141–150 of 240 posts
Never used Facebook, though I'm postive they have a lot of data on me, for which I never agreed to share with them, cannot see, have no way to opt-out of, etc.
127.0.0.1 facebook.com 127.0.0.1 fbcdn.com etc.
Multiple people maintain lists of Facebook and other surveillancecorp domains.
This is an excellent blog post, though it made me sick reading it. I recently made the switch. I went from trying to limit how much I log in (to once or twice a week), to actually not logging in. I've been cold-turkey for two months (except for a couple of times when I had a very specific reason to check something). I thought it would be difficult. Turns out it's not so hard, and it's the fear of reduced social conta…
For the past several months, I spent some of my free time going through my history, deleting almost everything I ever posted (note, there's a way to view your timeline by specific year, which seems to include more than the regular timeline view). The few things I couldn't delete (because it didn't give me an option) or that I didn't want to delete (e.g, photos I want to download later), I set to viewable only by me. Then without a peep, I deactivated my account. I probably should have written a script to do this rather than taking all the time. But to be honest, doing it manually was a nice jog down memory lane, even if it was really time consuming.
At this point, I have no plans to reactivate my account, with one exception. At some point, when I decide that "it's time," I'll reactivate my account, download an archive of the remaining items, delete what I can of what remains, and use the "account delete" option (for whatever good that actually does). Then that will be it.
Out of habit, I still frequently catch myself saying "ooh, interesting article, I should post that to facebook. Oh, wait..." Hopefully it's only a matter of time before that stops.
Permanently Delete it here: https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account If you are considering getting off of it for any of these reasons then why haven't you already done it? You feel you might somehow need it, just like a heroin addict has trouble imagining a life without drugs. It is horrible for your privacy. They collect EVERYTHING about you! It is in their best interest to manipulate your attention, which to m…
(OK they probably have that in every login page redirect, and the cleverer way would be to silently record the HTTP header...)
Even though Facebook by itself doesn't seem to provide much value anymore, it's incredible how much of a platform lock-in the have. For example, Facebook login becoming essentially a universal identity provider. The worst thing is even when you create a new account under a different name they still manage to track you down, and start suggesting adding friends from the old account. I wonder how they do this, by tracki…
Yep, this is the #1 reason I still have a FB account. Until recently, I needed it so I could use Tinder. I have a great gf now, but just in case that fails, I'll want to be able to reactivate my Tinder account, and I need my FB login for that.
The only other reason I have a FB account is so I can be "friends" with some family members and some other people, because they use it. In practice, however, I never actually look at anything on there unless someone tells me "I sent you a FB message about such-and-such!".
A related question is "Should you sign up for Facebook today?". Five years ago I killed my Facebook account (and LinkedIn and G+) and it hasn't bothered me, but... am I missing out on something?
I occasionally get pushback from some relatives who tell me I'm not taking part in family stuff. That probably matters to some people, depending on their family dynamics. I simply point out that I also publish stuff online in places they don't choose to look.
I also miss out on some community chatter and the occasional event with a couple of orgs I'm involved with. I don't personally care.
In general, my calculation is that my life is noticeably better without it. I'm not someone who needs constant human contact, in fact, too much is bad for me. I'm also apparently pretty far off-median on the Bell-curve in terms of the value I place on my privacy. YMMV.
Not long ago I was sitting with some long time friends I hadn't seen in a few years. It was one of those really great visits in which you remember exactly why someone is an important person in your life. One of the things we ended up talking about was physical photographs and how our families had developed a natural curation and annotation system. "Keepers" get sorted and labeled on the back with names, dates, brief…
Can someone make a browser plugin that will send fake data to facebook? Instead of hiding your own behavior, might as well poison their database.
A few of us were joking about poisoning the location tracking database of site along a similar vein. Have an app masking your location to some place in the pacific ocean to any app running in the background asking for location (without the user's intent of using it).
Genuine question : do you think a privacy oriented social network where users pay a small annual fee (around $5) would work? Think Whatsapp (use phone number as an id, no native discovery, only connect through phone contacts, encrypted user data only to prevent database leaks from causing damage) + Facebook (feed like feature, share photos, videos, direct messaging, group messaging). No user tracking, no ads, just a…
I believe there is room for a private social network that is peer-to-peer, encrypted, with no central servers and an open spec. It would make my world a better place, but I don't think it can be monetized. (Maybe donations? non-profit?) Also, privacy breaks down when you run a client on Windows 8 or above. :-( I think a lot of tough computer science challenges are inherit in this model. And yes, there is the network…
We already have this. It's called "Diaspora". It's a great idea using all the things you talk about: decentralized, peer-to-peer, etc.
No one uses it.
>but I don't require mainstream adoption to use it.
Then I encourage you to set up your own Diaspora account. Maybe if enough people do so, it'll eventually get somewhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Facebook is the ultimate realization of the American concept of "friendship" (maybe not your specific case) contrasted to the German version of friendship. In Germany, to call someone your friend, it is a great honor, it means something, it is an investment. Here in the states, "everyone is friends!" Yet it feels so superficial. Now we can just check in on them a couple times a day on their posts without the…
Strength of friendships in Germany can't be granular? Aren't there just people that have been good to you in the present or past, that you want to see succeed, that you want to root for? Those are the perfect candidates for Facebook.
This is an excellent blog post, though it made me sick reading it. I recently made the switch. I went from trying to limit how much I log in (to once or twice a week), to actually not logging in. I've been cold-turkey for two months (except for a couple of times when I had a very specific reason to check something). I thought it would be difficult. Turns out it's not so hard, and it's the fear of reduced social conta…
Anyway, I can say I'm happier without it. I'm now seriously considering deactivating my Twitter account. Twitter really will delete your account after I believe 30 days of it being deactivated.