13 ms·

Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

254 points by realshadow 7y ago

tzakrajs 7y ago
Seconded. I found that I didn’t lose anything by leaving Facebook. The “social network” I thought I had was just a list of names I was familiar with and begged the question about any real relationship which had manifested. I had many relationships which were paper thin and folded the moment I left Facebook.
- emerongi 7y ago
  Facebook is actually good for groups & chat, but everything else around it ruins it. I just try to stick to other chat apps instead.
- dx7tnt 7y ago
  "I had many relationships which were paper thin and folded the moment I left Facebook." I can second this. Even good and old friendships that went the same way. Turns out I don't actually miss those people. I much prefer life by finding things out by bumping into people and keeping my relationships face to face. I don't want to have to absorb things with the crowd like a legitimised voyeur. I wish we were all off facebook. When I read these constant articles about its privacy problems and how its now enmeshed into the fabric of our society, it makes me think "how did a WEBSITE become mandatory for living ones life?"
- jarsin 7y ago
  I subscribe to if you are not willing to contact your friends without facebook then they probably were not meant to be in your life anyway.
  - dymk 7y ago
    That's a weird place to put your goalposts (why isn't it at video calls? or phones? or cars? or walking barefoot to your house?), but subscribe to whatever idea lets you feel superior, I guess.
  - gwbas1c 7y ago
    I politely disagree but I think your viewpoint is valid. (I don't understand why you're downvoted, so I upvoted you.) But now: It used to be really fun to have online discussions with people who I used to know in real life, but because "life happened," I didn't get to see very often. That's why Facebook used to be fun, and why I politely disagree. But, again, I think your viewpoint is totally valid and shouldn't be downvoted.
Gys 7y ago
> “People think they have a level of privacy they don’t. Why don’t they give me a choice? Let me pay a certain amount, and you’ll keep my data more secure and private then everybody else handing it to advertisers.” I think advertisers are offering more money ;-) Maybe the taxes should be higher for companies that make money from selling data.
want2know 7y ago
Paying for privacy sound nice but I never had a Facebook account and am 100% sure I got a profile. Facebook goes through all the data of Facebook users I know. So I am sure I am tagged on photos and they might already know a lot about me. And that's what I think is most evil about Facebook. Even people without an internet connection might have a profile.
mrkstu 7y ago
While a great idea the problem of course is there isn’t a ready replacement for what Facebook provides. Where would families migrate to for communication/collaboration/community? The closest free alternative is of course Instagram, owned by Facebook. Who can build a privacy oriented alternative that charges and also gains a sufficient network effect?
- dawhizkid 7y ago
  Snapchat's stock has tripled in the last few months. Disclosure: I own a small amount of $SNAP.
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    It’s great for people who went in on Snap at its bottoming out. But Snap itself is volatile. A year ago or more it had an earnings where it rose 50% on the day. The stock was in an insanely bad spot at the beginning of the year. It’s either an anomaly or shows again that Snap is really volatile, but not volatile enough to get really high for long. Also a lot of stocks were down (though not that much) at the time. Snapchat stock is doing okay. It isn’t going triple again or anything. It’ll be lucky if it stabilizes at IPO public opening price ever again. Edit: I do think it’s entirely possible Snap goes up 50% again or something from where it is now for a short period during some earnings. I don’t think it’ll stay at that level for long any time soon though.
- Angostura 7y ago
  For families? Our uses a mixture of e-mail, text/iMessage, iCloud photos and Dropbox
  - dangus 7y ago
    It's rather unrealistic to consider those alternatives enough to replace everything all the features contained within Facebook can accomplish. Facebook has discussion forums, rich messaging, groups and events, classifieds, image and video editing/enhancement, and many more features all bundled into one platform. You'd probably need 15 other websites and services to replace it. If we just had truly protective privacy laws and standards we could just use Facebook and enjoy what it is capable of doing without guilt.
dbingham 7y ago
The thing that holds me to Facebook is that it's become the town square for my local community. It's where people go to discuss the community's political challenges. So many important dialogs about local issues happen on Facebook, and it's the only real way to be a part of those conversations. Things like zoning, planning, city and county budgeting, ordinances, and so on. If I leave, not only do I lose the ability to participate in those conversations in a significant way - I lose awareness that they're even happening. The newspaper (what's left of it) certainly doesn't cover them. I have many friends who I see on a regular basis in person, but we don't always talk about all of them. And when we do, it's often inspired by conversations that were already happening on Facebook and a continuation of the conversations happening there. We need a good replacement for this piece of it. Having an accessible, local town square where all the local activists, citizens, and officials can interact and dialog about local issues is really invaluable.
- techrich 7y ago
  Then people should meet at the town hall and talked, this kind of stuff got done before facebook. And people where just as busy, bringing kids up going to work etc.
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    Well gee, wouldn't that be great. But a couple people leaving Facebook isn't going to lead to it.
