I abandon my abusive relationship with Facebook | Hacker News Reader

I abandon my abusive relationship with Facebook

blog.plover.com

17 pointspanic5 comments

This post seems a bit too much like forced outrage, maybe as a kneejerk because Luluvise doesn't seem like the kindest of sites (at least at first glance, I haven't looked)

I've talked here about why I enjoy facebook in general before[1], so I'll only mention the relevant bit here:

All of my privacy options are on the lowest possible setting. I treat anything that occurs on the site as if it were public. I don't see why not, I'm not going to pretend that photos of myself or my wall postings are anywhere near interesting enough to hide. In fact I'm not sure why people who put things on facebook want privacy at all for that data. I never worry that something I say might be picked up on by the wrong person because I'd never post anything that I wouldn't want the world to hear.

Why is it a big deal if "People who can see your info can bring it with them when they use apps"? You already gave away the data. It's not like you can let your friends (or whatever settings you have) look at your images but not copy them. You already willingly granted them that power. You friends are all free to climb Mount Everest and paper the top with printouts of all your photos for them to pepper the frozen landscape for the next 100 years if they so please.

I think the outrage is overblown a bit. Luluvise certainly doesn't need facebook's nod here to accomplish their goal. It's not like luluvise did something novel with your data, they just made doing something slightly easier with data you already willingly gave to all the people that your settings desired.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3543185

I don't see any forced outrage. It'a a "death of a thousand cuts" sort of issue, or in this case 53 cuts.

You say you "already gave away the data". That's the heart of the problem, isn't it? The author of that essay doesn't agree, and thinks that fundamentally he should be in final control of his data, to the point of being able to delete it if and when he wishes.

FB (and you) disagree, which is why he's leaving FB. You find it useful, sure, but not all people are "shy people like [you]", and don't have the same reasons for wanting to use FB.

My concern extends to the increasing mining of social graphs. For example, the concern that having "undesirable" friends may turn you in turn into an "outcast": For loans, insurance, job applications, and who knows what else. (The No Fly List? I wouldn't put it past them...)

This could have a rather corrosive effect on the very "networking" nature and commonality of the Internet. I don't particularly want to be shepherded into a class, or caste, based hierarchy of online connectivity.

I mean, people will cluster and groups will form, on their own. But enabling third parties to so aggressively and thoroughly use that to classify and segregate? No, thanks.

Maybe I'm just naive, and this will inevitably happen. Well, I have control over my own actions and participation in same.

You can fully delete your FB profile (not just deactivate) - in their help center there is a blurb and a link to do a full deletion...

http://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=how+do+i+delete+my+ac...

I had 2000+ friends. I deleted my account two weeks ago and it should be gone by tomorrow.

I have no more interest in monetizing my connections for the benefit of a small group of people I don't even like or respect.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com