Why I'm deleting my Facebook account (Soon)

UPDATE: Facebook has released a statement on why it supports CISPA. I still disagree with its support, and I'm still probably going to go ahead with this.

Facebook supports CISPA. In conjunction with the title of this post, it could probably be my shortest one yet, but I suppose I should explain why it's bad.

CISPA, or the Cyber-Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, to give it its full name, is the latest in a long line of acts - such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP, also known as PIPA) - which, if passed, will basically screw over internet users in the US and, due to the US-centric nature of a lot of websites, internationally as well. The sponsor claims that it's nothing like SOPA, but there are definite parallels, and it doesn't change the fact that CISPA is bad news for a second.

Whilst that link goes in to more detail, in short, CISPA is bad because it's so vaguely worded it can cause exactly the same stuff that SOPA could have, and enables greater corporate complicity in handing over our information, should they choose. This circumvents other protections, from what I can gather.

This is, of course, in addition to all the privacy dodginess Facebook has already.

To this end, I've set up a page on, er, Facebook for a 'delete your account day' in protest (not sure on the date though: any ideas? (I'm thinking maybe the 28th or just over a fortnight from now)). I've also created a blogspot for this (mainly so there was a website for the facebook page which wasn't totally self-promoting).

See also:
Techdirt: CISPA Is A Really Bad Bill, And Here's Why
CNET News: Say 'hello' to CISPA, it will remind you of SOPA

Boing Boing: Facebook supports horrible proposed Internet bill CISPA

The 28 Corporations that support CISPA 

Lumin Consulting CISPA infographic

The Wikipedia page on CISPA

Electronic Frontier Foundation: After denouncing SOPA and PIPA, how can Facebook support CISPA?

Digital trends: CISPA supporters list: 800+ companies that could help Uncle Sam snag your data

And, for some semblance of balance:

It's imperfect, but CISPA isn't the devil in disguise.

This was written before CISPA, but it still has a few interesting points re: reasons to delete your Facebook account:

Mandrake's Blog: Eleven Reasons Why I Want To Quit Facebook (And One Reason Why I Can't)

You'll notice the link to my anti-CISPA blog isn't stopcispa.blogspot.com. That's because there's already one.

There's also, of course, an Avaaz petition.

EDIT: put the wrong ending on the other stop CISPA blogspot, now fixed.