  - kristiandupont 7y ago
    Maybe they should. And maybe people should handwrite letters like they used to. But even if it might be what they should do, it's not what they are going to do.
  - tmikaeld 7y ago
    Discussing and taking part of a topic online is also about seeding motivation, it's as important as actually going to a place. Plus, having the ability to plan, discuss, reference, lookup etc - _while_ discussing something, saves a ton of time and effort that would be wasted when speaking face-to-face.
rococode 7y ago
To me, Facebook provides enough value that I don't feel the benefits of deleting it outweigh the benefits of keeping it. Without it, I have no connection at all to some of my old friends. While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people are doing every once in a while. LinkedIn fulfills this desire in some ways, but I don't typically connect with my "outside-of-work" friends on LinkedIn. Plus, LinkedIn has its own host of privacy issues, so it's not really a great replacement in the sense of improving privacy. There are also the useful community aspects. I often find out about local events through Facebook. I suppose Meetup or similar sites could replace that function. But my friends also use Facebook's events to organize parties and stuff - I don't know any good alternative that's nearly as convenient. I'm not convinced that deleting your account helps all that much anyways. You do make it harder for Facebook to listen in from your phone and things like that, but I'm sure they still keep a detailed profile on you. And you can get those benefits just by deleting the mobile app, without deleting your account. I think the better reason to delete Facebook is the mental health issues with the whole spotlight effect or whatever that's called (where you only see the highlights of other people's lives which makes you feel like your life is boring). As long as you regulate your usage in a healthy way, I think whether you delete your account or not doesn't make much of a difference. For now I just throw on a handful of privacy extensions (uBlock Origin, PrivacyBadger, Decentraleyes, Facebook Container, etc.) and accept that Facebook is going to know many things about me. As a point of reference - my age group started using Facebook around middle school. So I have a lot of "friends" that I would have no way of keeping up with otherwise, and I'm not used to not having that ability. I suspect the sentiment is different for older generations who are used to losing touch with people. My parents, for example, have a couple old friends from whom they haven't heard anything in many many years. That concept doesn't mesh with the lifestyle I grew up with. It's not that there are many specific people I want to keep up with all the time - it's just nice to get random updates on random people you used to know well.
- shock 7y ago
  > While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people are doing every once in a while. Why do you choose not to call them and ask them how they are doing? I must admit, I do not really understand this "seeing how they are doing" statement, it confuses me as to why someone would spend time on facebook to see how another one is doing, but would not make the call to ask. Maybe I'm misreading it and the seeing part is the more relevant one. Edit: anyone care to clarify what was downvote worthy about this comment? did it not contribute to the discussion in some way? if the answer is yes, I don't know why it didn't contribute to the discussion.
wokawoka 7y ago
think like the mass or think for yourself. Facebook dorks says...think like a mass.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
it's just fearmongering pointing the finger at facebook. If you're that worried about eaves dropping then you shouldn't have an apple smartphone or an android smartphone or any kind of smartphone. I think the chances are pretty remote that they're recording you.
andrew_ 7y ago
The aggregation of local events on Facebook is second to none. I tried leaving that behind and found I was missing out on a litany of events not broadcast elsewhere. As long as that holds true, I maintain a spartan, unconnected, minimal account there.
- biql 7y ago
  Maybe that's the next big thing. A few now popular apps started as "that one thing the FB is used for but as a separate app". Instagram comes to mind.
gexla 7y ago
People have mentioned in this thread why an FB account might be worth having. There's also business reasons. Maybe an alternative would be to setup a dedicated device with no video or audio for all your dealings with evil empires.
AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
I imagine a good number of people are like me and would like to close their Facebook account, but are afraid of losing that circle of friends and family that they have no other easy way of contacting. A useful feature (albeit one that Facebook would never, ever implement, as it would facilitate people leaving their platform) would be to have closure page with a final statement or forwarding address, e.g.: "I've decided to close my Facebook account. You can still reach me at: myname@emailprovider.com"
- SamWhited 7y ago
  You still have Facebook now, no? What stops you from sending your email or phone number to anyone who needs it but doesn't already have it and then canceling it?
- mathieuh 7y ago
  You can continue to use messenger if you deactivate it. I used a Selenium script I found on here a few weeks ago to delete everything I’ve ever added to Facebook and then deactivated my account. I don’t appear if you search for me, and I doubt that deleting your entire account does anything different from deleting everything individually. It’s probably not deleted at all ever, knowing FaceBook.
- maximente 7y ago
  you could just close and not delete. it's very easy (too easy imo) to re-open a closed facebook account. or do you mean the people with whom you don't regularly contact but might one day? i've found this is sort of an unwillingness to close doors type thing, hanging on to things that cannot be hung on to (especially true of more vagabond types, travelers, movers etc. who have a lot of these connections in areas they don't live). the truly important people you can FB message with contact details, wait until they ack, then proceed.
