Just deleted Facebook

[Ferris]

Feels fucking great. Deactivated it 4 or 5 years ago, haven't missed it. Finally pulled the trigger.

The data they had on me is astonishing - not just me, but photos of friends, and friends of friends and fuck knows what else conversations, and I'm well cautious. They had photos from my iPad from well after I'd deactivated it so fuck knows how they got them. Shady bunch of bastards.

Anyone else fighting the good fight? Do it, feels great.

[manticore]

I have one Facebook friend and I use it to keep in contact with her (in Canada) every day by posting a cartoon. She replies with a cartoon on a similar theme. It performs this function in my life. It knows where I went to university and that's all.

I think I'm alright.

[RedRevolver]

Probably should. Ah, fuck it. I don't really give that much of a shit. The likelihood of me becoming successful at anything is nil and then I guess I'll get one of those companies that advertise at the back of Private Eye to do it for me.

[Shaky]

Sometimes I wish I had the guts to do this - the fucking phone app in particular is evil and it's very easy to become obsessed with checking the bastard every five minutes - but I just don't. There were a couple of years were I barely used Facebook at all and that was great apart from the fact I lost touch with many people.

[itsfredtitmus]

so facebook now knows that my mum and dad are the only people in my contacts?

[Ferris]

It's actually mad. It keeps a log of every ex girlfriend, every photo (with exif data, cellphone model information & geotagging), every post on your wall. The lot.

Downloaded the data and sent it to my gmail (so swapping one evil tech company for another) but still.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

have had it deactivated for years. i didn't even know you could permanently delete it. so i nuked it just now. feels good

[Ferris]

I also thought "deactivated" = "gone forever" but it seems to have been collecting info on me even while deactivated. It's a bit self important to imagine anyone is swiping your photos from a weekend in Venice circa 2009 because they're well-important, but why keep them on their servers anyway?

It takes 3 weeks to delete an account so we'll see.

[JoeyBananaduck]

I pretty much just use mine for groups, i.e. hobbies and interests, news on bands I like and that sort of thing. I've posted to my wall or whatever it is probably 3 or 4 times in the last 3 years. I don't like Facebook overall though. My wife uses it a lot, but she's got more friends than me. I dunno. I miss MySpace. I quite liked that.

[Paul Calf]

I also thought "deactivated" = "gone forever" but it seems to have been collecting info on me even while deactivated. It's a bit self important to imagine anyone is swiping your photos from a weekend in Venice circa 2009 because they're well-important, but why keep them on their servers anyway?

It takes 3 weeks to delete an account so we'll see.

Did you sign out of Facebook on your phone/tablet?

[Icehaven]

I like using it, and I don't give a stuff what they know about me, it's all out there somewhere anyway. I've even bought a few things from ads they've thrown at me too so I'm probably their dream complacent consumer.
And either I'm very naive or very cynical but why are people so surprised everything you've ever put on Facebook is still there? Why wouldn't it be? It's been throwing ancient status updates up as "Your Memories" for you to repost if you're so inclined for ages now, and we've all had notifications that random people we'd forgotten existed 'like' Custard Creams if we do etc. It's a basically a big electronic memory bank, why would it forget anything?

[JoeyBananaduck]

I think there's a lot to be said for the idea it feeds some unhealthy part of the psyche. A world of people showing their best selves and pretending to enjoy everything way more than they do, all telegraphed to you. There's a competitive 'who's got the best life' element and a lot of shitty look-at-meism. And...

Status update: TRUE friends know when blah blah blah blah

U Ok Hun?

[Paul Calf]

It seems to feed an unhealthy party of the economy and is driving a very unpleasant form of politics.

If you're politically engaged and/or opposed to tyranny you should at least be considering leaving Facebook.

[idunnosomename]

It's more trouble than it's worth for me to delete my account. Website sign ins, pages I manage (one of which I get paid to do), messenger. I got fed up with the bugs on photo albums, the new algorithm, no one posting anything interesting anymore. I deleted the phone app but kept messenger.

