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Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#141

Post by robonerd »

31098347 wrote: post #112
Mikeb85 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And commercial food producers make their products more addictive too... How about the tobacco industry? How about illicit drugs? Porn? At some point you need to talk about personal responsibility...

> And commercial food producers make their products more addictive too... How about the tobacco industry? How about illicit drugs? Porn? How about them? They also designed their products to be addictive. “Personal Responsibility” is just the shield that powerful companies use to avoid being regulated. Shift the blame to the exploited and make it clear that their problems stem from their moral deficiency. Pretty conve…

> Personal responsibility cannot overcome AI designed to addict you.

I agree with your general arguments but you're going too far here. Individuals can overcome addiction. That doesn't change the big picture of how additive substances and services effect society as a whole, and I agree corporations use personal responsibility rhetoric to stave off government regulation. But you're going too far by suggesting that individual addicts have no chance of quitting. Many people have quit, proving that it's not impossible. It's good to see the whole forest, but don't forget the trees.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#142

Post by notjustanymike »

Delete. Delete delete delete.

Did it a few years back, trust me you won't miss out on anything important. In fact, the opposite: important things will find a way to you regardless. It's the unimportant things that will filter out.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#143

Post by kibwen »

ekianjo wrote: post #54
kibwen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord has taken over this role for me and all my social groups. And unlike Facebook there's no ads, no viral bullshit, no astroturfers, no personal information, and you can keep your identities separate across multiple social circles (all of which are private and invite-only by default).

> And unlike Facebook there's no ads, no viral bullshit, no astroturfers, no personal information The counter to all of this is "for now..." - there's no network that gets massive without falling prey to numerous kinds of incentives.

Sure, but then we'll migrate somewhere else. "They'll be bad eventually" is by no means an argument in favor of instead using a service that is worse now.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#144

Post by mattgreenrocks »

VLM wrote: post #84

Most people don't need to delete their accounts. I have a tasty bottle of rather expensive whiskey on the bar in my basement right now. Luxury consumables are a good gift, I guess. I don't want to drink it right now because I have things to do requiring sobriety, its a bit early in the day for that sort of thing, etc. I got my reasons, none of them terribly interesting. If I don't want to drink it for various reasons…

No, most people should delete their accounts and go cold turkey. In time, they will begin to see that they never needed it, that human relationships necessarily require reaching out (aka work), and that social media was merely empty calories all along.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#145

Post by mattgreenrocks »

phphphphp wrote: post #98
VLM wrote: post #84

Most people don't need to delete their accounts. I have a tasty bottle of rather expensive whiskey on the bar in my basement right now. Luxury consumables are a good gift, I guess. I don't want to drink it right now because I have things to do requiring sobriety, its a bit early in the day for that sort of thing, etc. I got my reasons, none of them terribly interesting. If I don't want to drink it for various reasons…

People are different. I, personally, find ownership of digital and physical things to “weigh” on me and so deleting something digital or giving something away physical is meaningful to me — it keeps my life simple in this moment, whether I acquire the thing again in future is not relevant. Not everybody is the same :)

Ditto. Delete if only to feel a smidgen more agency in your life. Completely worth it.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#146

Post by kibwen »

AdvancedCarrot wrote: post #71
kibwen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord has taken over this role for me and all my social groups. And unlike Facebook there's no ads, no viral bullshit, no astroturfers, no personal information, and you can keep your identities separate across multiple social circles (all of which are private and invite-only by default).

Thing is I'm not convinced that discord is really any better from a privacy perspective. They still retain all of your messages (including DMs) unencrypted indefinitely with no easy way to remove them. Deleting your account doesn't remove messages either.

I didn't say anything about message privacy, but it's still strictly better than Facebook because Discord "profiles" feature nothing except a username (which, unlike Facebook, is not required to be your legal name), an avatar, a profile banner, and 190 characters worth of freeform markdown. And unlike Facebook, it doesn't pester you to ever add personal information. A company can't store private information that it never has to begin with. By all means, if you want message privacy, use a service that offers end-to-end encryption, which isn't Discord. (But keep in mind that end-to-end encrypted group chat (as in, not strictly one-to-one) is an impossible and unsalvageable UX boondoggle.)

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#147

Post by ipaddr »

necessary wrote: post #103
VLM wrote: post #84

Most people don't need to delete their accounts. I have a tasty bottle of rather expensive whiskey on the bar in my basement right now. Luxury consumables are a good gift, I guess. I don't want to drink it right now because I have things to do requiring sobriety, its a bit early in the day for that sort of thing, etc. I got my reasons, none of them terribly interesting. If I don't want to drink it for various reasons…

I think pouring the alcohol down the drain does more than just waste time and money: it increases the cost of pouring another drink and creates an opportunity for self-reflection for the addict when popping open another bottle. This can make the difference between pouring one more drink and abstaining for another day. For the only moderately addicted social media user, the cost of recreating your accounts might actua…

Or throws you in a new endless cycle of deleting and recreating accounts with each new account representing a new leaf / new you. I've seen people in this birth/death cycle.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#148

Post by ipaddr »

agency wrote: post #95
VLM wrote: post #84

Most people don't need to delete their accounts. I have a tasty bottle of rather expensive whiskey on the bar in my basement right now. Luxury consumables are a good gift, I guess. I don't want to drink it right now because I have things to do requiring sobriety, its a bit early in the day for that sort of thing, etc. I got my reasons, none of them terribly interesting. If I don't want to drink it for various reasons…

What a bizarre take. You should continue to volunteer your personal information to an ad-tech behemoth… in order to prove you’re not an addict?

Volunteer random information or targeted information for who you want your character to be. Never volunteer personal information unless you want your character connected to your person.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#149

Post by robonerd »

javajosh wrote: post #14
boondaburrah wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

firefox containers is both the killer feature of firefox for me (I can't leave it) and also the jankyest. I don't think mozilla knows they have gold on their hands (but do they ever know?). I lived through the firefox extension debacle in 2019 or so when FF accidentally let a cert expire and it helpfully uninstalled all my "unverified" extensions, of which container tabs was one. When everything was fixed, my setting…

I suspect that Mozilla looks at the telemetry and very few people use containers. I'd guess because users don't understand what they're good for. Perhaps you, an enthusiastic user, could do a little writeup somewhere (here?) on why they are the cat's meow.

> I suspect that Mozilla looks at the telemetry and very few people use containers

The UX for using containers is abysmal, so no fucking wonder. This is the problem with "data-driven" design, it falls for the McNamara Fallacy. It's an over-reliance on 'scientific and objective' quantitative metrics while aggressively ignoring qualitative considerations and analysis. You'll never achieve excellence like this.

Re: Internet spring cleaning: How to delete Instagram, Facebook and other accounts

#150

Post by kibwen »

dzink wrote: post #68
kibwen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord has taken over this role for me and all my social groups. And unlike Facebook there's no ads, no viral bullshit, no astroturfers, no personal information, and you can keep your identities separate across multiple social circles (all of which are private and invite-only by default).

Some groups are really dependent on evidence the person is who they say they were - especially parent groups /Mom groups, health groups, where you’re looking for advice or legitimate local socialization / resource information.

Facebook has no way of actually verifying that you are a parent, so I hope nobody is relying on that to provide any sense of security. And my experience with Google+ is that a real-name policy is a woefully naive way of trying to filter out the maniacs; plenty of deranged people have no qualms about having their actions associated with their legal identities.
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