- triceratops 7y ago
  There's always email, text, IM, phone, video call, meatspace/IRL conversations. I think the utility of FB is you can passively absorb updates from people without needing to contact them specifically. And send updates in the same way. But if you can't find the time/inclination/energy to keep in active contact with someone, no matter how infrequently, does a real relationship even exist with them?
hadsed 7y ago
Woz admits that there are benefits to FB. What he's talking about is the privacy angle. So what's the optimal usage pattern here to enjoy the benefits and still keep your privacy safe? I think it's actually pretty straightforward with regards to FB. First of all if you find yourself scrolling through the news feed for anything that isn't relevant to your daily life, the argument is more about mental health than privacy here to stop excessive use like that. Same for Instagram, it's highly addictive, but you'll find you don't really need it in your life. Secondly, use an alternative messaging platform for the small group of people you tend to talk to very often and closely with. Preferably encrypted. For everyone else, it matters a lot less that people might spy on your conversations so just be careful to not talk about radical or illegal things. The benefits of FB messenger are pretty nice in terms of convenience, but if you don't like having to censor yourself get the other person to join WhatsApp, signal, or iMessage. Thirdly, if you're using FB in the sort of community oriented way with groups and the like, continue to do so freely! There's nothing wrong with doing this on FB, it's a great platform for that and rarely is your privacy going to be violated in this way. And if you think it might, then there are alternatives like a group chat on Signal, or an anonymous/private message board. Those are more sensitive cases which surely exist but I can't think of many situations where one needs to go to these lengths. I think the way FB and IG make money incentivizes them to violate your privacy through clicks tracking. This only works if you're on the platform like a zombie, clicking for hours on news or influencers or whatever. Maybe some of that truly is useful to you, for example my girlfriend follows a lot of people who do physical activity and exercise routines on IG. And from a privacy perspective maybe it's not even that big of a deal, but I think most people might find they don't need to waste so much of their time on these apps anyway. So at least for the case of FB, it isn't too hard to protect your privacy the ways it really matters and still get the benefits of FB apps.
vzaliva 7y ago
Am I the only one who finds this ironic that this discussion is held at TMZ?
ryanmercer 7y ago
The things that hold me to Facebook are: - It is how I know what's going on in the lives of all of my friends. While the bulk of us still live within 20 miles of each other, we might see each other once a year (if that) because most of them are married with grade school aged children and when they do have free time, they're using it to take family vacations or day trips. With Facebook we know what is going on in each other's lives and still interact just like we did in high school, shooting the shinola on each others posts just like we used to in the hall between classes. - As a strength athlete, it is how we find out about events. Take strongman, there are 200~ ish of us that are all mutual friends with the bulk of those being here in the United States. When someone creates a new FB event page for a competition, you find out about it because you see "friends a, b and c have expressed the are going/are interested in going" or someone tags you "you going to this?" or when the person putting the event on creates it, they tag 20-50 people that they know are likely to either compete or volunteer to work it. And during stuff like Arnold, those that are of the caliber to actually compete at the Arnold, we get play by play from the people competing and their coaches/handlers and those of us that aren't competing but went. When Jessica Fithen won the SHW championship belt in 2017, I was messaging her congratulations (and getting a reply) from my bedroom in Indiana about a minute before the online online feed even got to it. There just isn't a way to replicate either of those things without a social media platform. I like know what is going on in my friends lives even though we just don't get to see each other that often. Do we trade some privacy for that? Sure. Do we waste more time on the platforms than we should, for the most part yes, but considering I do get to see what is going on in their lives without having to schedule months in advance an hour where we might get to cross paths if something doesn't come up, then it is worth it to me. And with the strength sports thing, we might be in the same location once a year, even those that are here in Indiana with me we might see each other a few times a year because we are spread out 120-200 miles but Facebook lets us bust each other's chops and support each other and carry on just like we do in person on our phones all day long. A few weeks ago I was at an event volunteering and had a couple people walking by me "hey Mercer!" that I've never actually met but have this genuine friend/camaraderie connection with because we have this digital space where we are there for each other and do bust each others chops in a fun way.
cols 7y ago
