6 ms·

This is exactly how my leaving facebook started. After a few months without the app I logged out on desktop, and then it wasn't long until I deactivated my acco

This is exactly how my leaving facebook started. After a few months without the app I logged out on desktop, and then it wasn't long until I deactivated my account. I'd like to delete it entirely but at the moment too many people still use messenger to contact me.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Anytime I speak with someone on Messenger, I mention my cellphone # and email. Gotta prime that OOB comms pump, otherwise you'll never break free. If only there was a Messenger API to setup an autoresponder with alternate contact info...
- davchana 8y ago
  Are not there some messenger bot which could do this?
  - alexchantavy 8y ago
    Sounds like it's time for Trillian to have a reboot just like Winamp did recently :-)
    - sdegutis 8y ago
      Oh man that brings back fond memories of creating Trillian 0.73-0.74 skins! I was just thinking the other day that I should make an app for Mac that lets you skin it via XML in the same way. Away with the conformity of Aqua and Aqua Dark, let creativity reign free!
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    You can't set up a bot or an automated message for personnal accounts, only for pages.
    - nickbarnwell 8y ago
      But you could use the Bitlbee FBMQTT Plugin [1] and WeeChat's scripting functionality to implement it for your personal account. Probably an afternoon's worth of work if you have a VPS or t1.micro lying around to run a daemon on for a few months :) [1]: https://wiki.bitlbee.org/HowtoFacebookMQTT https://wiki.bitlbee.org/HowtoFacebookMQTT [2]: https://weechat.org/ https://weechat.org/
- bdamm 8y ago
  It's nice that phone numbers are so stable these days.
  - rtkwe 8y ago
    Yeah used to be it'd be the opposite. We'd try desperately try to migrate everyone to using something like Messenger (eg: AIM or ICQ) because we couldn't count on our number remaining the same.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    I wonder how long that will continue. I get so many spam calls every day (about a dozen now) that I am looking towards a future where I don't have a POTS number.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - illegalsmile 8y ago
      The spam phone calls and especially texts have dramatically risen over the last two years. Any idea why this is?
      - simcop2387 8y ago
        I imagine a large part of it is the dramatic lower barrier thanks to services like twilio and competitors. They enable a lot of really cool tech but the programatic access to the phone network like that makes all that stuff significantly easier
      - sudosteph 8y ago
        So this is just my two-cents based on working for a VOIP company for a couple years, but I noticed a few patterns, specifically the industry-wide pressure to compete with Twilio, that seem to make it easier to spam text/calls. 1.) VOIP providers have low-barriers to sign-up (typically just a credit card fraud check + check to see if IP or address is from certain countries where fraud calls are common). The up-side to this is that it makes the user experience more friendly to real customers b/c they don't have to wait around, but the downside is that any spammer semi-familiar with the checks that get done can sign up and start sending spam calls for a day or two before most places get complaints and shut them down. The fact that many voip providers allow users to set their Display Id to anything too without any approval also is also really convenient for spammers (ie, there aren't usually ways to immediately detect when a user fraudently set their Caller Id to the name of a bank or something) 2.) APIs everywhere. Twilio got big in part b/c it made APIs available, but the smaller providers are catching up and also adding APIs for texting and calling services. Spammers can automate their spam and re-use the scripts between different accounts when they get banned, so it makes sending out spam texts easier too. 3.) VOIP companies actually are ok with some degree of spam, as long as the spammers pay their bills. So they don't have a motivation to actually stop all of it. Instead of blocking all spam-ish calls outright, some places will just make a deal so that some callers (identified by having a high rate of unanswered calls + very short length calls) pay a higher rate to compensate for potential reputation damage. This is meant for legal cold-calling I imagine, but in practice, they don't know what is actually being said on those phone calls.
phreeza 8y ago
Wait, you can deactivate your account and still use messenger?
- strifey 8y ago
  Yep. It currently explicitly states this and does it by default when you get to the final deactivation step. Previously it was an option you had to notice and click.
  - mpg33 8y ago
    I deactivated my account over 3 years ago. Would I be able to use messenger?
    - strifey 8y ago
      My guess is if you reactivate and immediately deactivate, it should do what you want. I don't know what else that triggers, though.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  I did this one time and my account ended up in a broken state where friends couldn't send me messages in long-running one-on-one Messenger chats (they got some mystery error like "This user is not accepting messages right now."). Group chats still worked and I could send messages to those same long-running Messenger conversations. Re-activating the Facebook side of the account resolved the issue. Caveat deactivator.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- tomphoolery 8y ago
  You can indeed! You can even reactivate your account _only_ for messenger. I kinda wish you could do that for events...

