5 ms·

Quitting Facebook is pointless; challenging them to do better is not

39 points by bootload 16y ago

apphacker 16y ago
I don't care if they do better. It's not pointless quitting, I now no longer have Facebook in my life. That was the point. "Challenging them to do better" has a strange assumption that somehow we all stand to gain if we can just make sure they get it right next time, or maybe the time after. They're not our friends, they're not an Oxfam, they're a business with a shitty product. I don't challenge Johnson & Johnson to get them to make a better band-aid, because frankly, I don't give a shit. Same with Facebook. >"I think that we owe it to the users to challenge Facebook to live up to a higher standard, regardless of what we as individuals may gain or lose from their choices." People need to learn to think for themselves and live with the consequences of their choices. It's not rocket science. Just a weird article.
- bootload 16y ago
  "... I don't care if they do better. It's not pointless quitting, I now no longer have Facebook in my life. ..." But your friends might and that is the problem.
  - mike-cardwell 16y ago
    If I quit, Facebook immediately becomes less valuable to my friends. The only value Facebook has to the vast vast majority of its users, is it's ubiquity.
    - mooism2 16y ago
      I did quit Facebook. My friends did not switch en masse to some other service I was using; they still organise parties on Facebook. A few people quitting Facebook only makes it less ubiquitous at the margins.
      - bootload 16y ago
        "... My friends did not switch en masse to some other service I was using; they still organise parties on Facebook. ..." That's the scenario I'm thinking would happen. You are but one leaf on the social tree of your friends.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    The most powerful thing you can do regarding any service or product is to vote with your wallet ... or in the case of Facebook, with your subscription. When Facebook loses one user, the quality of their network drops ... insignificantly from a single user, but when speaking about multiple users quiting, then you've got a network effect. So ironically (thinking about TFA) if you care about the quality of their service the most effective thing you can do is to just quit using it. That will send a message more powerful than bitching and moaning about it in blog posts.
    - bootload 16y ago
      "... The most powerful thing you can do regarding any service or product is to vote with your wallet ..." It is a big mistake to overlay a monetary system on your friends. This is one aspect users are really getting riled-up with, "monetising friends".
- bitdiddle 16y ago
  +1 -- a crappy product that is nothing but a thin veneer over an enormous database of private information that they are selling for profit.
  - Charuru 16y ago
    I think the product has already proven itself to be valuable...
    - takrupp 16y ago
      In what way? So you can be lazier while maintaining a larger social network? I think Facebook depersonalizes relationships even more so than the email/twitter/IM communication methods. I dont miss it. There are a few email addresses on there that I wish I had written down, so I guess there is some value, but is that value worth the wasted time getting sucked up in a live status stream (or worse: Your data in such stream)? Looking and commenting on peoples wall? Gossiping? Its a trashy medium, just like the tabloid medium before it, only with different recognizable people and with your life on display as well.
      - saturdayplace 16y ago
        Facebook isn't the product. You are. Advertisers are the customers.
- mooism2 16y ago
  Facebook isn't like a band-aid though, it's more like your local cable company. You don't have to pay for cable, but then you don't get to see all those tv shows that are only on cable. Maybe you can buy them on dvd when everyone's stopped talking about them. Similarly, you can quit Facebook (and I have). Now I have friends I can't interact with online, because we don't have any websites in common any more.
  - loup-vaillant 16y ago
    Why do you need to go through a web site to communicate with your friends online? Don't you have an e-mail?
    - mooism2 16y ago
      My friends don't use e-mail socially.
      - loup-vaillant 16y ago
        What do you mean by "socially"? You don't have their e-mail address? Or they don't look at their inbox? Or certain specific activities are done via Facebook, while others may be done via e-mail? And most of all, why? Why did they chose Facebook over e-mail? More generally, I'd like to know what they use Facebook for, and why.
        mooism2 16y ago
        We all use e-mail for password reset e-mails, order confirmations e-mails, etc. For communicating with friends, we just use it for one-on-one communication that wouldn't fit into a text message. We tend not to share e-mail addresses. Different people use different services (LiveJournal/DreamWidth, Facebook, Twitter, Monochrome, etc) to different extents. Parties get organised on LiveJournal, Facebook or Monochrome. I don't use e-mail socially because it's a terrible medium for group conversation.
        16y ago
humbledrone 16y ago
Quitting Facebook is not pointless if one wants to maintain a certain level of personal privacy.
- rimantas 16y ago
  You can maintain it without any quitting: just think before you post anything.
