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I'm deleting my account after I relay to all the friends I want to keep in touch with where else they can reach me at. Its a personal decision and never before

I'm deleting my account after I relay to all the friends I want to keep in touch with where else they can reach me at. Its a personal decision and never before have I been so personally offended by any one company's vision of what the internet should be. I disagree with the notion of a "social by default" web so much that I can no longer entertain being part of Facebook. There's an educational component to this recent bit of news as well. People by and large don't care enough to really cause the critical mass exodus that would make Facebook backtrack on these announcements. I think this may largely be because people don't know anything about the origins of the internet or even how it works on a basic level. It makes me think that knowing these things should be taught in schools in some capacity. I would assert that if people knew more about the internet then they could form more of an opinion when a company tries to hijack it it and change the paradigm. No one company can or should ever be allowed to change what the "default" of the web is.

blaix 16y ago
You have every right to pull out of Facebook if you disagree with what they're doing, but thinking it has to conform to what your vision of what the web's "basic paradigm" is is just silly. Blogging and commenting changed things before this social stuff took it further. The web is always changing. Saying people need to learn about the origins of the web before they can use it is arrogant and I don't see how it could affect how anyone views what's happening with this Facebook stuff. Regardless though, "social by default" is rhetoric. When you launch a site Facebook isn't going to be able to hijack it and start inserting social features without your permission. In general, I think the concerns are overblown. Facebook is basically the Twitter that my family uses, and that's why I use it.

blaix 16y ago

You have every right to pull out of Facebook if you disagree with what they're doing, but thinking it has to conform to what your vision of what the web's "basic paradigm" is is just silly. Blogging and commenting changed things before this social stuff took it further. The web is always changing. Saying people need to learn about the origins of the web before they can use it is arrogant and I don't see how it could affect how anyone views what's happening with this Facebook stuff. Regardless though, "social by default" is rhetoric. When you launch a site Facebook isn't going to be able to hijack it and start inserting social features without your permission. In general, I think the concerns are overblown. Facebook is basically the Twitter that my family uses, and that's why I use it.