I just passed my two year anniversary with no FB, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat and I've never been happier. I convinced my wife to cut the cord about a year ago and she completely agrees. For me it was an addiction. I was compulsively checking FB many times an hour to stay caught up with people. This was after culling my friends list multiple times. Turns out, life goes on just fine without a constant water hose of relationship/political drama. Ultimately, it is no more difficult to stay in touch with my real friends than it was with FB. I rely on text, phone calls, and emails. Occasionally, I will use LinkedIn to touch base with people, but primarily, I just text/call. And honestly, it's great. I highly recommend cutting the cord.
- rv-de 7y ago
  Congratulations! It's soon to be my first anniversary sans FaBIGWA. (only exception was the Go I recently sold and the Quest I might get in near future)
  - NetOpWibby 7y ago
    If you or a loved one is suffering from FaBIGWA... Ask your doctor if happiness is right for you.
  - levythe 7y ago
    Searching FaBIGWA just sends me to this thread, and I'm struggling to decipher what is in there. Looks like Facebook... And a whole lot of other stuff I can't glean.
    - guitarsteve 7y ago
      Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp? I’m just guessing.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- bduerst 7y ago
  Same, but I can attest that you can do it without deleting your accounts too - just delete the apps and remove bookmarks. I have family that still use social and removing myself would make it difficult for them since they like to post about us. I don't think Woz's payment solution to "light" social interaction is not really feasible though.
gadders 7y ago
Do people really care what Steve Wozniak has to say on anything these days? He did some excellent hardware work in his day, but not sure that carries much weight on Facebook usage in 2019. He just seems to be a reliable rent-a-quote for journalists to go to when up against a deadline.
vikingcaffiene 7y ago
I respect Woz and his contributions to computer science. Tbh tho every time I see an article like this it makes me scratch my head. It’s always something along the lines of “Woz says you should do something that has been old news and most anyone who would care is already doing or agrees with”. It’s not that he’s wrong. It’s just... why is this news? He’s just making a very safe statement for the audience being targeted.
- resonanttoe 7y ago
  It makes news for a couple of reasons. (and assuming this isn’t a rhetorical idealistic question about what is and isn’t news…) 1. He’s a notable technologist (or whatever term you’d prefer to use for someone who is seen as intrinsically linked with the rise of computation tech) 2. It’s Gizmodo, they’re not exactly looking for revolutionary stuff here. 3. It’s your standard confirmation bias as well. Most people who read the article probably already have fairly strong anti-facebook-usage feelings to begin with. This reaffirms their stance and belief by presenting someone who isn’t a dickhead as being on the same side. All of the above leads to a click and a comment, which is good for the ol’ bottom ad-dollar :D.
  - vikingcaffiene 7y ago
    Yeah I guess I just expect more out of the guy (Woz). To be fair, he doesn't owe me or anyone else shit. It's just a let down to see him never take a firm stance on anything until it's very very safe to do so.
nao360 7y ago
Left 4 or 5 years ago for employer/work reasons. Had a couple of hundred friends, and a started few groups that accumulated thousands of members. Not surprisingly, everyone I mattered to managed to find me and reconnect via email, sms etc. I don’t miss it at all, and I’m happy I don’t waste time like that anymore! Community argument is compelling, but there are so many ways for communities to stay in touch now. I don’t think it has to come at the cost of so many Facebook negatives (privacy, addiction, mental health, etc.)
- sdegutis 7y ago
  The community argument isn't actually compelling. It creates "ghost-like" relationships, where you don't really know someone anymore and haven't for years, but act like you're still best friends, with occasional empty comments or likes. It's like eating cotton candy for dinner and acting like you have the energy a good steak would have given you. Many of them don't have email though, and phone chats are often difficult to coordinate. I think occasional visits is probably the best way to keep in touch with people you don't live near and thus see regularly. And if neither of you can manage to schedule that, then maybe there's no real connection there after all.
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    How can you do occasional visits if you don’t live nearby? A lot of people I know live across the country or in the middle of America or outside the US. Even seeing all of them occasionally would be very difficult. Unless you mean every few years? But that’s barely anything.
    - sdegutis 7y ago
      It seems to me life is meant to be lived most with the people you live near. No matter how much technology improves the ability to communicate long distances, it's never the same as being with those people. So maybe it does mean visiting only every few years, and maybe even less often. It's hard when those people are family though, because then you have a permanent connection with them. But sometimes friends drift apart (physically) and you make new ones (locally) instead, and that's okay.
nwah1 7y ago
Agreed, and they should also ditch all Apple products.
jasonvorhe 7y ago
Why do people still care about his opinion?
duxup 7y ago
I login here and there to Facebook. I see usage among my circle of even older folks fading fast. Updates are way less frequent. Having said that, I kinda miss it being an option, for some of these folks I'll probabbly never know what is going on with them again.
jokoon 7y ago
I wonder if reddit and facebook can be compared, because I go on reddit a lot, even though I only read comments, save wallpapers and articles to read later, I very rarely upvote.
FpUser 7y ago
While I do not care about / immune to FB, Twitter, etc etc, I liked the first comment I saw on that page: "I really don’t need Woz or anyone else telling me what I need to do!"
s3cur3 7y ago
