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Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

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51–60 of 408 posts

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#51
I actually, in a strange way, don't really care about all this privacy stuff. A for-profit company looking into my personal preferences just to show me better targeted ads, instead of boring, generic ones? What's better than that?

They're either going to charge me monthly subscription fees, which would kill the whole business in an instant, or find a way to make a profit off ads.

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#52
I deleted my account in April this year. At the point of deletion I had created some Facebook pages and had been a very active user for many years. I tried downloading my data through Facebook's built-in account download feature. And I was quite happy with the download.

I then wrote up a post about my motivation for leaving which I shared on my Facebook: https://nilsnh.no/2018/04/04/leaving-facebook/ I figured it would be better to be vocal about leaving instead of just disappearing without a word. I answered questions and helped some friends join me on Signal.

Personally, I'm happy to be investing more of my time in platforms which respect my privacy. And I eagerly encourage people I meet to consider ethically-minded platforms like Signal.

Ultimately, I hope to see real, legal consequences towards corporations that disrespect the privacy of its users. Also, if monopoly laws were revised for the digital age we might see that some large corporations should be broken up in order to cultivate better competition.

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#53
I've uninstalled the app in June and hardly use Instagram.

I see no reason to delete Whatsapp because of E2E encryption. Maybe things will change.

As for actual account, it's trickier. I have a decent following there, and alternatives don't really exist. Where I live, nobody uses Twitter.

Also, Facebook Messenger is by far the most popular messaging platform: so much so that hardly anyone has even heard of Whatsapp, not to mention Signal or Wire.

Looks like my FB account is here to stay, unless I figure out a way to reach friends (alternative to Messenger) and followers (alternative to Facebook). Sucks.

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#54

I actually, in a strange way, don't really care about all this privacy stuff. A for-profit company looking into my personal preferences just to show me better targeted ads, instead of boring, generic ones? What's better than that? They're either going to charge me monthly subscription fees, which would kill the whole business in an instant, or find a way to make a profit off ads.

You are right. Nothing better than a company using your private messages for targeted ads!

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#55
I just unfollowed all my friends (back in 2015). They still see me as a friend, I can read their posts individually, I can use FB to communicate with my family — but there is nothing interesting now in my feed, so I am free from addiction. Highly recommended.

I don't care much about ethics, Facebook is free to topple governments or play with the very fabric or democracy or whatever — cool stuff to do, I'd join them in a heartbeat. I don't want to be addicted, though.

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#58
post #47

FYI FB's daily user count has been steady in the US for over 3 years at 181m ish. No decline with controversy.

considering that the population of the U.S. continues to grow, that stagnation in Facebook users means its percentage of users is shrinking.

Based on growth rates over the last three years, as you cite, that means Facebook is missing about 780,000 Americans.

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#60

Deleted it years ago, been actively pushing the people I’m close with on to Signal, and setting up new chat groups there. Signal is great, easy, private with no data mining, and we all have messages set to self delete after a week.

I was really close to using Signal but ended up going with Wire. The requirement to use a phone number just didn't work for me. The multi-device support was also a bit lacking.
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