Farewell, Facebook

[babylonsister]

Farewell, Facebook

Why one super-connected internet enthusiast decided it was time to pull the plug.

Laura McGann | May 11, 2010 | web only


The chorus of pro-privacy, anti-Facebook bloggers is getting louder. Facebook wants to keep track of everything you "like" -- all over the Web and even in the real world. McDonald's has signed on as Facebook's first geolocation partner. Whatever that means. The Observer has a deeper relationship with my Facebook page than my best friend. Today I'm deactivating my account. Here's why.

My problems with Facebook started in mid-April when the holding tank of pending friend requests from family members was overflowing. It was either everyone or no one; I approved all, afraid of the barrage of guilt-inducing phone calls. Then came the decision to pare down my friend list to people I actually talk with. I was shocked when one de-friended person sent me an aggressive message.

I'd never concerned myself with the "privacy settings" The New York Times had been urging me to check out for months, but in light of the angered ex-friend and, more important, my new online friendships with the family, I decided to give some thought to my Facebook image. A profile I'd set up to interact with likeminded Internet users was suddenly fair game for those who'd known me in knee socks and those who wanted to sell me a time share. Step one was limiting who could see my interests, activities, and likes from "everyone," as in, everyone with an Internet connection, to friends. I left my location, education, and hometown public. I figured that was already out there.

I hit a wall with photos. I had a flashback to findings in a Harvard Business School study showing that two-thirds of Facebook's pageviews are men looking at pictures of women. I could assign photo-viewing access to groups of friends, but that wouldn't change anyone's ability to tag me. Grouping was getting arduous, and I'm not that kind of person (my closet isn't color-coded), so I went for the most efficient route and set photos so only I could see them. I began to wonder what the point of a Facebook account was anyway. The decision seemed spot on just a week later when the Huffington Post ran a picture taken from Facebook of a young man who shares the name of the alleged would-be Times Square bomber.

Then I stumbled upon a list of the various third-party groups that have access to my account. In all, there were 32, including the makers of "Which Jane Austen heroine are you?" (I'm Fanny Price), The Awl, a snarky, high-brow commentary site, and Business Insider. The latter two I didn't recall approving. The media sites, I discovered, were installed automatically when I browsed their websites while logged in to Facebook. Jane Austen, I'm afraid, I must take responsibility for. Reports are unclear as to what information applications can pull from your account. Some warn that developers have broad access and do not distinguish between what you mark as public and private, and some quizzes even get access to friends' information.

more...

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=farewell_facebook

[qb]

1. Damn - I think Ms. McGann has devoted way too much thought to Facebook.

My Facebook rule: Don't post anything I don't want everyone to see. Simple.

[tonysam]

2. +1,000

There is nothing "controversial" on my FB page.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. There is something in the post that deserves a second look.

It says that a connection developed when she went into a website while still logged into Facebook. Does that mean that she clicked on the link when she was in Facebook? Or that she just didn't log out of Facebook when she opened another window and went surfing? Is Facebook phishing? Is that the correct term?

[wolfgangmo]

6. Closing your window doesn't log you out of facebook.

Many interconnected cloud apps, by virtue of being NOT HOSTED ON YOUR COMPUTER, means that the act of you closing a page on your computer doesn't close the connection. It is still there, like an annoying little brother waiting in the hallway for you to open the door again.

And so if you don't take the extra time and energy (and as any multitasking power computer/network/cloud/socialmedia geek can tell you "who has the time") to actually log off your account then the account is active. I stopped going to HuffPo daily when they started "demanding" that I log into my facebook account to post a comment.

So yes, she has a point. She didn't request those links. They were assumed to be her choice because of where she visited. It would be like if you were taking a walk in a park and came accross a teabagging party (the old white cranky rascist jerking off at pics of the disaster from Alasker kind and not the fun kind) and were automatically registered as a republican and signed up for Fox News Cable at home.

[sledgehammer]

10. Amazing how this simple rule...

...is lost on so many!

Yes, it would be nice if Facebook did a better job of privacy. But Facebook is by no means an essential tool. There are many alternatives - email your photos to your friends, post anonymously to a blog to express your opinions, etc.

I find it quite hilarious when FB'ers post status updates criticizing FB privacy.

It's kind of like being on a beach and expecting everyone to respect your privacy by not looking at you.

[Lex]

3. A website that doesn't do much of anything to protect one's privacy?

No way!

[HughMoran]

5. see below post

|

[HughMoran]

7. Well, if you click "like" on any Facebook page, there is NO WAY to stop people from seeing this

It's fucking outrageous - there is no way to 'like' any page - political or otherwise without sharing that with EVERYBODY on Facebook.

This is ridiculous - it's forcing me to delete these pages I like because I don't want to share my political views with other people!!

:mad:

Edit: apparently the majority of pages are classified as "other" and YOU CAN'T HIDE 'OTHER' PAGES!!!!!!!!! It says you can drag and drop pages into other categories, but you CAN'T DO THAT WITH 'OTHER' PAGES!!

This is fucking ridiculous. :mad:

Edit again: if you select some random interest to show under 'likes and interests', you "other" pages will now simply show up as a link and people will not automatically see them when they peruse your profile. This is the best that can be done now - people using the 'other' classification so that their pages CANNOT BE HIDDEN ON YOUR PROFILE FROM EVERYBODY is a sleazy gap in the Facebook privacy settings that must be fixed!

[paparush]

8. I deactivated my FB account on Monday. Screw Zuckerberg.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. Thanks for the info. I just deactivated mine account.

I understand that they are holding an emergency meeting today. Too late.

[DesertFlower]

11. i'm more concerned with who reads my e-mails.

i use yahoo. a few weeks ago i was looking for a new handbag on line. next day there's an ad for handbags from another company. i have a friend who has cancer. don't you know there was an ad for cancer care the next day?

[japple]

12. Join diaspora,,,

http://www.joindiaspora.com/

diaspora /dī-ˈas-p(ə-)rə, dē-/
origin: Greek, διασπορά – “a scattering (of seeds)”
1. the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network

~snip~
It is our one and only goal to get Diaspora in the hands of every man, woman, and child at summer’s end. September 2010 will signify the release of the project in its first iteration, fully open-sourced under the GPL. This release will be comprised of several key features for Diaspora, mainly:
• Full-fledged communications between Seeds (Diaspora instances)
• Complete PGP encryption
• External Service Scraping of most major services (reclaim your data)
• Version 1 of Diaspora’s API with documentation
• Public GitHub repository of all Diaspora code

[Butch350]

13. Remember...

It was your choice to join a social networking site - and it's your choice to quite.

One person's poison is anothers pleasure.

These days no one should be naive to the fact that when you sign up for anything
that deals in socialization that somehow you won't get hit by the spammers and phishers.

nice rant though.