4 ms·

No, and I won't delete my Facebook account in 2018 or 2019. I log in to Facebook Feed maybe once every 2 - 3 months, just to see how the space looks like, alwa

No, and I won't delete my Facebook account in 2018 or 2019. I log in to Facebook Feed maybe once every 2 - 3 months, just to see how the space looks like, always disappointed in how irrelevant the information is to me. No friend posts, no insightful publishing, just randomly shared articles, ads, sponsored content and page suggestions. I also do Instagram sometimes, that feels a bit more towards what I want in that I can actually see what some friends are doing but seeing my wife and close friends scrolling on and on on their feeds and praising it really makes me wary of immersing myself too much in this gamified addiction center. I use Facebook Messenger to keep contact with my friends and WhatsApp to talk to my family; I have my track blockers on, I have my ads blocked and notifications disabled on my phone so Facebook is minimally invasive for me. Not sure what point I'm trying to make, I think it's a bit counterproductive deleting your account on the biggest network on the planet. What I think we should be pushing for is people disengaging with their devices and their notifications and being in charge of when they want to connect. I was once a daily Facebook user, I felt connected, I felt empowered, I felt knowledgeable and I never stopped to consider if it is truly so. The change for me happened when I decided to disable notifications on my phone. Ever since then, I've been a lot better at managing my daily attention and random apps don't really hold my attention any more than what I am willing to offer them. Again, I'm feeling like I'm rambling without a cohesive thought, so I'll end it with the personal insight that it's not necessary to drop a service as long as you get to control how it works for you. The data mining and shadow profiling are the cost you pay for a free service, but being on it constantly is a choice individuals can make for themselves.

zapzupnz 8y ago
> […] it's not necessary to drop a service as long as you get to control how it works for you > The data mining and shadow profiling are the cost you pay for a free service That seems a bit contradictory to me. If you could control how something worked, you could also control what data is being mined and so on. Fact is, you can't; even when you tell Facebook not to, they still manage to find ways to do so. Also, once upon a time, data mining and shadow profiling were decidedly _not_ the cost we paid for free services. We got either generic advertising or targeted advertising based on the state of the page being visited, not a huge history based on every little thing we've done online. We do well to remember that the way things are is _not_ always the way things should be, or even have always been. Apathy to our own plight and a short collective memory span are dictatorships' greatest friends.
- hagurganus 8y ago
  > […] it's not necessary to drop a service as long as you get to control how it works for you I agree with this, and this is why I still have a FB account (for now). > The data mining and shadow profiling are the cost you pay for a free service I believe the OP was saying that “the way FB mines your data is the cost they charge for their service”, not necessarily that this has always been the cost of every free service, or that this is a cost that everyone should be willing to pay. It’s more like “if you manage the notifications so it’s only a part of your life when you want it to be, and you understand and are okay with the data mining and shadow profiling they do to support their service, then there’s not much to be gained from deleting your FB account.” At least that’s how I feel (again, for now).
  - ThalesX 8y ago
    Thank you for trying to clarify my point, you are very spot on. I think Facebook as a service SHOULD have access to how you use the platform AS you use it and if you can stop it from tracking your behavior outside their ecosystem and gamifying your interaction with it, I do believe that there's not that much to gain from deleting your account. There's an argument to be made for their unethical addiction provoking implementations, but until another platform comes up with a working business model and a lack of psychological tricks, one would be arguing against the windmills.
- ThalesX 8y ago
  I'm not arguing for control of how a service works, but control of how it works _for you_, _if_ it works for you. From my understanding, Facebook is a for profit company doing their best to get as much data as they can from me and offering x, y and z services in return. So then the question becomes, can I make this service work for me in a way that I feel comfortable with? I believe I can. I can block most of that tracking through various channels, while also using the platform in a way that brings me value. I am feeding Facebook data when using their platform and I believe that is somewhat fair for them, but I am doing my best to build a system that doesn't feed them additional data, which I believe is unethical. Do I like Facebook as a company and the direction in which it's going and the societal changes it brings? No. Do I think Facebook has 0 value? Again, no. Do I have an alternative service for keeping up with my friends and family apart from our occasional real life meetups? Strangely enough, I don't think I do. Once upon a time we had simple HTTP servers sending you server rendered pages, in time, it evolved to a complex ecosystem of requests and responses for each page you visit. Part of that is used to offer us services which were unimaginable "back in the days", but with it came the other part where your behavior becomes heavily trackable. I remember the old internet, I wish that simplicity came back in a way (somehow without the popups, the toolbars and the risk of running apps on your machine instead of in your browsers), but I think that ship has long sailed, and I'm not sure I'm willing to give up the possibilities of today for that.

zapzupnz 8y ago

> […] it's not necessary to drop a service as long as you get to control how it works for you > The data mining and shadow profiling are the cost you pay for a free service That seems a bit contradictory to me. If you could control how something worked, you could also control what data is being mined and so on. Fact is, you can't; even when you tell Facebook not to, they still manage to find ways to do so. Also, once upon a time, data mining and shadow profiling were decidedly _not_ the cost we paid for free services. We got either generic advertising or targeted advertising based on the state of the page being visited, not a huge history based on every little thing we've done online. We do well to remember that the way things are is _not_ always the way things should be, or even have always been. Apathy to our own plight and a short collective memory span are dictatorships' greatest friends.

hagurganus 8y ago
> […] it's not necessary to drop a service as long as you get to control how it works for you I agree with this, and this is why I still have a FB account (for now). > The data mining and shadow profiling are the cost you pay for a free service I believe the OP was saying that “the way FB mines your data is the cost they charge for their service”, not necessarily that this has always been the cost of every free service, or that this is a cost that everyone should be willing to pay. It’s more like “if you manage the notifications so it’s only a part of your life when you want it to be, and you understand and are okay with the data mining and shadow profiling they do to support their service, then there’s not much to be gained from deleting your FB account.” At least that’s how I feel (again, for now).
- ThalesX 8y ago
  Thank you for trying to clarify my point, you are very spot on. I think Facebook as a service SHOULD have access to how you use the platform AS you use it and if you can stop it from tracking your behavior outside their ecosystem and gamifying your interaction with it, I do believe that there's not that much to gain from deleting your account. There's an argument to be made for their unethical addiction provoking implementations, but until another platform comes up with a working business model and a lack of psychological tricks, one would be arguing against the windmills.
ThalesX 8y ago
I'm not arguing for control of how a service works, but control of how it works _for you_, _if_ it works for you. From my understanding, Facebook is a for profit company doing their best to get as much data as they can from me and offering x, y and z services in return. So then the question becomes, can I make this service work for me in a way that I feel comfortable with? I believe I can. I can block most of that tracking through various channels, while also using the platform in a way that brings me value. I am feeding Facebook data when using their platform and I believe that is somewhat fair for them, but I am doing my best to build a system that doesn't feed them additional data, which I believe is unethical. Do I like Facebook as a company and the direction in which it's going and the societal changes it brings? No. Do I think Facebook has 0 value? Again, no. Do I have an alternative service for keeping up with my friends and family apart from our occasional real life meetups? Strangely enough, I don't think I do. Once upon a time we had simple HTTP servers sending you server rendered pages, in time, it evolved to a complex ecosystem of requests and responses for each page you visit. Part of that is used to offer us services which were unimaginable "back in the days", but with it came the other part where your behavior becomes heavily trackable. I remember the old internet, I wish that simplicity came back in a way (somehow without the popups, the toolbars and the risk of running apps on your machine instead of in your browsers), but I think that ship has long sailed, and I'm not sure I'm willing to give up the possibilities of today for that.