Question for people who have nuked Facebook: what do you do about a job that needs you to have Facebook for, e.g., API keys or group moderation? Did you just create a new, “friend-less” account and transfer the credentials over to it?
- BozeWolf 7y ago
  Got a fake account for that “benny van gisteren”. Funny to translate in dutch. It is a saying for “i am not a fool”). Did not use it for years now. Most companies have a specific account which can be used. Also not into building that social crap.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Even if you want to keep a personal account, definitively don't use it for work purposes! We created a shared FB account for registering an app, and just manage it like any other company account.
mayankkaizen 7y ago
I deleted FB 4 years back and at that time I had around 1000 'friends' on FB. Needless to say I didn't miss a thing and life has been only better. But there was one subtle interesting thing I noticed that nobody missed me on FB. Nobody was like, "wait, where did that guy disappear". The people who mattered were always around me and are still around me. Only after deleting FB I realized what a cancer FB was. I hear it has become even more cancerous. The only thing I seriously want to give up is this Whatsapp app, especially because it is now FB product. Otherwise, the way I use Whatsapp, it doesn't pose much problem.
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  People might notice but just not saying anything. I notice when occasionally someone is not on FB anymore. I rarely point it out. Because the reason is always the same one or two reasons.
tonymet 7y ago
This is one of those cases where you should definitely consult woz on how to build a hobby computer but take light any advice he gives you on how to live your life.
dpcan 7y ago
I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy. It's important to me for a number of reasons: - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. - For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info about anything that is going on with them. And honestly, I don't mind. It works well. - Businesses use it to send deals to their customers, notify them of events, post pictures, etc. - I manage business Facebook pages as part of my business, so I can't get rid of my personal account. - I also use the Marketplace a lot to sell off stuff from my house and it works brilliantly. HOWEVER - I have technically stopped "using" Facebook. For the last 3 years now, I've made my profile totally private. I haven't posted photos or shared stupid things. I un-followed (but stayed friends with) EVERYONE except my wife and parents and a close friend. My news feed is empty except for posts from the groups I'm a part of and stuff from close family members. And there's an added benefit - when I DO post something now, on a rare occasion, people actually take notice. If everyone would only post when it's really important, the system would be useful and interesting. Otherwise, it's full of garbage. Facebook is not all bad, but certain people ruin it with their constant garbage posting, and that's too bad.
- JustSomeNobody 7y ago
  > - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. If only there were another technology one could use to distribute messages by electronic means from one computer user to one or more recipients via a network.
  - dang 7y ago
    "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- grogenaut 7y ago
  If you have a facebook login active then facebook is still tracking you and able to advertise to you, so you are using facebook for the only things they care about. You are still generating content (your web traffic via like buttons) and revenue (via ads).
spurmboy 7y ago
I opted out of social media when Facebook came out. I did it because I was smart and I saw all this coming. Boy have I been feeling smug for the past three years.
wilsocr88 7y ago
Wow. What I would do to be a fly on the wall in the impromptu, perhaps slightly anxious meetings at FB HQ right now. I imagine they're discussing whether or not they should be worried, what they should do about it, or whether they should do anything at all. This has to be an insane position to be in. If you're responsible for the PR (or anything else) of a company that an ever-growing number of people are starting to suspect shouldn't exist (at least in its current form), what do you do? Where you do you even start? The only other such case I can think of is big tobacco. Facebook is (probably) not quite that harmful or toxic, but I imagine FB and Philip Morris would have a few things to talk about over dinner.
gwbas1c 7y ago
I recently realized that Facebook is addictive like cigarettes. Why? Think back 10 years ago when everyone was designing their apps to be engaging, sticky, ect, and judging success based on how long people stayed on their app. Facebook has turned into the internet equivalent of cigarettes. What's really strange is the way we all make excuses to continue to use it, kind of like how many smokers make excuses about why they continue smoking. We're all hooked, even me!
tracker1 7y ago
Facebook is really the only place I'm able to connect with most of my extended family and friends. I'm active on a few FB groups by interest, but also with old friends from H.S. and a lot of other groups of people it would be difficult to break or migrate from. If there were a social network that charged an active fee, that I could say pay $20-40/year for myself and be able to invite maybe 10-15 others whose fees are covered by my own, that might get people to move. No ads, no selling customer data, minimal intrusion.
spacegod 7y ago
why not just unfollow everyone? You can still message people but it isn't addictive because there will be nowhere to scroll outside of messages.
grandridge 7y ago
It's funny watching you all justify your Facebook account
sonnk 7y ago
Even if you don't have a Facebook account, Facebook still has your browsing history via the their SDK that is usually used to implement the "login with facebook" button. The sdk actually injects a iframe on the hosting website, allowing Facebook to know every time you go to this website.