It's too easy to say it's going like MySpace. It's much bigger. I guess it's like Usenet - it'll keep going but it's become much less popular soon.

Twitter used to be buggy and annoying, but now with the 280 limit it's a lot easier to use for personal and commercial use than Facebook now.

[canadagoose]

Twitter used to be buggy and annoying, but now with the 280 limit it's a lot easier to use for personal and commercial use than Facebook now.

Twitter is full of irritating people, though. I mean, so is Facebook, in theory, but most people have their posts set to friends only, whereas with Twitter you just seem to get everything. Some people have their profiles protected, but it seems like most don't.

[Pijlstaart]

Never had facebook, knew it was a great silliness. Le baleine bleu has been posting pictures of me on it without permission, but it'll be a few years before facial recognition software locks me down, by which time my bloodhound jowls will be long enough to balaclava myself with. I've had coworkers demand we conduct work communications on facebook before, and I've heard of employers rejecting applicants for lacking a social media presence, and I resent them, hope their data got sold somewhere dark and nasty, hope there's a basement somewhere in eastern europe filled with 3d-printed facsimile dildos of them, and the dildos all like "I fucking love science" and "cadbury creme egg" and "Top Gear", just like you did. with a room full of dildo friends they'll never speak to.

More of a bebo guy, myself, great place for happy hardstyle, great place for spiked up hair, and never shared my tasteful charcoal drawings with the highest bidder.

[Paul Calf]

I'm hoping GDPR will at least seriously disrupt their parasitic business model.

[sevendaughters]

I purged just before this recent wave of news. Mainly because it felt kind of uncool and the dopamine highs of whatever joy I got on there had faded into mild ennui. I have a dummy account to moderate a couple of groups. And I'm still on Messenger because some crisis-prone friends use that over WhatsApp. But I don't miss the main site at all. It's wild. It was that easy to walk away. Feel stupid for waiting so long.

[idunnosomename]

Twitter is full of irritating people, though. I mean, so is Facebook, in theory, but most people have their posts set to friends only, whereas with Twitter you just seem to get everything. Some people have their profiles protected, but it seems like most don't.

Yes but you can kind of meet new people rather than just see status updates from someone you were at school with, went to university with, your uncle, etc

Like the old internet!!!!!!

[ASFTSN]

The way people talk about Facebook/Instagram/Twitter over the last year or so has made me realise just how much I have my head up my arse of an introvert I really am.  Like an idiot midlife crisis Dad taking up smoking in their 50's, I had never had a social media account until last year.  The only reason I signed up for these things was to get commissions, and when that didn't really work I realised I didn't have the social media backbone for that either.  I don't have the moral backbone or confidence to constantly talk about myself in a supposedly offhand way that's also geared towards the maximum number of people giving a shit.  Now I occasionally post a photo to do with hobbies or my artwork on there, and that's about it.  Even with that, my mind automatically wonders why certain things get more "likes" than others, and what I might be doing wrong.  I can't even imagine what it does to your brain and anxiety levels if you choose to make it your main way of interacting with the world.

Why would anyone choose to add all of the detail about where you went to school, where you work etc?

Why would anyone get think it was possible to get involved in debates on there?  It's an immense, polluted forest of one-way shouting-and-shit-flinging tubes.  Just because you're interacting with it doesn't mean it's proper communication, or that there's any utopian aspect to it.

Remember this hilarious gizmodo article from 2011?

[Ham Bap]

Deactivated mine 2 nights ago. I'm not too bothered about the privacy stuff tbh. I've never had it on a phone and I've always thought that anything put up on it wouldn't be private anyway.

Deactivated mine as I need a break from it and people. It gets very fucking tiresome. A few on mine do that thing where they don't like anything that you put up unless you give them a like for the latest in the series of a photo of their child's fat sweaty face. Like-tennis.
I stopped hitting like on things as I just wanted to. I can also 'like' something in life without hitting like on Facebook. Then I think people in real life started getting arsey and a bit distant because I wasn't giving little Johnny's picture a like. It's just a website ffs.

