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

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

#271

Post by spiderPig »

Carpetsmoker wrote: post #141

No. I actually created a Facebook account in 2018. The problem is that without Facebook you will miss out. Sure, close friends and family will invite you to their social events, but more distant acquaintances will not; you know, the bloke you met at the pub last week and had a 20 minute chat with, or that cute girl you talked to but then she suddenly she was dragged off to a birthday party by her friends. By missing…

Imo, those are valid points but still not worth giving up your privacy to Facebook for. I’d rather keep my data to myself until a non-ad supported version of either FB or some other platform comes out

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

#272

Post by quickthrower2 »

People have commented that they have missed out on friends 50th parties and even their death due to not being on Facebook. And therefore not being on Facebook is a big decision with consequences for your life.

However I think if you are not on FB, and you don't want to miss out, you need to do some old fashion stuff, like call your friends on the phone if they are long distance, or meet with them in person if they are local. And you'll have to do more of that to not miss out on stuff. You might then have to be more fussy about who you class as friends.

Even given all that I think it is worth giving up FB.

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

#273

Post by rufus_2 »

nradov wrote: post #259
IIAOPSW wrote: post #173

I got banned from facebook this year. So some background. I used facebook as a normal user from 2010 to 2012. I thought it was stupid on day 1 but was peer pressured into it (thanks high school) and by 2012 I still thought it was stupid and useless so I quit. At various intervals between 2012 and now I've had shitposting accounts. Fake names and fake pictures but most people in the friends list knew who was behind th…

You're not actually as cool and edgy as you think you are. No one is impressed.

Parent comment represents another use of Facebook in 2018 that exists somewhere between deleting and using as intended. What was it about the post that made you feel the need to attack the author?

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

#274

Post by jogjayr »

0x4d464d48 wrote: post #70

Deleted mine way back in 2010. I'd been on it since high school in 2005 and treated it like the new version of MSN Messenger (oh 2002...). After a while it just got stale and it felt like I was pouring way too much of my personal data on to the platform. I think the turning point came after a friend of mine had committed suicide and his profile continued to live on the platform for at least a year. People kept postin…

Also deleted it in 2010. It's possible I've missed out on something without knowing but I'm happy with my life nevertheless.

If you only get updates about someone from their social media, you don't really know them. They're a stranger you know far too much about.

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

#275

Post by luord »

No. I know that there are many, many compelling reasons to, but doing that would effectively cut out my lines of communication with my immediate family (we use WhatsApp and Facebook almost exclusively), who lives in another city, and I'm not doing that any time soon.

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

#276

Post by stockkid »

seppin wrote: post #199
frereubu wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I missed my friend's 50th birthday party because I wasn't on Facebook (haven't been for around 3-4 years), and he assumed that everyone he wanted there was. That stung enough for me to think about it, but whenever I see people scrolling through their feeds there's so much drivel that I immediately go off the idea again.

> I missed my friend's 50th birthday party because I wasn't on Facebook Hate to break it to you, but he's not really your friend. You would have known about it directly or through someone else if so. Facebook is for finding out about events / people who aren't close to you, but you're still interested in. That's its value.

I agree. I think many of us throw around the word 'friend' too liberally.

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

#277

Post by spondyl »

No, but I don't use it aside from Messenger either.

I don't have any of the apps installed and none of my browsers are specifically logged into facebook.com (just messenger.com which is likely just the exact same cookie/tracking wise).

Mind you, it's basically the illusion of freedom because I use Instagram every so often which is another Facebook owns product so I'm still in the ecosystem.

I did delete my Facebook account around mid-2017 but the utility of it pulled me back in once I started my job/moved to the city earlier this year. Whoever referred to it as a "human pokedex" wasn't wrong.

As long as you feed it a little, it'll give you quite a bit in return. For example, you could meet a total stranger at a party and only learn their first name. Using that, mixed with your own geolocation and social network, is usually enough to find out who they were. While it is publically available information (in a sense because it's still inside a walled garden), I don't think most people realise how little work is needed to track down who someone is.

That in itself isn't particularly useful of course. Anyway, I'm just rambling at this point haha

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

#278

Post by sgustard »

Pfhreak wrote: post #197
Carpetsmoker wrote: post #141

No. I actually created a Facebook account in 2018. The problem is that without Facebook you will miss out. Sure, close friends and family will invite you to their social events, but more distant acquaintances will not; you know, the bloke you met at the pub last week and had a 20 minute chat with, or that cute girl you talked to but then she suddenly she was dragged off to a birthday party by her friends. By missing…

Counter point, I deleted my account (not just deactivated.) I haven't missed any significant events. You can absolutely have an active and fulfilling social life without.

Is there a reason to believe, given how little we trust Facebook, that deletion and deactivation are different things? I've built multiple consumer web apps and if there's one rule, it's that rows are never really deleted from a database. Not to mention backups, caches, Google crawls and so on. I'd worry that the naive consumer thinks they can post embarassing content to Facebook, delete their account, and somehow believe it will never be found again.

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

#279

Post by tinyhouse »

I'm surprised people use messenger for communication. 99.9% of my friends and family are on WhatsApp and that's where we communicate.

As many here I also didn't delete the account but only log in once or twice a month and usually don't spend more than 5 minutes on the site and never write or like anything. I don't get any notifications from FB so it's useful to see if someone sent me a msg. (which happens rarely). I have another "fake" account that I use more often since I have a few groups that I follow there.

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

#280

Post by nradov »

rufus_2 wrote: post #273
nradov wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not actually as cool and edgy as you think you are. No one is impressed.

Parent comment represents another use of Facebook in 2018 that exists somewhere between deleting and using as intended. What was it about the post that made you feel the need to attack the author?

It's not meaningful protest that will produce any positive change, it's just being a jerk and wasting everyone's time. This is the kind of juvenile behavior that impresses 13 year olds.
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