  - Natsu 16y ago
    That's good advice everywhere, but one of the problems is that Facebook, via your friends, links together all sorts of things that would otherwise be scattered about the internet and nearly untraceable (unless someone had a lot of time to devote to hunting them down). Also, you can't readily control what your friends post about you. And you can't hide who your friends are. All said, I don't regret not having a Facebook account. And even so, they do still have data on me, thanks to family members and friends (who have sent invitations to join, etc.). Unfortunately, I don't think most people will care until they're made aware of exactly how much information is being (and can be) collected and what people can do with it. Google is the same, actually, in terms of potential for misuse, except that I trust the current leaders more. The worry, though, is how long that will last?
- slantyyz 16y ago
  privacy != you and/or your circle of friends oversharing Quitting Facebook doesn't stop your friends from sharing pictures that include you that you may not want out there.
credo 16y ago
Quitting Facebook is an effective way of challenging Facebook to do better. I think Danah Boyd is mistaken in assuming that one precludes the other
- scorpion032 16y ago
  If one is quitting, why would it matter to him that they do better, as he cannot gain any benefit out of it. I would rather join a group "Join this group to emphasize facebook to add simpler privacy controls" than quit facebook. I don't want to lose it. I care.
nandemo 16y ago
I quit Facebook before they were uncool.
kordless 16y ago
That's one long blog post! It could be summarized by saying the general public doesn't know or care about the Facebook issues, so we technorati should stick around to help them understand better how the are getting screwed.
- metaprinter 16y ago
  What you said. Plus, the whole time reading I was wondering what influence her job(s) and employer(s) had on the post.
pierrefar 16y ago
A couple of things: 1. I don't want to gamble again that Facebook will "do better". They've shown many times they actually want to share my personal information in unexpected ways under the cover of ever increasingly-confusing settings pages. Thanks, but I'm done with this crap. 2. From the post: I do not believe that the tech elites who are publicly leaving Facebook will affect on the company’s numbers Us alone will not affect the numbers but we take people with us. We tell our friends and family to close their accounts.
lkozma 16y ago
I'd argue that using FB is pointless, not quiting it. Not using it is the default state of things, so the burden of proof should be on the other side. It's a bit like with smoking.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  The problem is, several of my acquaintances told me that "everyone is on Facebook". When talking to them, the burden of proof is on my side. But I have a good case.
bad_user 16y ago
Personally I love Facebook as a developer ... because Facebook continually fucks their users, I can take advantage of their profiles without feeling guilty about it :-) Zuckerberg does have a point ... most users just authorize whatever app wants permissions to their data with whatever permissions are asked for. This I know from experiencing the integration of my app with Facebook.
- bad_user 16y ago
  I know I have a cynical view on this, but it's consistent with the way many app developers using Facebook think ... sorry about it, but that won't change with a HN downvote ;) For app developers Facebook is basically a "whois" for users ... with a single and painless authorization you get access to their name, photo, email and list of friends. If you want to change that, then provide a better alternative.
jimfl 16y ago
Quixotic at best. Facebook provides value to two classes of user. There is no question that the individual users derive value from Facebook, but the idea that they're getting it for free is naïve.
adolph 16y ago
Right on. Another thing to try is "speaking truth to power." It is probably equally effective. Sarcasm aside, as long as the service's users are not directly providing all of the revenue to provide that service, there will always be a conflict between the interests of the users (i.e. do not want info shared) and the payers (i.e. want to know how best to advertise).
loup-vaillant 16y ago
I think this post get at least 2 things wrong: (1) Even if decentralization is not a panacea, it remains the only solution for a host of problems. Including privacy on the internet. Also, personal server as easy to use as Facebook itself are definitely possible. When such servers actually ship, they will be worth the hassle. (2) Everyone should quit every centralized services on this planet, including Facebook, provided there is an alternative. The logs they gather are just too scarily comprehensive. That, and 2 most disturbing points: (1) This post actually encourages us to stay dependent on a big corporation, in the hope that we could influence it for our own good. No, we can't. If we are dependant, they can screw us, and will do so as soon as it yields money. (2) It fears that more free systems could be used to do child pornography, among other crimes. To me that's FUD: even if she's right, that doesn't mean that the criminality will rise, nor that the criminals will be harder to catch. And we already have Freenet.