254 points by realshadow 7y ago

Seconded. I found that I didn’t lose anything by leaving Facebook. The “social network” I thought I had was just a list of names I was familiar with and begged the question about any real relationship which had manifested. I had many relationships which were paper thin and folded the moment I left Facebook.

emerongi 7y ago
Facebook is actually good for groups & chat, but everything else around it ruins it. I just try to stick to other chat apps instead.
dx7tnt 7y ago
"I had many relationships which were paper thin and folded the moment I left Facebook." I can second this. Even good and old friendships that went the same way. Turns out I don't actually miss those people. I much prefer life by finding things out by bumping into people and keeping my relationships face to face. I don't want to have to absorb things with the crowd like a legitimised voyeur. I wish we were all off facebook. When I read these constant articles about its privacy problems and how its now enmeshed into the fabric of our society, it makes me think "how did a WEBSITE become mandatory for living ones life?"
jarsin 7y ago
I subscribe to if you are not willing to contact your friends without facebook then they probably were not meant to be in your life anyway.
- dymk 7y ago
  That's a weird place to put your goalposts (why isn't it at video calls? or phones? or cars? or walking barefoot to your house?), but subscribe to whatever idea lets you feel superior, I guess.
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  I politely disagree but I think your viewpoint is valid. (I don't understand why you're downvoted, so I upvoted you.) But now: It used to be really fun to have online discussions with people who I used to know in real life, but because "life happened," I didn't get to see very often. That's why Facebook used to be fun, and why I politely disagree. But, again, I think your viewpoint is totally valid and shouldn't be downvoted.

Gys 7y ago

> “People think they have a level of privacy they don’t. Why don’t they give me a choice? Let me pay a certain amount, and you’ll keep my data more secure and private then everybody else handing it to advertisers.” I think advertisers are offering more money ;-) Maybe the taxes should be higher for companies that make money from selling data.

want2know 7y ago

Paying for privacy sound nice but I never had a Facebook account and am 100% sure I got a profile. Facebook goes through all the data of Facebook users I know. So I am sure I am tagged on photos and they might already know a lot about me. And that's what I think is most evil about Facebook. Even people without an internet connection might have a profile.

mrkstu 7y ago

While a great idea the problem of course is there isn’t a ready replacement for what Facebook provides. Where would families migrate to for communication/collaboration/community? The closest free alternative is of course Instagram, owned by Facebook. Who can build a privacy oriented alternative that charges and also gains a sufficient network effect?

