Comments on: Why I quit Facebook and you should too

By: Sid

Sid — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 08:09:41 +0000

I think Facebook is an utter waste of time. Although I don’t have an account, I’ve seen my friends waste tons of hours on it. Most of the games and polls and quizzes are so childish and foolish. And seriously, who cares about what you had for lunch or what you did last evening. I think Facebook is just a platform for people to show their narcissism. And yes, I do think Facebook is a novelty and that it will be obsolete in the next 7-10 years.

By: Facebook member

Facebook member — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:40:09 +0000

I just deactivated my account today and will delete it after a while. Facebook is much ado about nothing.

It is just used as a trap for people in the middle east to overthrow their regimes and replace it with American overwhelm.

By: chriszanf

chriszanf — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:20:27 +0000

I was going to suggest using the suicidemachine (http://suicidemachine.org/) but they have a press release on their front page that FB has blocked them permanently because it doesnt want people removing their data.

By: tim

tim — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:22:16 +0000

i feel sorry or americans because in canada all of the violations facebook does are illegal, they have pushed facebook to stop the “deactivate” crap and actually delete the information.
facebook put up a fuss saying “well people that leave facebook usually come back (what a laugh) so we keep it for there sake (still laughing).”
as for selling information they got a warning to stop that too or get shut down.

this happened in early 2009, can’t blame them though for taking so long to catch on to things like this on the internet. when all the people in government are like 60+

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Quitting Facebook brings back many poignant memories | Cyde Weys Musings — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:13:15 +0000

[...] long had issues regarding Facebook and privacy. In November, I deactivating my Facebook account. It was mostly symbolic, as deactivating your account doesn’t actually do anything; the next [...]

By: Cyde Weys

Cyde Weys — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:31:11 +0000

The only problem with considering Facebook a novelty is that, in some circumstances, it is not. It is a necessity. I’m thinking about college, but there are other social circles as well that use it as a prime mover. Want to find someone in your classes? Facebook. Want to reach someone? You’re more likely to get through to them by hunting them down on Facebook (and sending PMs or just getting an IM name) than searching the school’s student directory and using their student email address.

Most party planning has gone onto Facebook too. The people hosting a party set up an events page for it then invite everyone through Facebook. Oftentimes they won’t even bother telling people in real life unless you specifically ask. So yes, Facebook isn’t technically necessary, but it has a huge opportunity cost: you’ll be missing social events, you won’t be able to contact classmates and friends as reliably, etc. I know a fair number of people who don’t use AIM anymore because of Facebook (and just forget email). Want to contact them? You have to use Facebook (unless you know their cell phone number).

I saw a very enlightening comment on the Slashdot story. The gist was that Facebook is taking a “it’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission” stance on privacy. Note how everything is on an opt-out basis, and each new privacy-infringing feature they add is enabled by default. This latest advertising feed thing is especially insidious because you can only opt out on a site-by-site basis; to really opt out of the whole thing, you need to use a browser plugin. That’s ridiculous. Facebook needs to be burnt severely by one of these opt-out schemes. Only then will they be reined in.

By: Andrew S

Andrew S — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:53:01 +0000

Isn’t deactivation is pretty much the same thing with Google as well. Nothing ever gets deleted.

With regards to Facebook I tried playing with it for a while but the advertising is annoying and it really adds absolutely zero to my life beyond what I already have. I see Facebook as a novelty, nothing more, nothing less, and we will only have to wait for the next novelty to come along and everyone will go pick that up.

By: Cyde Weys

Cyde Weys — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:41:47 +0000

Yeah, I did notice that. It’s kind of scary. Maybe setting the email address to something non-mailable and then scrambling your password before deactivating it would have the appropriate effect? Of course, it’s not really deleted; the data is still there somewhere. All it would take is some security hole in one of Facebook’s applications to potentially expose it.

Yes, being able to actually delete one’s account would be much better.

By: QauNuckShin

QauNuckShin — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:56:54 +0000

Have you noticed how you can only deactivate your account?

Your account isn’t deleted. Everything is still there, and all you need to do to “reactivate” it is to log in..