: Facebook welcomes 250 millionth user

Some Questions…

• Have a Facebook account?• Upset if your account was accidentally and

permanently deleted?Expect your Facebook account to be accessible:

• 1 year from now?• 10 years from now?• 100 years from now?

• Will researchers have access to current Facebook data 250 years from now?

What will happen to my data when…

• I delete my account?• I pass away?• Facebook deactivates my account?• Facebook decides to remove my data?• Facebook is no more?

Archiving Web 2.0

• P. Anderson. What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications (2007)• R. Capra, et al. Selection and context scoping for digital video collections:

an investigation of YouTube and blogs (2008)• E. Cook. Web archiving in a Web 2.0 world (2007)

“You will not collect users' information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting

bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.”

– Facebook Terms of Service

“It's the users' data. We want to [make it portable.] That's the goal.” – Mark Zuckerberg , Oct. 2007

Archiving Architecture

Web Browser - FirefoxFirefox Extension

Local Hard Drive

Personal Archive

Thank You

Carlton Northerncarlton.northern@gmail.com

http://carlton-northern.com/http://www.harding.edu/fmccown/pubs/

archiving-facebook-jcdl2009.pdf