Bend Over, Facebook is Back

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Deadlokd

As soon as there is a viable alternative to Facebook, along the lines of FB 2006, I'm closing my account there and moving.

vm, you know to make the internet work. Get onto it would ya?

Unfortunately I think Facebook is the de facto standard social networking site for the foreseeable future. The fact that they haven't instigated a mass exodus yet makes it hard to imagine what they could do that would.

[Waluigi]

Facebook owns the network, so to speak. They have a very strong lock-in effect right now. Kudos on them for thinking ahead to do that.

Not only are half of my family and most of my friends on Facebook, but my phone has Facebook integration to augment the data in my contact list. The photo gallery on my phone makes it a piece of cake to upload pictures to Facebook.

If I deleted my Facebook account, I would lose the phone contacts integration, which has proven to be valuable. I would also lose the means I use to communicate with my extended family.

So yeah, I hate Facebook's privacy policies, and it's annoying that I have to go in there every damn month and restrict all the great new settings they added (and defaulted to "wide open"). But hey, it's free, and it does provide a service that I value. I just know not to share every detail of my life in my profile.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by Joshua Adams

I went in and deleted everything in my profile...
Maybe I might as well delete the account...

"Delete" what you like, but fact is that it hardly means complete-for-all-time removal from the FB database.

[ChuckF]

I re-activated my account because I needed to contact a couple of people and Facebook was the only way. Facebook told me that I had to link my profile with certain pages, like the schools I had attended, and that this information would be public. If I didn't link to any of them and make them public, all of my education and work information would be deleted. Easy choice. I cannot wait to disable this account again.

[Ymir's blood]

Add that info to your Bio section. I deleted all of it when it insisted on making them links. Cuz that's how I roll.

[ChuckF]

Yeah I just went ahead and baleted them. It's not like anybody who can see my profile doesn't already know that stuff.

[Ensign Steve]

Hee hee hee.

[viscousmemories]

That's really a fairly primitive view of the Internet. Maybe once upon a time it was reasonable to expect anything you upload to be available to the world, but I don't really buy the idea that in this day and age uploading something to what is ostensibly a private website account is tantamount to waiving all your rights to privacy and/or security. I do all my banking online, does that mean Wells Fargo is within their rights to publish all my financial info to the world?

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by fragment

"Delete" what you like, but fact is that it hardly means complete-for-all-time removal from the FB database.

I think that's less true now than it used to be. Once upon a time you could only deactivate your own account - if you wanted it deleted you had to email them and request it. Now you can deactivate or delete your own account, with the caveat being that a 'delete' request results in a 14 day deactivation before it's completely deleted. As always though, any time you sign in while your account is deactivated it is immediately re-activated.

[Deadlokd]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Unfortunately I think Facebook is the de facto standard social networking site for the foreseeable future. The fact that they haven't instigated a mass exodus yet makes it hard to imagine what they could do that would.

I think the only reason there hasn't been a mass exodus is that there's nowhere to exodise to. If a new FB was set up tomorrow with a focus on it's members rather than on the dollar I think they'd steal huge numbers of FB's members.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

That's really a fairly primitive view of the Internet. Maybe once upon a time it was reasonable to expect anything you upload to be available to the world, but I don't really buy the idea that in this day and age uploading something to what is ostensibly a private website account is tantamount to waiving all your rights to privacy and/or security. I do all my banking online, does that mean Wells Fargo is within their rights to publish all my financial info to the world?

The difference is that facebook is specifically about sharing things (photos, comments, status, contact info, etc.) out to other people. If you didn't want people to see your photo, you wouldn't be uploading it to facebook in the first place. Online banking is about banking and keeping your financial information secure between you and your bank.

[viscousmemories]

Facebook isn't just promoted as a place to share things with "people", though. It's all about sharing things with specific people, i.e. "friends". What's the point of having a registration and login process and making you hand-pick the people you want to share things with if in the end they're just going to publish everything you upload to everyone?

Actually I get why they do what they do, I just don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect some privacy at a password protected site with apparently selective access.

[MonCapitan2002]

Originally Posted by Deadlokd

I think the only reason there hasn't been a mass exodus is that there's nowhere to exodise to. If a new FB was set up tomorrow with a focus on it's members rather than on the dollar I think they'd steal huge numbers of FB's members.

That's probably wishful thinking on your part. Facebook is enormously popular and has a massive user base. Any newcomer who tried to create a similar site would be David going up against Goliath. The difference this time around is that David would be without weapons and have his dominant arm tied behind his back.

[Deadlokd]

Remember when MySpace was Goliath and FB was David? Now look at MySpace, full of blinkies and B-list musos and actors.

[viscousmemories]

Yeah, that's one thing I can say for Facebook. At least they don't let the users do the page design.

[fragment]

In defence of myspace users, even the default design is kinda ugly, and the "customisation" offered - css embedded somewhere in your bio that has to deal with the fucked up nested tables, illogical use of class attributes, and a crucial set of links that are an image map instead of text - is an annoying piece of crap that makes sane design incredibly frustrating.

Here's an example css declaration from my band's myspace page:
table table table table { border:0px; background-image:none; background-color:transparent; }

[viscousmemories]

nice.

[MonCapitan2002]

Originally Posted by Deadlokd

Remember when MySpace was Goliath and FB was David? Now look at MySpace, full of blinkies and B-list musos and actors.

That is a good point. I will point out, however, that both were founded within a year of each other and at the time of their foundation had somewhat different audiences that they catered.

If anyone were to start now, they'd have a hell of a fight to make their way to the top. While it would not be impossible, any new competitor who did offer similar services would need to offer something their competition can't provide.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Deadlokd

Now look at MySpace, full of blinkies and B-list musos and actors.

Whaddya mean "now"? MySpace was always like that. GeoCities 2.0.

This is sort of interesting:

join diaspora - the project

It's an open-source, distributed, social network platform. I have no idea how well it will do (my guess is poorly), but it's an interesting idea. I'm personally interested in it just as a cool idea, not because I have any issues with Facebook.

[BracesForImpact]

I use FB to stay in touch with old friends and a bit of family. I logged in last week to find someone had somehow been added to my friends list and thusly, allowed to post on my wall. I do not recall adding them as a friend, and their account had only been established a few days prior.

So I went through all my privacy settings, and I had to toggle quite a bit. Stuff was wide open I knew I used to have set to friends only. Facebook created the expectation that I could share the information I wanted to share with whom I chose. That was apparently not the case. I'm seriously considering deleting the account.

[lisarea]

I saw something somewhere about a project similar to diaspora that's already available, but I don't remember what it was called or where it was or anything like that.

Aren't you glad to have me around to share important information like that with you guys?

Also, this made me lol for a little while. I did a few fun searches:

'Openbook' Lets You Search Facebook Status Updates, Even if You Don't Have an Account - Facebook - Gawker

[viscousmemories]

I reactivated my Facebook account because some family members expressed dismay and because I was constantly taunted by Facebook apps everywhere I go.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

ReclaimPrivacy.org | Facebook Privacy Scanner

[Dragar]

[MonCapitan2002]