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Comment by codeulike | Hacker News Reader

dont install their app, just use it in the browser

edit: and they wont let you use messenger that way, for no good reason. So just use messenger on desktop or in desktop mode. edit: or mbasic.facebook.com for messenger

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Just delete your account. They'll only find a million other ways to violate you.

it takes guts! Not that easy. You are greatly overestimating an average user. Dopamine generated by the daily drama FB provides is hard (again, for an average person) to quit.

Facebook is the circus (as in panem et curcenses) that masses learned to crave

EDIT: same goes for twitter.

CONTEXTUAL EDIT: I understand that emotional weakness, unawareness, and gullibility of the general population is a controversial topic, it is still very useful to be aware of and hence put reminders in place.

nuked fb+twitter years ago; wasn't hard

Nice. Now tell an average J[oe|ane] to delete FB, [s]he won't be able to.

I personally don’t understand the draw of Facebook. Prior to deleting my account, I just seemed to be constantly unfollowing people because of their over sharing, excessive baby pictures or reposting dumb political stuff or starting massive arguments over literally anything.

If this is the new public square then lordy, I want no part of it. And it’s funny and really scary that people are so into Facebook that’ll come for the photos of a grandkid and stay for the misinformation and repeated privacy invasions.

Facebook's surviving active users are self-selecting very effectively. Anyone not into photos of friends' relatives' offspring and misinformation tailored for maximum emotional impact are at the highest risk of leaving, if they haven't already.

All three of your complaints are about one feature of Facebook, the feed. Facebook also has a wildly used messenger, marketplace, and events for pretty much any activity announced.

They may not want to when all one’s family and friends use it. Personally I couldn’t stand the business and deleted it years ago, but for some people it’s not a option. They need it to communicate, plus there is no clear alternative in 2019.

Alternative for communication? Or something else?

I'd say email + SMS solves 99.9% of problems and also limits the garbage received because people can't be bothered to start/write an email and don't want to spend money on images in MMS/SMS.

My life is blissfully quiet because of this, or I have to physically see people which is much better than all the noise.

Perhaps most people would do alright with WhatsApp or Apple Messages for IM?

Seeing how much my wife's phone bings and beeps with her apps is enough to put me off it.

Friend tax is a real thing. Its when a friend doesn't have access to something that the rest of the friend group has. For example, if your friend group uses Facebook messenger and Facebook events to plan stuff but you don't have that then they will try to include you through second-hand reach out such as texts or emails, in-person, etc. However, since you are not involved in the primary mode of communication you will miss important details and may even show up to incorrect locations as it is not clear who in the group is responsible for informing you of the change.

Same.

But I 100% acknowledge there's social gatherings and events I miss out on now because they're exclusively organised/promoted on FB. And mostly I'm OK with that.

same, though if my participation is desired/required i’ve found people tend to reach me anyhow

Why is it that on Android there is Facebook Services pre-installed?

I think this is from agreements various manufacturers have with Facebook? Not sure but I just switched from a Samsung Note 9 to a Pixel 4 and there's no Facebook bloat preinstalled that I can't uninstall.

Yes, it isn't "Android", it is particular vendors or carriers that load the phone up with crapware, or pointless mods that make things worse (cough Samsung).

I never created one and yet I'm sure they are still tracking me and my relationships. I suspect I have no right to not be their product.

New favorite way to perma-delete your account: start posting eggplant/peach emojis.

Unlike the "delete my account" button which actually just deactivates your account until you're ready to come home, triggering the algorithms' sex-account ban is the cortez-burn-your-ships approach to account deletion.

Turns out this is not a joke.

https://gulfnews.com/lifestyle/fb-instagram-ban-eggplant-pea...

I don't say this often, but I can't believe it. What an absolute farce.

Voter manipulation, hate speech, sales of guns, anti-vaccination propaganda are quite OK though.

Just watch your veggies.

Can we all agree to not use messenger? I find that the best way to devalue messenger as a platform is to make it an unreliable medium. I try to respond stochastically, and when I do immediately push the conversation to...anything else.

It feels like a tiny act of resistance against the hegemonic steamroller that is Facebook.

I think it's more devalued if you delete it.

If stochastic responses count as protest, then I've been unwittingly protesting every messenger platform I've ever used.

I just tested this on my partner's phone. She uses Instagram through the app still. I asked her to disable all of the camera/microphone permissions.

We then used the Shortcuts app to set up a "desktop" icon to take a photo and share with IG.

It worked like a charm. It still gives her the option to edit the image/filter it/whatever, but she doesn't have to give her entire photo roll or camera access to the application.

She's actually thrilled (and sufficiently creeped out by these accounts). We don't keep FB around as an application so someone else might have to test that out.

Use mbasic.facebook.com

I use messenger.com which seems like another bare-bones alternative they have. But I'm guessing it's still heavy on tracking somehow?

Also using Messenger lite on Android for whatever that's worth... Would love to hear any reasons to make me delete that as well.

There's a few "lite" versions of facebook and messenger out there that are either electron or otherwise wrappers for their trimmed down websites.

I use Caprine on desktop for messenger, and Face-Slim (F-Droid) for mobile.

I use an extension that re-enable the messenger in the mobile browser... it is very broken but better then nothing (broken on purpose by Facebook because they want to spy on you with the app) ... it is called, "unblock facebook chat"

Thanks, just deleted the mobile app, Messenger and Desktop App is good enough for me.

There are Firefox extensions that let you use chat on the standard mobile site.

That is what i do, it has also help me decrease the usage of fb and insta.

On Android you can use "Tinfoil for Facebook", which is basicallt a separte browser which will limit facebook interaction with other site and work with Messenger

I could be wrong but last I checked the app is no longer maintained.

There's a number of other wrappers that still work like Metal and Simple

I use SlimSocial, although some Messenger integration stuff doesn't work brilliantly. It's the best option I've found so far.

How are you not convinced of their ill-will?

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