So much power? You give him power. Just delete your facebook account and uninstall their apps!
The phrase "network effect" exists for a reason. Where people don't think about keeping in touch with others in any terms other than Facebook, refusing to play along with Facebook comes with serious consequences.
And how exactly do you think these things worked before Facebook?
"Friends" who don't want to make the effort to stay in touch outside of a dead-simple social app aren't friends, anyway.
When the letters were the common way to contact people, people would contact you by letter. If you refused to communicate in different ways than with letters, people would communicate less with you than with others, because it would be a pain in the ass. They'd organize a party on short notice, and then realize that the letter won't reach you in time (or that they don't have envelopes and stamps anymore because they no longer send letters).
The same applies to this sort of app today, sadly.
I almost caved, the second time that happened. What stopped me was being prompted for my email account credentials, so Facebook could mine my more than decade-long correspondence for social graph data. I know enough about abusive relationships not to overlook an opening boundary test like that. So that was the end of my Facebook experiment. In any case, by that point the damage was probably done.
Someone else here said something about having his Facebook departure be a conversation starter. Doesn't always work that way. When I tell people about that email prompt, they just look at me funny and go "you know you can skip that, right?" Which, of course, I do know, but see above re: abusive relationships. Maybe I can talk my way out of taking a punch this time, but every time?
That metaphor doesn't seem to cut much ice with anyone, though. No idea why. Maybe it's a little over the top. Maybe people are just so accustomed to think about Facebook as part of the environment, and take it totally for granted, that it doesn't occur to them to regard what I'm saying as anything but incomprehensibly weird. Maybe I'm an obstreperous pain in the ass. I'm sure at least one of those is true. But who knows? I mean, I don't ask; I just steer the conversation somewhere more mutually enjoyable, because I go to bars to drink and enjoy talking with people, not to pretend to be Richard Stallman.
The problem is not that your friends don't care enough about you to keep in touch by means other than Facebook. The problem is that Facebook has so completely insinuated itself into and throughout a billion people's interpersonal relationships that your friends don't even think about keeping in touch by means other than Facebook.
Put another way, we find ourselves in a situation where a single, rather secretive corporation mediates the interactions of a significant fraction of the species, and has already been known to manipulate the perception of its users in ways which might be to its benefit. When I was a kid, this would've been no more than fodder for third-rate dystopian sf which even fans of the genre mostly wouldn't take seriously. And yet, somehow, here we are.
Fights aren't easy, but this fight is important for our society and our children.
> Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
This is a fight, our fight. For freedom, free speech and privacy.
> I mean, yeah, that's easy to say and all, and it makes you feel special and everything. It's also horseshit.
I bet it makes you feel special writing that phrase (isn't it?).
> Put another way, we find ourselves in a situation where a single, rather secretive corporation mediates the interactions of a significant fraction of the species, and has already been known to manipulate the perception of its users in ways which might be to its benefit. When I was a kid, this would've been no more than fodder for third-rate dystopian sf which even fans of the genre mostly wouldn't take seriously. And yet, somehow, here we are.
...because you don't really care.
It's not that I don't want to see Facebook killed with an axe. I'm just not so foolish as to imagine that browbeating people will make that more likely. Don't confuse the two.
Who else should stop using the Facebook than the people who actualy understands how it works.
I am saying this becuase over a year ago i deleted FB. It was more for the fact that i started to measure how i use FB and i realized i was giving it quite bit of my focus. It wasnt taking much of my time but it was constant distraction. So i stopped. After 14 days i never felt urge or need to use facebook again. Seriously it was like some spell. And outcome? All the worries about not being able to reach foreing friends or see what are my friends up to. Well the interesting people luckily found another way to contact me and since then all the important stuff was much more focused. Other people started to talk with me, they had a reason to talk with me in a pub because they got something new i didnt know about. And leaving fb became theme for conversations because people wondered why i did it.
And its not only me, there are 4 people i know around me who came to the same conclusion. None of us came back.
Btw when you will try to actualy delete your fb account, its a minefield of dark patterns. First you need special link, because you can only deactivate from settings. Then you will have to go through pile of emotionaly draining photos of friends with claims that they will mis you and you wont be able to see what they are doing with their lives. Then few traps with agreeing about deletion with switched meanings of buttons. In the end you wont actualy be deleted. You will be put to deactivate mode for 14 days, if your browser accidentaly auto logins then you have to do it again. After 14 days you are sent email and if you miss it and wont acept it in certain time - you wont be deleted. Of course since 1. 1. 2014 it realy doesnt matter because facebook keeps your data even if you delete account. (i deleted it just before 1. 1. 2014 and i still think they kept all the shit, because how would anyone know).