dawhizkid 7y ago
Snapchat's stock has tripled in the last few months. Disclosure: I own a small amount of $SNAP.
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  It’s great for people who went in on Snap at its bottoming out. But Snap itself is volatile. A year ago or more it had an earnings where it rose 50% on the day. The stock was in an insanely bad spot at the beginning of the year. It’s either an anomaly or shows again that Snap is really volatile, but not volatile enough to get really high for long. Also a lot of stocks were down (though not that much) at the time. Snapchat stock is doing okay. It isn’t going triple again or anything. It’ll be lucky if it stabilizes at IPO public opening price ever again. Edit: I do think it’s entirely possible Snap goes up 50% again or something from where it is now for a short period during some earnings. I don’t think it’ll stay at that level for long any time soon though.
Angostura 7y ago
For families? Our uses a mixture of e-mail, text/iMessage, iCloud photos and Dropbox
- dangus 7y ago
  It's rather unrealistic to consider those alternatives enough to replace everything all the features contained within Facebook can accomplish. Facebook has discussion forums, rich messaging, groups and events, classifieds, image and video editing/enhancement, and many more features all bundled into one platform. You'd probably need 15 other websites and services to replace it. If we just had truly protective privacy laws and standards we could just use Facebook and enjoy what it is capable of doing without guilt.

dbingham 7y ago

The thing that holds me to Facebook is that it's become the town square for my local community. It's where people go to discuss the community's political challenges. So many important dialogs about local issues happen on Facebook, and it's the only real way to be a part of those conversations. Things like zoning, planning, city and county budgeting, ordinances, and so on. If I leave, not only do I lose the ability to participate in those conversations in a significant way - I lose awareness that they're even happening. The newspaper (what's left of it) certainly doesn't cover them. I have many friends who I see on a regular basis in person, but we don't always talk about all of them. And when we do, it's often inspired by conversations that were already happening on Facebook and a continuation of the conversations happening there. We need a good replacement for this piece of it. Having an accessible, local town square where all the local activists, citizens, and officials can interact and dialog about local issues is really invaluable.

techrich 7y ago
Then people should meet at the town hall and talked, this kind of stuff got done before facebook. And people where just as busy, bringing kids up going to work etc.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  Well gee, wouldn't that be great. But a couple people leaving Facebook isn't going to lead to it.
- kristiandupont 7y ago
  Maybe they should. And maybe people should handwrite letters like they used to. But even if it might be what they should do, it's not what they are going to do.
- tmikaeld 7y ago
  Discussing and taking part of a topic online is also about seeding motivation, it's as important as actually going to a place. Plus, having the ability to plan, discuss, reference, lookup etc - _while_ discussing something, saves a ton of time and effort that would be wasted when speaking face-to-face.

rococode 7y ago

To me, Facebook provides enough value that I don't feel the benefits of deleting it outweigh the benefits of keeping it. Without it, I have no connection at all to some of my old friends. While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people are doing every once in a while. LinkedIn fulfills this desire in some ways, but I don't typically connect with my "outside-of-work" friends on LinkedIn. Plus, LinkedIn has its own host of privacy issues, so it's not really a great replacement in the sense of improving privacy. There are also the useful community aspects. I often find out about local events through Facebook. I suppose Meetup or similar sites could replace that function. But my friends also use Facebook's events to organize parties and stuff - I don't know any good alternative that's nearly as convenient. I'm not convinced that deleting your account helps all that much anyways. You do make it harder for Facebook to listen in from your phone and things like that, but I'm sure they still keep a detailed profile on you. And you can get those benefits just by deleting the mobile app, without deleting your account. I think the better reason to delete Facebook is the mental health issues with the whole spotlight effect or whatever that's called (where you only see the highlights of other people's lives which makes you feel like your life is boring). As long as you regulate your usage in a healthy way, I think whether you delete your account or not doesn't make much of a difference. For now I just throw on a handful of privacy extensions (uBlock Origin, PrivacyBadger, Decentraleyes, Facebook Container, etc.) and accept that Facebook is going to know many things about me. As a point of reference - my age group started using Facebook around middle school. So I have a lot of "friends" that I would have no way of keeping up with otherwise, and I'm not used to not having that ability. I suspect the sentiment is different for older generations who are used to losing touch with people. My parents, for example, have a couple old friends from whom they haven't heard anything in many many years. That concept doesn't mesh with the lifestyle I grew up with. It's not that there are many specific people I want to keep up with all the time - it's just nice to get random updates on random people you used to know well.