39 points by bootload 16y ago

I don't care if they do better. It's not pointless quitting, I now no longer have Facebook in my life. That was the point. "Challenging them to do better" has a strange assumption that somehow we all stand to gain if we can just make sure they get it right next time, or maybe the time after. They're not our friends, they're not an Oxfam, they're a business with a shitty product. I don't challenge Johnson & Johnson to get them to make a better band-aid, because frankly, I don't give a shit. Same with Facebook. >"I think that we owe it to the users to challenge Facebook to live up to a higher standard, regardless of what we as individuals may gain or lose from their choices." People need to learn to think for themselves and live with the consequences of their choices. It's not rocket science. Just a weird article.

bootload 16y ago
"... I don't care if they do better. It's not pointless quitting, I now no longer have Facebook in my life. ..." But your friends might and that is the problem.
- mike-cardwell 16y ago
  If I quit, Facebook immediately becomes less valuable to my friends. The only value Facebook has to the vast vast majority of its users, is it's ubiquity.
  - mooism2 16y ago
    I did quit Facebook. My friends did not switch en masse to some other service I was using; they still organise parties on Facebook. A few people quitting Facebook only makes it less ubiquitous at the margins.
    - bootload 16y ago
      "... My friends did not switch en masse to some other service I was using; they still organise parties on Facebook. ..." That's the scenario I'm thinking would happen. You are but one leaf on the social tree of your friends.
- bad_user 16y ago
  The most powerful thing you can do regarding any service or product is to vote with your wallet ... or in the case of Facebook, with your subscription. When Facebook loses one user, the quality of their network drops ... insignificantly from a single user, but when speaking about multiple users quiting, then you've got a network effect. So ironically (thinking about TFA) if you care about the quality of their service the most effective thing you can do is to just quit using it. That will send a message more powerful than bitching and moaning about it in blog posts.
  - bootload 16y ago
    "... The most powerful thing you can do regarding any service or product is to vote with your wallet ..." It is a big mistake to overlay a monetary system on your friends. This is one aspect users are really getting riled-up with, "monetising friends".
bitdiddle 16y ago
+1 -- a crappy product that is nothing but a thin veneer over an enormous database of private information that they are selling for profit.
- Charuru 16y ago
  I think the product has already proven itself to be valuable...
  - takrupp 16y ago
    In what way? So you can be lazier while maintaining a larger social network? I think Facebook depersonalizes relationships even more so than the email/twitter/IM communication methods. I dont miss it. There are a few email addresses on there that I wish I had written down, so I guess there is some value, but is that value worth the wasted time getting sucked up in a live status stream (or worse: Your data in such stream)? Looking and commenting on peoples wall? Gossiping? Its a trashy medium, just like the tabloid medium before it, only with different recognizable people and with your life on display as well.
    - saturdayplace 16y ago
      Facebook isn't the product. You are. Advertisers are the customers.
mooism2 16y ago
Facebook isn't like a band-aid though, it's more like your local cable company. You don't have to pay for cable, but then you don't get to see all those tv shows that are only on cable. Maybe you can buy them on dvd when everyone's stopped talking about them. Similarly, you can quit Facebook (and I have). Now I have friends I can't interact with online, because we don't have any websites in common any more.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  Why do you need to go through a web site to communicate with your friends online? Don't you have an e-mail?
  - mooism2 16y ago
    My friends don't use e-mail socially.
    - loup-vaillant 16y ago
      What do you mean by "socially"? You don't have their e-mail address? Or they don't look at their inbox? Or certain specific activities are done via Facebook, while others may be done via e-mail? And most of all, why? Why did they chose Facebook over e-mail? More generally, I'd like to know what they use Facebook for, and why.
      - mooism2 16y ago
        We all use e-mail for password reset e-mails, order confirmations e-mails, etc. For communicating with friends, we just use it for one-on-one communication that wouldn't fit into a text message. We tend not to share e-mail addresses. Different people use different services (LiveJournal/DreamWidth, Facebook, Twitter, Monochrome, etc) to different extents. Parties get organised on LiveJournal, Facebook or Monochrome. I don't use e-mail socially because it's a terrible medium for group conversation.
        16y ago

humbledrone 16y ago

Quitting Facebook is not pointless if one wants to maintain a certain level of personal privacy.

