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1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

businessinsider.com

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Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#51

Post by dhimes »

textmode wrote: post #48
prepend wrote: post #3

In a survey of people I know, 0 out of infinity kept their Facebook accounts deleted. But lots of people told me they did. Probably 30% of people I know. Some actually deleted. Some said they did and didn’t (really weird since you can see their account). Some thought they did, but screwed it up. Some said they did but switched to Messenger, or WhatsApp or some other part of Facebook. Over the past 5 years, not a sing…

"I was hoping that this article would talk about how they did the survey through Facebook :)" There is one type of "revolution" that arguably cannot be started on Facebook. The revolution to reclaim privacy from Facebook, to free ourselves from Facebook surveillance. Whenever this "conflict of interest" comes up, there is an unforgettable 1970 song I recall hearing as a youth. Hint 1: It was written before "rap" exis…

Dylan: "One More Cup of Coffee"

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#52

Post by eertami »

derefr wrote: post #46
bowlich wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why go through the hassle of actually deleting (particularly since it is so onerous). It changes nothing. There's probably still a shadow account of the data you gave them. Deleting the account doesn't put everything back in pandora's box. You can just post that you're abandoning the account with where to reach you online, log out, delete the cookies, and block their domain (what I did) and have th…

One difference: people who try to invite "you" (i.e. your Facebook profile) to events through Facebook will discover that you don't exist, rather than the event invitation just lingering in your now-abandoned inbox forever.

What I did is turn on email notifications for event invites - I now find I never really goto the site unless an event pops up that I'm wanting to go to.

Haven't really got an alternative and I don't want to be "that guy" but it's made Facebook usable for me.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#53

Post by kenning »

bowlich wrote: post #16
prepend wrote: post #3

In a survey of people I know, 0 out of infinity kept their Facebook accounts deleted. But lots of people told me they did. Probably 30% of people I know. Some actually deleted. Some said they did and didn’t (really weird since you can see their account). Some thought they did, but screwed it up. Some said they did but switched to Messenger, or WhatsApp or some other part of Facebook. Over the past 5 years, not a sing…

I don't understand why go through the hassle of actually deleting (particularly since it is so onerous). It changes nothing. There's probably still a shadow account of the data you gave them. Deleting the account doesn't put everything back in pandora's box. You can just post that you're abandoning the account with where to reach you online, log out, delete the cookies, and block their domain (what I did) and have th…

> I don't understand why go through the hassle of actually deleting (particularly since it is so onerous). It changes nothing. There's probably still a shadow account of the data you gave them. Deleting the account doesn't put everything back in pandora's box.

I don't think most facebook users think this way. The big conflict in my experience with the FB scandal is that tech people understand that it's much easier to just keep data around than to track down and delete all of it, whereas users think about it differently.

I believe users conceptualize their access to facebook to be like their access to icloud or dropbox, where they have direct control over their data and when they delete it, it is deleted on the FB servers. (I suppose. Although icloud and dropbox probably keep some records of this data as well.) A coder would be able to intuit that it's much easier to simply flag "deleted" accounts as invisible to other users and keep the data around. Also, using the term "delete" ends up (intentionally or unintentionally) misleading people to think that way, and the 'onerous' nature of deleting leads to a cognitive dissonance where users think that because they worked so hard to 'delete' their account, it was more likely to be actually deleted.

This is part of a culture which is completely pervasive among tech companies of simply keeping all data around forever because until recently there has been zero reason not to, and you might need it later.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#54

Post by city41 »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #42
thunfischbrot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that mean? Honestly curious, does it mean unfriending everyone?

I'm pretty sure the OP is satire. What good is social media without the social?

I've done this in the past and am considering doing it again. Facebook is a good way to get updates on companies, products, organizations, etc that you are interested in. Kind of like Twitter but IMO much better.

I deleted my Facebook account 2 years ago and haven't been back since, so not sure if the above is still true.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#56

Post by amelius »

By the way, Facebook still leaks information.

Proof:

On Facebook, create a targeted ad, targeting people who have secret property "X"; the ad should be about a product "Y" not involving X.

Wait for people to click the ad, visiting your website, and buying the product Y. Now you know the identities of these people coupled to the fact that they have property X.

This also works for Google.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#58

Post by coss »

bowlich wrote: post #16
prepend wrote: post #3

In a survey of people I know, 0 out of infinity kept their Facebook accounts deleted. But lots of people told me they did. Probably 30% of people I know. Some actually deleted. Some said they did and didn’t (really weird since you can see their account). Some thought they did, but screwed it up. Some said they did but switched to Messenger, or WhatsApp or some other part of Facebook. Over the past 5 years, not a sing…

I don't understand why go through the hassle of actually deleting (particularly since it is so onerous). It changes nothing. There's probably still a shadow account of the data you gave them. Deleting the account doesn't put everything back in pandora's box. You can just post that you're abandoning the account with where to reach you online, log out, delete the cookies, and block their domain (what I did) and have th…

There's an emotional weight to having social media accounts open. There's a lingering thought of visiting them when they are active. When you delete them that weight eventually goes away. It's like getting clean of an addiction. Did you ever play a video game that you were addicted to? Same idea.

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#59

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Deletion is too extreme for most people. Facebook is a monopoly for users and in an oligopoly for advertisers. This is a market failure [1].

More reasonable: escalating partial dis-engagement. Here's what I did, sequentially, over the years:

1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone;

2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone;

3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone;

4. Delete the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps from your phone; and finally

5. Log out of Facebook on your desktop.

It took me 2 years to go through from step 1 to step 5. It has made me happier and more productive. I still have a Facebook account. But the friction of grabbing my laptop and logging in forces me to consider "is this what I want to do? Or am I thoughtlessly reaching for the crack pipe?"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure

Re: 1 in 10 Americans in survey say they deleted their Facebook account over privacy

#60

Post by textmode »

cinquemb wrote: post #50
textmode wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I was hoping that this article would talk about how they did the survey through Facebook :)" There is one type of "revolution" that arguably cannot be started on Facebook. The revolution to reclaim privacy from Facebook, to free ourselves from Facebook surveillance. Whenever this "conflict of interest" comes up, there is an unforgettable 1970 song I recall hearing as a youth. Hint 1: It was written before "rap" exis…

Gil Scott-Heron had a great many songs and poems where I sometimes think what modern analogues would take the form of, esp when it comes to people's behaviors with internet connected applications, though reading through them today still gets the message home.

Not only do I agree with you here, but I agree with you strongly on this as well:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16686723

This is why I prefer clients and browsers small enough that I can edit and recompile quickly even on a computer with low resources.

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