Dec
1
2007
Done.
I’ve done my absolute best to eliminate any trace of myself on Facebook. It was a total PITA. And I only used it casually. I can only imagine how it long it would take someone like Scoble to manually remove each friend one at a time.
According to Facebook:
Wrong!
I still have all my friends. The only friend I don’t have anymore Facebook is you!
Here’s my parting shot…
I feel so much better now…
Company Index: Facebook
December 1st, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Seriously, how can they force people to tell why they are deactivating. This shows their arrogance (similar to Microsoft, in their “thuggish” days). I get a feeling that this is the beginning of end for facebook.
December 1st, 2007 at 10:29 pm
If I, in my own small way, can either help them see they need a serious change in attitude, or hasten their demise that’s just fine. I’m here to help.
December 1st, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Good for you, Marc. Sounds like a smart decision to me. Technically, though, they still have your data (email, phone number, and who knows what else) on their servers until you specifically ask them to delete it. Deactivation is insufficient to cause them to delete. (They might even still use your data, I do not know.) When I quit them a few months ago, it took a while to ensure I deleted everything I could and then it took a while to find a way to contact them to ask them to delete my data. But, once I sent the email, they did respond within a few days telling me that had taken the extra step of deleting my data from their servers at my request. It may be more difficult to back out of it now then it was then, I do not know. But wanted you to know, you are still in their system.
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:24 am
Marc,
Good show. Was surprised that FB doesn’t even bother telling me when a friend drops out. Par for their course.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:09 am
Great you had the choice to do it. There’s still value and not everyone is bailing. Thanks for sharing Marc.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:16 am
Bruce: Thanks. I will follow your advice and contact them as you did.
Robert: Of course that’s true. As I said, I’m hardly the demographic for Facebook. This is of course one person’s opinion. I’m not necessarily advocating that someone who feels Facebook is of value to them do what I have done. But for those who are unaware of how Facebook Beacon has been misrepresented and the potential issues for all parties involved, I stick by my decision to choose not play.
To all: I hope you understand I’m using “evil” in the Google sense of the word - as in “Don’t be”.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I do see a lot of the points your making, both in this post (regarding difficulty to remove your data) and about the privacy concerns with beacon, but as you say becon is the last straw, I find this post equally pushing it too far for me. I’m getting really tired of people over-reacting about this. It’s been running for like sod-all time and can be fixed and are you really a) jumping the gun and b) justifying your actions immaturely. A parting shot? What is this? I know facebook is meant to be for students, but why act like one? You make valid points in many places, but the tone of your post just devalues what you’re saying.
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Gareth - sorry you feel that way. I *was* trying to make a point and perhaps I was “over the top”. Admittedly it’s a bit out of character for me to come on this strong. But you make two assumptions that are, I think, incorrect.
The first is that everyone knows as much about what Facebook has been up to as you seem to or seem to think they do. They don’t. The fact that this has been brewing for some time in no way takes away from the need to bring it to light for as many people as possible.
The second is that while Beacon may have been running for a while - certainly not “sod all-time” - Facebook has been duplicitous and generally unapologetic about the decisions they’ve made that they absolutely should have known better than to make if their intent was benign. Respect for customers’ privacy and asking for permission rather than forcing an opt-out aren’t new ideas - they’re good business practices if you want to build a trust relationship.
I’ve been thinking about this descent into profiteering at the expense of their customers, researching what’s been going on, and waiting for a proper response from Facebook to correct their course for more than a month. They have not made any attempt to do so in my opinion. I’d hardly characterize this as “jumping the gun”.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I have been trying for 3 days and I can’t even get to that screen. Worse than I thought…
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:41 pm
[…] is also a post of Blognation USA, that shows just how difficult it is to leave Facebook, and that you never really leave, all you […]
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:26 am
[…] friend Marc Orchant has taken the same path as […]
December 3rd, 2007 at 7:32 pm
[…] Orchant, the other day, announced he was deleting his Facebook profile. For him, it came down to a matter of usefulness. I am considering also deleting my Facebook […]
December 4th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
[…] program has now shifted from opt-out to opt-in. But people such as I, Robert, and Marc Orchant (for whom we all pray for a speedy recovery) are so sickened by Facebook even having the damn gall […]
December 10th, 2007 at 4:29 am
Marc’s last post?
Alas … alas.
Earlier today I encountered posts in 2 trusted friends’ blogs, one talking about how computers are so powerful yet an almost complete waste of time (letting off steam, of course) and another “I rue the day I was introduced to the internet” (the same again).
Myself? Minutes before reading of Marc’s passing on Twitter I had tweeted thusly: “Banged my forehead on WP editor; cracked a shin on MediaWiki security; stubbed my toe on PHPbb spammers. *What a load of horse-pucks!*”
I started doing what passed for CMC (that’s computer-mediated communications) in 1972. I pretty well fled the land of snake-oil and rainbow coloured smoke 20 years later, early 90s, limiting myself to fractal imagery and digital music, using BBSs for both. In ‘95 I got onto the web fast because I’d learned SGML and used hyper techniques in a MIL-SPEC environment almost a decade earlier … I had notions of e-learning and discourse. Go figure.
FaceBook? Credit where credit is due: it’s
not as bad asbetter than MySpace.And yet … and yet …
Maybe we can set up an institute in Marc’s name … something about computing in the name of civility.
(NB: LJ was just bought out. Does anyone know, are they still knocking off journalists and lawyers in Russia?)
may all beings experience the root of happiness free from suffering
Namaste
–bentrem
December 10th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
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December 12th, 2007 at 1:04 am
[…] (Source: blognation USA) […]
January 1st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
face book city…
http://sergica.miniville.fr/
February 17th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
[…] A cop named Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) is so exposed to the viciousness of his task that he quits his post and never looks back. His partner, Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), a man who follows the rules and […]
April 21st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
When i saw this video from China couldn’t believe in my eyes. Don’t support these killers:
http://rapidshare.com/files/109244740/china_do2_134.rar.html