toomuchtodo 8y ago

Anytime I speak with someone on Messenger, I mention my cellphone # and email. Gotta prime that OOB comms pump, otherwise you'll never break free. If only there was a Messenger API to setup an autoresponder with alternate contact info...

davchana 8y ago
Are not there some messenger bot which could do this?
- alexchantavy 8y ago
  Sounds like it's time for Trillian to have a reboot just like Winamp did recently :-)
  - sdegutis 8y ago
    Oh man that brings back fond memories of creating Trillian 0.73-0.74 skins! I was just thinking the other day that I should make an app for Mac that lets you skin it via XML in the same way. Away with the conformity of Aqua and Aqua Dark, let creativity reign free!
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  You can't set up a bot or an automated message for personnal accounts, only for pages.
  - nickbarnwell 8y ago
    But you could use the Bitlbee FBMQTT Plugin [1] and WeeChat's scripting functionality to implement it for your personal account. Probably an afternoon's worth of work if you have a VPS or t1.micro lying around to run a daemon on for a few months :) [1]: https://wiki.bitlbee.org/HowtoFacebookMQTT https://wiki.bitlbee.org/HowtoFacebookMQTT [2]: https://weechat.org/ https://weechat.org/
bdamm 8y ago
It's nice that phone numbers are so stable these days.
- rtkwe 8y ago
  Yeah used to be it'd be the opposite. We'd try desperately try to migrate everyone to using something like Messenger (eg: AIM or ICQ) because we couldn't count on our number remaining the same.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  I wonder how long that will continue. I get so many spam calls every day (about a dozen now) that I am looking towards a future where I don't have a POTS number.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - illegalsmile 8y ago
    The spam phone calls and especially texts have dramatically risen over the last two years. Any idea why this is?
    - simcop2387 8y ago
      I imagine a large part of it is the dramatic lower barrier thanks to services like twilio and competitors. They enable a lot of really cool tech but the programatic access to the phone network like that makes all that stuff significantly easier
    - sudosteph 8y ago
      So this is just my two-cents based on working for a VOIP company for a couple years, but I noticed a few patterns, specifically the industry-wide pressure to compete with Twilio, that seem to make it easier to spam text/calls. 1.) VOIP providers have low-barriers to sign-up (typically just a credit card fraud check + check to see if IP or address is from certain countries where fraud calls are common). The up-side to this is that it makes the user experience more friendly to real customers b/c they don't have to wait around, but the downside is that any spammer semi-familiar with the checks that get done can sign up and start sending spam calls for a day or two before most places get complaints and shut them down. The fact that many voip providers allow users to set their Display Id to anything too without any approval also is also really convenient for spammers (ie, there aren't usually ways to immediately detect when a user fraudently set their Caller Id to the name of a bank or something) 2.) APIs everywhere. Twilio got big in part b/c it made APIs available, but the smaller providers are catching up and also adding APIs for texting and calling services. Spammers can automate their spam and re-use the scripts between different accounts when they get banned, so it makes sending out spam texts easier too. 3.) VOIP companies actually are ok with some degree of spam, as long as the spammers pay their bills. So they don't have a motivation to actually stop all of it. Instead of blocking all spam-ish calls outright, some places will just make a deal so that some callers (identified by having a high rate of unanswered calls + very short length calls) pay a higher rate to compensate for potential reputation damage. This is meant for legal cold-calling I imagine, but in practice, they don't know what is actually being said on those phone calls.

phreeza 8y ago

Wait, you can deactivate your account and still use messenger?

strifey 8y ago
Yep. It currently explicitly states this and does it by default when you get to the final deactivation step. Previously it was an option you had to notice and click.
- mpg33 8y ago
  I deactivated my account over 3 years ago. Would I be able to use messenger?
  - strifey 8y ago
    My guess is if you reactivate and immediately deactivate, it should do what you want. I don't know what else that triggers, though.
tomjakubowski 8y ago
I did this one time and my account ended up in a broken state where friends couldn't send me messages in long-running one-on-one Messenger chats (they got some mystery error like "This user is not accepting messages right now."). Group chats still worked and I could send messages to those same long-running Messenger conversations. Re-activating the Facebook side of the account resolved the issue. Caveat deactivator.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tomphoolery 8y ago
You can indeed! You can even reactivate your account _only_ for messenger. I kinda wish you could do that for events...