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Never Trust Facebook

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Re: Never Trust Facebook

#191

Post by jgeerts »

There is one part of this that I agree with, that is the part where you say that if you delete all items one by one (why don't they have a delete all?) you want them never to be visible for anyone again.

The part I don't agree with is that you expect that the data is physically deleted from the server. I think and expect that big companies don't wipe all your data on command, they simply set a flag for deleted records. Really deleting the data also has a technical impact for them, it probably depends on the company's policy. It would be great if they did wipe all data but I really think most of them don't and have some sort of an aging process or really never delete your data.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#192

Post by muyuu »

sgrenfro wrote: post #190
muyuu wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We’ve put a lot of work into making deletions permanent, so I can imagine how frustrated you must be It shouldn't be necessary to put a lot of work. Just delete the content, clobber it with blank fields, or randomized content. It really is very easy. The problem is that your company's policy is to never truly delete content despite calling it "delete", there are many ways to weasel-word it ("many software subsystems…

When the delete button affects a single row in a single database table, it's indeed really simple. Even if it's a few rows on a single database, you can use transactions. Either way, the deletion succeeds or you surface an error message. But for a large social site, it starts to become a more interesting distributed systems problem. Even for a simple story with 4 likes, 12 comments, and likes on several of the commen…

So you're telling me that you/they manage to commit inserts and updates to your/their sharded databases reliably but deletes conveniently fail.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#193

Post by roc »

novum wrote: post #35
roc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of friends are they, that don't notice and/or care to invite people except through Facebook? Also, birthdays? Aren't those the sorts of things you find out about once per friend and then add to your own contacts? I've never had a Facebook account, but that's not a problem I've ever experienced. Granted, I don't automatically know the birthday of every single person I meet or even get a number/email from. Bu…

I don't think there's any malicious intent. In my demographic, (almost) all events are set up through FB because your friend graph, mass-invites, and guest lists are built in. My flatmate's boyfriend is fond of throwing large house parties with hundreds of invitees, then hiring a doorman to check names off against the FB RSVP list. If you're not on it, you're not admitted. My closest friends remember me and send me i…

I didn't mean to imply maliciousness -- rather to draw a line between the sorts of friend-of-a-friend-of-an-ex-coworker parties you might miss out on for not being on Facebook, and a party of an actual friend you know and spend time with.

In short: pointing to the line between friends and "friends" and (likely my personality coloring the value judgment) thus questioning whether you're actually missing out by not being so closely connected to those "friends".

(Frankly the very concept of a house party with so many attendees that don't actually know one another, that a door man and a guest list is required, sounds like a caricature of a straw man I might have cooked up to have a laugh at "things you might need FB to get invited to". But maybe that's just saying more about me and why I don't grok or value things like FB.)

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#194

Post by ssw1n »

Sequel to the article incoming:

"OMG! I deleted my Facebook account two months ago, and my friends just told me that they wished me birthday on my timeline last night. OMG! Facebook, I trusted you! Why!? OMG!"

Seriously, I love the last sentence of the article: "That is why I may delete my Facebook account. And that is why you should too."

If Facebook will not delete the posts on the Timeline, why is the author still believing that deleting the account will genuinely delete the account? The data you disclosed to the social network is here to stay. The only way you can stop is to not give it more.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#195

Post by donniezazen »

koralatov wrote: post #188
donniezazen wrote: post #60

Not having facebook makes you look like an anti-social element irrespective of what it does to your mental health and well being. At the end of the day, I feel like make a small circle of friends that engage with you on deep level and not just superficially. What kind of friend it would who couldn't or forgets to text or call you?

That's exactly my feeling on it. Since I left Facebook at the start of 2011, I've seen my friends just as much --- perhaps more --- than when I was on there, and I hear from them at least as frequently. The only difference is that I don't get the occasional, insincere message from people I went to school with who are bored and looking for something to do.

Also it is more fun to hear about them face to face and not read a generic message on facebook and they tend to have more things to say to you.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#196

Post by yuliyp »

muyuu wrote: post #192
sgrenfro wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the delete button affects a single row in a single database table, it's indeed really simple. Even if it's a few rows on a single database, you can use transactions. Either way, the deletion succeeds or you surface an error message. But for a large social site, it starts to become a more interesting distributed systems problem. Even for a simple story with 4 likes, 12 comments, and likes on several of the commen…

So you're telling me that you/they manage to commit inserts and updates to your/their sharded databases reliably but deletes conveniently fail.

Well comment tree deletion is a harder operation than post creation or comment creation or liking.

Each of the steps in building up the tree of comments, likes, etc. is a a couple writes at most. If that fails, you're left in a safe state. You tell the user it failed and carry on.

Deleting a post and the comments on it is harder. First, you have a potentially unbounded amount of DB rows to delete across an unknown number of shards. Second, you now have to worry about the order in which you delete things, else you risk being unable to retry in case one of these deletes fails. Third, unlike the inserts and updates, you can't just give up partway, as that's not a safe state to end in.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#197

Post by inthewind »

inthewind wrote: post #138
AJ007 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I've dealt with FB's negligent, frequent, and non consensual behavior: 1) No one can post on my wall 2) No one can tag me in pictures, post or places. 3) My profile picture excludes my face. 4) I post little to nothing. 5) I only friend a narrow group of people. Being an offline friend of mine for years is not enough. 6) People who make weird comments are unfriended quickly. 7) The list goes on, but it ca…

Sounds like you are a Facebook leech! Community involves active participation! You just have to learn to ignore some posts - gloss over them. If you swapped Facebook out for say a private email list - would you be more inclined to participate? And if that is the case - why don't people just use mailing lists?

Downvote me then without reason. The arrogance! ;)

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#198

Post by antitrust »

Should you enter your real information on any internet site? It's kind of like when stores ask for your phone number: there's no real obligation to them to not use it for spam or re-sell it. I always give a fake and ask them to email.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#199

Post by gtirloni »

Yesterday I started deleting all my FB content. My FB account got locked and released 24h later. When I logged in, all my content was restored. I'm still trying to understand why.

Re: Never Trust Facebook

#200

Post by gtirloni »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #122

I am not going to waste time deleting all of my content a third time. I did that once, there's a Firefox extension (the name escapes me at the moment sorry) you can use to create macros. Sure it's useless in a way, but it's also fun in a way :D If it pops back, it's macro time again -- better than nothing, right?

I used one of the userscripts.org extensions for that and it caused my FB account to get locked for 24h. When I came back all my content had been restored (I know that because while the script was working, I had another window opened checking the progress).

Now the extension does not work anymore (the button it adds to the setting pages is not showing).

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