Then there are several people who seem to sit on it every single waking hour liking absolutely everything. For instance the other week I liked the local animal sanctuary just so I could see their updates. 5 minutes later a Facebook friend was in liking the fact that I gave the animal sanctuary a like. Stuff like that happens all the time. I know in the grand scheme of things they're minor things in life but think I need a break from it. They also just sit on it liking every news item in the world.
I only kept it open recently as I follow a lot of news sites on it for films, games, etc but I already have Twitter.

So fuck Facebook in the bin. The people (family) on it are mentally draining me trying to project images of perfect lives. I'm waiting for people to comment 'Aw are you off Facebook'. Yes, it's just a cunting website no different to any other. If you want to talk to me come and visit my house and don't bring any photos of Johnny's fat sweaty face.

[DrGreggles]

Nothing on my Facebook is actually true, so I'm not overly concerned who gets that data.

[Blumf]

I've never had a FB account, yet it still recognises me in photos posted by FB using friends, and thus, will have a profile of me to some extent. How do I delete that?

[Blue Jam]

I don't use the app because it's buggy as fuck. I've always hated the way the mobile version of the site keeps prompting you to install the app- warning you that you can no longer post gifs without the app, making photos and videos slower to load without the app, that warning that you'll soon need to clog up your phone with a second Facebook Messenger app to read messages etc- and now I know why Facebook are so keen for me to install the app I find this plain creepy.

I won't delete my Facebook though as I find it really useful for keeping in touch with people. I do keep stuff like my relationship status off it though.

[bgmnts]

I have a friend i talk to regular through facebook. Tried deactivating it but was hard to talk to her elsewhere. She keeps me sane.

Facebook is cunt though.

[Fry]

I only just found out you can deactivate your account whilst keeping messenger open, which is perfect for me. I hate facebook and have wanted it out of my life for ages; but I've felt trapped by the fact it's pretty much the only social networking site which all of my friends use, making messenger invaluable. So I just went on to get it deactived and saw that I'd gotten an invite to a party that looks to be an absolute disaster. Seriously lads it promises to be a complete spectacle.  There's no way I can miss out on what a complete fuckjob this event it going to be. Fall of troy levels. Not even speaking metaphorically I fully expect a horse to turn up and make everything go to shit.

Would've missed out if it wasn't for Facebook, looks like they have me hooked for another year.

[Jittlebags]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/06/facebook-using-secret-tool-to-delete-messages-from-executives

[SteveDave]

I've still got it but I don't use my real name and I've put no details of where I work or where I went to school on it. So good luck Zuckerberg!

[Brundle-Fly]

Hardly used FB since opening an account in the early days. Too overwhelming, as I felt I would have to make friends with everyone and reply all the time. It's like the old anxiety over my Christmas card list. So, I have no personal details, have hardly confirmed anybody's friend request, have only posted about ten times and now everybody from my life thinks I'm a miserable cunt. Thanks FaceBook.

Warwick Davies sit-com

[Small Man Big Horse]

I like using it, and I don't give a stuff what they know about me, it's all out there somewhere anyway. I've even bought a few things from ads they've thrown at me too so I'm probably their dream complacent consumer.
And either I'm very naive or very cynical but why are people so surprised everything you've ever put on Facebook is still there? Why wouldn't it be? It's been throwing ancient status updates up as "Your Memories" for you to repost if you're so inclined for ages now, and we've all had notifications that random people we'd forgotten existed 'like' Custard Creams if we do etc. It's a basically a big electronic memory bank, why would it forget anything?

I'm with you, I don't give FB that much info anyway and enjoy seeing what my friends are up to. Also thanks to various people and groups on there I've discovered events I'd never have known about otherwise, and had some great experiences due to that.