Live data from Hacker News

Get your loved ones off Facebook

salimvirani.com

171–180 of 310 posts

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't delete your account. You can disable it, and the moment you log back it, it's as if you have never left.

You can delete your account... I had one that I requested deleted back in 2009, and then had "reason" to get back on, and when I created my new account my prior data from 2009- was not there.

You can remove it from public view and remove your ability to log into it, but you can't remove any data. Facebook was never designed to "delete" that data, hence all you can really do is permanently disable your account, with the illusion of having it deleted.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#172
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact I've thought on multiple occasions that someone is hiding something if they don't have one. I feel the same about people who do use facebook, when they take pictures of me and others who are not on "The Social Network", then they put those on facebook for others to see with other personal information without concent, they don't inform me about their comments regarding those pictures. For all I know those pe…

Expecting people to take an extra step to fit your needs (email) is really almost no different from asking them to share on another platform IMHO. They aren't hiding from you, in fact I'd put money on the table that they'd happily invite you into their group or you'd have access to the photos simply by being their friend on FB. You can't walk outside the bar then complain that none of your friends want to stand in th…

> Expecting people to take an extra step to fit your needs (email) is really almost no different from asking them to share on another platform IMHO.

Email is not a platform, I think you are confusing it with gmail.

> You can't walk outside the bar then complain that none of your friends want to stand in the window and relay everything happening to you or get mad they might be talking about you when you can just walk right back in.

This analogy doesn't stand because such pictures that I were talking about are more often than not are taken in the bar settings or other festivities. Obviously if I were walking outside I couldn't be on the picture could I. And it's not all of my friends that's the point, being forced to smoke even passively harms your health, being forced to be on facebook harms your privacy - that was my point.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#173
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact I've thought on multiple occasions that someone is hiding something if they don't have one. I feel the same about people who do use facebook, when they take pictures of me and others who are not on "The Social Network", then they put those on facebook for others to see with other personal information without concent, they don't inform me about their comments regarding those pictures. For all I know those pe…

Expecting people to take an extra step to fit your needs (email) is really almost no different from asking them to share on another platform IMHO. They aren't hiding from you, in fact I'd put money on the table that they'd happily invite you into their group or you'd have access to the photos simply by being their friend on FB. You can't walk outside the bar then complain that none of your friends want to stand in th…

> > it's no different than forcing others to smoke by the means of social pressure

> Yeah... no different, except one of them causes cancer but sure, no different.

And Facebook causes harm to people in other ways. It's an overly dramatic way of making the point, but the point is that people using Facebook doesn't just affect them -- it affects anyone in their social circle.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#174

It won't be a popular opinion here but here it goes: Well if it all goes to hell we will all be in the same handbasket. I'm simply not willing to cut people out of my life and miss out on things that are important to me because my data is mined and might be used against me. All these distributed platforms are a joke, no really they are technically cool but no one I care about is on them. Maybe if your entire social c…

Your comment sums up the inertia issue nicely.

To me, rethinking social means rethinking the internet as a whole. The dream of a decentralized global network has been stolen from us, and it's up to us to find consensus and work together to get out of this mess.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#175
post #138

It won't be a popular opinion here but here it goes: Well if it all goes to hell we will all be in the same handbasket. I'm simply not willing to cut people out of my life and miss out on things that are important to me because my data is mined and might be used against me. All these distributed platforms are a joke, no really they are technically cool but no one I care about is on them. Maybe if your entire social c…

But what's the advantage of Facebook over email and/or texting? I feel like for anything other than wasting time Facebook is sluggish compared to either. If you're a Facebook user you have a cellphone and/or a computer, and can do everything Facebook does: share pictures, plan events, check-in with friends, family, and groups of people. And not share data* or be peppered with garbage advertisements. * I personally pa…

> But what's the advantage of Facebook over email and/or texting?

For me, there isn't one, and enough negatives to FB that I don't use it. I have no trouble connecting to people I care about via the many, many other methods available.

Voice telephone is becoming unusable for me due to spam, but so far somehow, not text messaging. (I guess the spammers don't cross-polinate yet?) I run my own email server, calendars, image galleries, and other tools for collaborating, sharing, ego-stroking and whatnot.

I do miss out on some random social interactions, but usually that's honestly a plus. Some relatives feed me the "email's too hard" line, and I take that to mean either I'm not or the message isn't important enough to bother, and that's fine[1].