rimantas 16y ago
You can maintain it without any quitting: just think before you post anything.
- Natsu 16y ago
  That's good advice everywhere, but one of the problems is that Facebook, via your friends, links together all sorts of things that would otherwise be scattered about the internet and nearly untraceable (unless someone had a lot of time to devote to hunting them down). Also, you can't readily control what your friends post about you. And you can't hide who your friends are. All said, I don't regret not having a Facebook account. And even so, they do still have data on me, thanks to family members and friends (who have sent invitations to join, etc.). Unfortunately, I don't think most people will care until they're made aware of exactly how much information is being (and can be) collected and what people can do with it. Google is the same, actually, in terms of potential for misuse, except that I trust the current leaders more. The worry, though, is how long that will last?
slantyyz 16y ago
privacy != you and/or your circle of friends oversharing Quitting Facebook doesn't stop your friends from sharing pictures that include you that you may not want out there.

credo 16y ago

Quitting Facebook is an effective way of challenging Facebook to do better. I think Danah Boyd is mistaken in assuming that one precludes the other

scorpion032 16y ago
If one is quitting, why would it matter to him that they do better, as he cannot gain any benefit out of it. I would rather join a group "Join this group to emphasize facebook to add simpler privacy controls" than quit facebook. I don't want to lose it. I care.

nandemo 16y ago

I quit Facebook before they were uncool.

kordless 16y ago

That's one long blog post! It could be summarized by saying the general public doesn't know or care about the Facebook issues, so we technorati should stick around to help them understand better how the are getting screwed.

metaprinter 16y ago
What you said. Plus, the whole time reading I was wondering what influence her job(s) and employer(s) had on the post.

pierrefar 16y ago

A couple of things: 1. I don't want to gamble again that Facebook will "do better". They've shown many times they actually want to share my personal information in unexpected ways under the cover of ever increasingly-confusing settings pages. Thanks, but I'm done with this crap. 2. From the post: I do not believe that the tech elites who are publicly leaving Facebook will affect on the company’s numbers Us alone will not affect the numbers but we take people with us. We tell our friends and family to close their accounts.

lkozma 16y ago

I'd argue that using FB is pointless, not quiting it. Not using it is the default state of things, so the burden of proof should be on the other side. It's a bit like with smoking.

loup-vaillant 16y ago
The problem is, several of my acquaintances told me that "everyone is on Facebook". When talking to them, the burden of proof is on my side. But I have a good case.

bad_user 16y ago

Personally I love Facebook as a developer ... because Facebook continually fucks their users, I can take advantage of their profiles without feeling guilty about it :-) Zuckerberg does have a point ... most users just authorize whatever app wants permissions to their data with whatever permissions are asked for. This I know from experiencing the integration of my app with Facebook.

bad_user 16y ago
I know I have a cynical view on this, but it's consistent with the way many app developers using Facebook think ... sorry about it, but that won't change with a HN downvote ;) For app developers Facebook is basically a "whois" for users ... with a single and painless authorization you get access to their name, photo, email and list of friends. If you want to change that, then provide a better alternative.

jimfl 16y ago

Quixotic at best. Facebook provides value to two classes of user. There is no question that the individual users derive value from Facebook, but the idea that they're getting it for free is naïve.

adolph 16y ago

Right on. Another thing to try is "speaking truth to power." It is probably equally effective. Sarcasm aside, as long as the service's users are not directly providing all of the revenue to provide that service, there will always be a conflict between the interests of the users (i.e. do not want info shared) and the payers (i.e. want to know how best to advertise).

loup-vaillant 16y ago

I think this post get at least 2 things wrong: (1) Even if decentralization is not a panacea, it remains the only solution for a host of problems. Including privacy on the internet. Also, personal server as easy to use as Facebook itself are definitely possible. When such servers actually ship, they will be worth the hassle. (2) Everyone should quit every centralized services on this planet, including Facebook, provided there is an alternative. The logs they gather are just too scarily comprehensive. That, and 2 most disturbing points: (1) This post actually encourages us to stay dependent on a big corporation, in the hope that we could influence it for our own good. No, we can't. If we are dependant, they can screw us, and will do so as soon as it yields money. (2) It fears that more free systems could be used to do child pornography, among other crimes. To me that's FUD: even if she's right, that doesn't mean that the criminality will rise, nor that the criminals will be harder to catch. And we already have Freenet.