Comment by vectorpush | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vectorpush | Hacker News Reader

Real human beings live complex lives in which they occupy different roles which are exposed to different people. Facebook tries to bundle everything up into one amorphous blob.

This is my biggest issue with Facebook. I was once a moderately active Facebook user, back when it was cool and before it became ubiquitous. Over the years, without really thinking about it, I've allowed my Facebook friends-list to accumulate dozens of extended (and my entire immediate) family as well as professional colleagues and many other miscellaneous acquaintances of various walks.

I was once fond of posting interesting articles and commentary, but now I am compelled to consider the politics/religion/sensitivities of ~250 individuals lest I end up in a flame war with my aunt or boss or individuals who I've been actively avoiding who are suddenly pissed because I made a FB post but didn't reply/comment/like their relationship status update.

Facebook has managed to make social interaction online more uncomfortable than real life, and as a result it's been over a year since I've made any type of visible activity on Facebook, but I still can't escape...

Socializing in the real world, I have to explicitly state things like: "Hey, please don't geotag me to this pub, and don't post pictures of me chugging this pint of Blue Moon".

In conclusion, fuck Facebook.

Delete your account?

Fair enough, and I've considered it, but deleting my account still doesn't prevent others from tagging and posting pictures of me for the benefit of those who can identify me through name or face alone. At least with an active Facebook account, I receive notifications whenever my likeness is invoked.

Additionally, Facebook has become the defacto communication platform of the day and not having one is sometimes viewed as a social red flag (or as a lie). My cellphone # has changed three times since 2004, but the respective Facebook query has only become better at finding me. My point being, "delete your account?" is something akin to "cancel your cell service?" except nobody calls and everyone uses Facebook.

Facebook has privacy controls for preventing people from tagging you without permission, both in photos and geotagging.

Also, I finally think it's working. Previously when I tried to approve a tag of myself in a photo, FB wanted to change the privacy setting back to "anyone can tag you", but last week it seems to have worked without changing my privacy settings.

Also, I finally think it's working.

I see you've already anticipated my response. Beyond that, it seems like every six months or so I'll discover that some of my settings have been mysteriously reset during a site update or that the introduction/consolidation of new features results in a regressive behavior that I have to explicitly disable (since it's on by default).

Facebook privacy requires regular maintenance.

Ideally, I'd like a "no one can tag you and you will never be asked to approve a tag" setting, but I will give the approval option a go.

You must have a strange social group. I don't have a facebook, and have never once had a problem in anything but other websites wanting me to have one. When friends ask for my facebook I say I don't have one, tell them I don't like their attitude towards privacy, they find it interesting and we move on.

You must have a strange social group.

Not everyone is as enlightened as your non-strange social group. One doesn't face ostracism for lack of a Facebook account, but a lot of real social interaction occurs on Facebook and I don't presume to judge those who highly value that interaction. Those people do exist and some of them are great people.

Delete all the users you don't like.

I don't think you are as well known as you claim to be. You are most likely just another face in a crowd.

Even if you are tagged in a picture, you most likely don't have an evil nemesis stalking you, looking for a point of weakness, biding his or her time to unleash the evil plot.

Or maybe you do. In that case let people know about it, so they won't tag you.

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