At this point for me, FB is something I talk about more than I ever see - my view of the internet omits them (and several other surveillance shops), aside from the time between when they deploy a new splat of IP addresses and I notice and block them.

IMHO, the internet is much better without them.

[1] Of course there's backstory, too, but that's private, and not the sort of thing I'm going to discuss in public on a third-party server.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#176
post #14

Queue the onslaught of "I haven't used Facebook in.... years!" comments. You're probably already hitting the down-vote button. I wonder why there's so much anti-fb commentary on HN? Maybe it has to do with the software engineers tending to be less social and introverted, therefore a social service appears to have less worth? Just speculating. As for me, Facebook creates an emotional connection unlike any other servic…

I don't care at all whether people want to sell their lives to a company. If they want to use Facebook, they're free to do so.

What I care about is Facebook creating a shadow profile on me, even when I explicitly go out of my way to block them.

If it would only affect those people that are on Facebook, I wouldn't give it a second thought. But it doesn't. It also affects those that want nothing to do with it, in part through the people that are using it, and that is the major reason for all the Facebook hate.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#178
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advantage of Facebook over email / texting: - Facebook shows me updates about friends that I wouldn't otherwise know about. These updates provide an opportunity for a quick connect that is appropriately shallow, just enough to keep the relationship warm. - For many people I have their FB, but not their email, let alone their phone number. I discover these people through FB's mutual friend suggestion. These people can…

These all sound like they could be disadvantages to another person.

I recognize that while typing out my comments. It seems like there are two archetypes of people:

1. Those who have a close circle of friends that don't change much over time. For these people, phone / email work great because they have a lot more depth.

2. Those who have a large circle of acquaintances that is dynamic (i.e. relationship strength changes over time, new acquaintances appear through FB suggestions). For these people, Facebook is the only way to keep connected, admittedly with little depth.

Everyone is a mix of these two archetypes. I have friends that I call, and also acquaintances that I chat up via Facebook.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#179

If I delete my Facebook account but keep using WhatsApp, do I limit amount of collected data? Is this a viable strategy or do I need to remove WhatsApp as well?

As a related article mentions, if you use any Facebook-connected application in the 14-day working-really-hard-on-that-deleting-thing period, then Facebook cancels the account deletion process.

Given that Facebook owns WhatsApp, you're likely to face the same problems down the road, if they aren't already doing those things the article has a problem with.

...

Yeah, so here's a blurb from the WhatsApp ToS:

Third-Party Services. When you use third-party services that are integrated with our Services, they may receive information about what you share with them. For example, if you use a data backup service integrated with our Services (such as iCloud or Google Drive), they will receive information about what you share with them. If you interact with a third-party service linked through our Services, you may be providing information directly to such third party. Please note that when you use third-party services, their own terms and privacy policies will govern your use of those services.

There's language similar to Facebook's that says if other people share information about you to them... oh well.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#180

It won't be a popular opinion here but here it goes: Well if it all goes to hell we will all be in the same handbasket. I'm simply not willing to cut people out of my life and miss out on things that are important to me because my data is mined and might be used against me. All these distributed platforms are a joke, no really they are technically cool but no one I care about is on them. Maybe if your entire social c…

>Like it or not there is a social stigma around NOT having a FB account. In fact I've thought on multiple occasions that someone is hiding something if they don't have one. Anyone have a source of "further reading" on perceptions towards people not on facebook? And does anyone have statistics on how many people in the U.S. are not on facebook?

>Anyone have a source of "further reading" on perceptions towards people not on facebook?

I don't know joshstrange or his circle of friends but since I experience zero stigma of not being on Facebook, it seems to be highly depended on one's particular peer group.

If I think of the 5 people I regularly interact with, none of them have Facebook accounts. Therefore, it's not strange that I don't have Facebook. The topic never comes up. However, some of the guys' wives have Facebook accounts so in some sense, the female spouses act as the "Facebook gateway" to the outside world. I chuckle at this state of affairs because it seems to duplicate the exact situation of the yesteryear where the husbands engrossed in the newspaper/tv always ignored the ringing landline phone and let the wife answer it.

If it makes you feel better, a lot of celebrities (including some under age 30) don't use Facebook either. There are various articles listing names: https://www.google.com/search?q=celebrities+not+on+facebook

Post reply on HN