Why I quit Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I quit Facebook

#11

Post by cosmez » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 6:00 AM UTC

Yhippa wrote: post #6

What this guy wrote seems very honest and his reasons are aligned with why I would quit Facebook. I would love to know if people who have tried it ended up going back (relapse rate). I feel like if I quit I would want to go back fairly quickly and have withdrawal symptoms. I hope that's not the case.

i tried to leave facebook several times.. its too hard to do it if you have any kind of social life, these are my reasons:

- school announcements(surprise tests, parties, etc) used to be on facebook when i was at school - if i wanted someone to send me a photo, they just uploaded the photo to facebook. - my girlfriend (now wife) pushing me to use it - a job doing facebook apps

Re: Why I quit Facebook

#12

Post by reverend » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 6:01 AM UTC

Xuzz wrote: post #4

I don't have to worry about Facebook selling my browser history. Well, no, you don't when you have an account either. Facebook might save your browsing history of pages with Facebook widgets, but they aren't going to sell this. (They probably will use it for more targeted advertising, but isn't this exactly what AdWords is? This kind of profiling and advertising, to me, at least, is what enables the internet.) Facebo…

Naive.

Remember that Facebook is a for-profit company and they will do whatever it takes to keep the money coming in, not giving a shit about what you want and your privacy.

Same goes for any other company such as Google, Apple, Microsoft or whatever. It's not evil, just how it works.

Re: Why I quit Facebook

#13

Post by r00fus » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 6:34 AM UTC

Xuzz wrote: post #4

I don't have to worry about Facebook selling my browser history. Well, no, you don't when you have an account either. Facebook might save your browsing history of pages with Facebook widgets, but they aren't going to sell this. (They probably will use it for more targeted advertising, but isn't this exactly what AdWords is? This kind of profiling and advertising, to me, at least, is what enables the internet.) Facebo…

> Facebook isn't going to sell your personal info to advertisers.

No, they just have gaping personal data exposures [1] and loopholes [2] where the savvy data-miner could easily piece together a dossier on pretty much any FB user.

Left as an exercise for the reader: Is this intentional (ct: CIA) or merely incompetence?

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/10/facebook_user_creden... [2] http://news.discovery.com/tech/facebook-flaw-private-photos-...

Re: Why I quit Facebook

#14

Post by gldalmaso » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 10:02 AM UTC

Xuzz wrote: post #4

I don't have to worry about Facebook selling my browser history. Well, no, you don't when you have an account either. Facebook might save your browsing history of pages with Facebook widgets, but they aren't going to sell this. (They probably will use it for more targeted advertising, but isn't this exactly what AdWords is? This kind of profiling and advertising, to me, at least, is what enables the internet.) Facebo…

>> but they aren't going to sell this

Maybe they won't per se, but they are still the holders of all that data, and that data is worth a lot to a lot of people, not all of them have ill intent, but some have, or might come along anytime in the future. Then suddenly you are exposed to the wrong people just because you wanted share your social life with your friends (not the world).

>> This kind of profiling and advertising, to me, at least, is what enables the internet.

The internet is not for-profit.

Maybe what you meant wast that it is what enables companies to offer free web services for the end users and still be for-profit. Though they seldom really disclose the privacy cost to the end user.

Re: Why I quit Facebook

#15

Post by ddw » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 6:12 PM UTC

I'm almost in the exact place, but my friends on FB use it for invitations and I would totally be left out of events if I closed my account.

The problem is that FB just makes invitations so easy. I suppose it could be done still over email, but I don't know what the solution is.