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Why I Canceled My Facebook Account

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11–20 of 85 posts

Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account

#11

So you're mad they're basically turning from a free model to a freemium model? The whole "privacy" thing is just ridiculous. When is Facebook's selling of your info ever going to impair on your real life? The information they sell is never going to lead to someone knocking on your door and calling your house. It will impair your visual Facebook surfing experience, at worst. And impair is a strong word. Flipping out o…

The problem is not at all that they're making money.

The problem is that they've decided to extract value in a way that leaves me no choice about how to pay them. I've certainly gotten plenty of utility out of Facebook, but I'm not willing to pay for it with my privacy! Frankly, I'd much sooner pay for it explicitly, in exchange for a privacy guarantee. (Although, it's debatable how much that guarantee would be worth, given Facebook's history.)

Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account

#12
I perma-deleted my account several weeks ago. I was fed up with watching the not-so gradual erosion of privacy which has been occurring since I first opened my account in 2006.

My problem is that the contract, whether legal or implied, that I had with Facebook offered me a certain level of privacy, and protection of data. This is what Facebook built their reputation on. Because of this contract, I uploaded a lot of personal photos, notes and information and generally became deeply involved in the service.

Every time Facebook have a new API release or re-design, however, I became familiar with the uneasy awareness that another slice of this personal information was about to become available to businesses, friends of friends, the general public and goodness knows who else. The final straw for me was the realisation that my friends list was going to be made public, and there was nothing I could do about it. There is no way I want the list of my personal friends and acquaintances being made public: it is just beyond the pail. In hindsight, I should never have put that information on the web at all, but there you have it -- I trusted Facebook to look after that information, and Facebook repeatedly broke my trust, and that's why I've left.

I believe that there is very good reason to protect the basic tenets of our privacy online, and Facebook have shown themselves singularly incapable of doing that. As well as that, I am highly unimpressed with the direction and quality of the product, particularly the UI which has devolved from one of the best on the web to a cluttered, unpleasant mess.

I haven't missed Facebook once. Nowadays, I stick to Twitter, where the contract is clear. Everything is public, and we all know where we stand.

Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account

#13
post #5

Yes FB is definitely becoming less useful. For example, it used to be that if I listed my employer and set it to "friends only" then that was that. Now, if you visit my profile, it's still friends only - but if you go to my employer's public page, my name is (actually was) listed there! Same with all my previous employers, the colleges I attended, my interests, etc etc. Hometown too maybe! So I have removed all of th…

Twitter was never about having your personal info on display. There's the 'bio' section and that's it. Twitter is a broadcast medium where the information is the primary interest point. I think the stickyness of Twitter correlates to how interesting the tweets are of the person you're following, rather than the person itself (like facebook).

Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account

#14

I'm a little bit confused over what appears to be a mass hysteria about privacy problems for Facebook. I guess I really don't mind if Facebook tells company X that I listen to Modest Mouse, or lets advertisers know that I play disc golf. Facebook is still the best communication tool out there for sharing everything (pictures, videos, messages, etc.). If, in return for using an excellent and free service, Facebook sen…

Don't you think you should be entitled to earn some of that money that Facebook is making off of your information?

I think that's what pisses me off about FB the most. This entire website was built on the backs of hundreds of millions of eager users. And sure, the users get some benefits (meeting old friends, finding a new job), and some downsides (affairs, posting that picture of you drunk for the boss to see). But all in all, we've all made Zuckerberg a millionaire for doing very little, in the big picture.

Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account

#15
I closed my FaceBook account because they keep changing the privacy settings. They also made the new settings more complicated than it needed to be and it seems to me that they are trying to trick people into sharing more information than they might want to.

Additionally, I find the Facebook CEO's view on privacy disturbing.

Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account

#16

I'm a little bit confused over what appears to be a mass hysteria about privacy problems for Facebook. I guess I really don't mind if Facebook tells company X that I listen to Modest Mouse, or lets advertisers know that I play disc golf. Facebook is still the best communication tool out there for sharing everything (pictures, videos, messages, etc.). If, in return for using an excellent and free service, Facebook sen…

Don't you think you should be entitled to earn some of that money that Facebook is making off of your information? I think that's what pisses me off about FB the most. This entire website was built on the backs of hundreds of millions of eager users. And sure, the users get some benefits (meeting old friends, finding a new job), and some downsides (affairs, posting that picture of you drunk for the boss to see). But…

"Don't you think you should be entitled to earn some of that money that Facebook is making off of your information?"

Out of curiosity, do you hold AdSense to the same standard? After all, a pixel and a cookie on 70% of websites by hit is being used to infer your interests, location, demographics, and purchasing history, all so ads can be better targeted at you. Why is it more shady for Facebook to do this with information you explicitly provided, under terms that Facebook disclosed, than for Google to do so with 99.9% of the web having no idea it's happening?

Sorry, I forgot: it's not evil when Google does it.

Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account

#19
post #7
post #2

I think, Mr. Zuckerberg is a more evil exploiter with weak ethics than I'm willing to accept.

My take is that Mr Z. is a relative kid (that is, relatively inexperienced), sitting in a room with a bunch of cagey investors who made him an "instant" multimillionaire, and are now asking, "So, what are you going to do for us?" He has no idea. My guess at a phenomenological relationship for ethics as a function of time in this situation would be E = E0 exp(-ĸt) where E0 is am empirically determined constant, and de…

My impression is that Jim Breyer has been running the show for a while.

Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account

#20
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think you should be entitled to earn some of that money that Facebook is making off of your information? I think that's what pisses me off about FB the most. This entire website was built on the backs of hundreds of millions of eager users. And sure, the users get some benefits (meeting old friends, finding a new job), and some downsides (affairs, posting that picture of you drunk for the boss to see). But…

"Don't you think you should be entitled to earn some of that money that Facebook is making off of your information?" Out of curiosity, do you hold AdSense to the same standard? After all, a pixel and a cookie on 70% of websites by hit is being used to infer your interests, location, demographics, and purchasing history, all so ads can be better targeted at you. Why is it more shady for Facebook to do this with inform…

If I'm reading a magazine that has advertisements that is fine. They help cover the costs of production. If I join a club and they sell my information (where I live, who referred me, what actions I perform in the club) to another company that is an entirely different matter.

Tracking via cookies/pixels,etc is getting pretty invasive too. When google does it, it is just as bad. Look at Buzz, have we already forgotten the outrage when it came out?

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