shock 7y ago
> While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people are doing every once in a while. Why do you choose not to call them and ask them how they are doing? I must admit, I do not really understand this "seeing how they are doing" statement, it confuses me as to why someone would spend time on facebook to see how another one is doing, but would not make the call to ask. Maybe I'm misreading it and the seeing part is the more relevant one. Edit: anyone care to clarify what was downvote worthy about this comment? did it not contribute to the discussion in some way? if the answer is yes, I don't know why it didn't contribute to the discussion.

wokawoka 7y ago

think like the mass or think for yourself. Facebook dorks says...think like a mass.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

it's just fearmongering pointing the finger at facebook. If you're that worried about eaves dropping then you shouldn't have an apple smartphone or an android smartphone or any kind of smartphone. I think the chances are pretty remote that they're recording you.

andrew_ 7y ago

The aggregation of local events on Facebook is second to none. I tried leaving that behind and found I was missing out on a litany of events not broadcast elsewhere. As long as that holds true, I maintain a spartan, unconnected, minimal account there.

biql 7y ago
Maybe that's the next big thing. A few now popular apps started as "that one thing the FB is used for but as a separate app". Instagram comes to mind.

gexla 7y ago

People have mentioned in this thread why an FB account might be worth having. There's also business reasons. Maybe an alternative would be to setup a dedicated device with no video or audio for all your dealings with evil empires.

AdmiralAsshat 7y ago

I imagine a good number of people are like me and would like to close their Facebook account, but are afraid of losing that circle of friends and family that they have no other easy way of contacting. A useful feature (albeit one that Facebook would never, ever implement, as it would facilitate people leaving their platform) would be to have closure page with a final statement or forwarding address, e.g.: "I've decided to close my Facebook account. You can still reach me at: myname@emailprovider.com"

SamWhited 7y ago
You still have Facebook now, no? What stops you from sending your email or phone number to anyone who needs it but doesn't already have it and then canceling it?
mathieuh 7y ago
You can continue to use messenger if you deactivate it. I used a Selenium script I found on here a few weeks ago to delete everything I’ve ever added to Facebook and then deactivated my account. I don’t appear if you search for me, and I doubt that deleting your entire account does anything different from deleting everything individually. It’s probably not deleted at all ever, knowing FaceBook.
maximente 7y ago
you could just close and not delete. it's very easy (too easy imo) to re-open a closed facebook account. or do you mean the people with whom you don't regularly contact but might one day? i've found this is sort of an unwillingness to close doors type thing, hanging on to things that cannot be hung on to (especially true of more vagabond types, travelers, movers etc. who have a lot of these connections in areas they don't live). the truly important people you can FB message with contact details, wait until they ack, then proceed.
triceratops 7y ago
There's always email, text, IM, phone, video call, meatspace/IRL conversations. I think the utility of FB is you can passively absorb updates from people without needing to contact them specifically. And send updates in the same way. But if you can't find the time/inclination/energy to keep in active contact with someone, no matter how infrequently, does a real relationship even exist with them?

hadsed 7y ago

Woz admits that there are benefits to FB. What he's talking about is the privacy angle. So what's the optimal usage pattern here to enjoy the benefits and still keep your privacy safe? I think it's actually pretty straightforward with regards to FB. First of all if you find yourself scrolling through the news feed for anything that isn't relevant to your daily life, the argument is more about mental health than privacy here to stop excessive use like that. Same for Instagram, it's highly addictive, but you'll find you don't really need it in your life. Secondly, use an alternative messaging platform for the small group of people you tend to talk to very often and closely with. Preferably encrypted. For everyone else, it matters a lot less that people might spy on your conversations so just be careful to not talk about radical or illegal things. The benefits of FB messenger are pretty nice in terms of convenience, but if you don't like having to censor yourself get the other person to join WhatsApp, signal, or iMessage. Thirdly, if you're using FB in the sort of community oriented way with groups and the like, continue to do so freely! There's nothing wrong with doing this on FB, it's a great platform for that and rarely is your privacy going to be violated in this way. And if you think it might, then there are alternatives like a group chat on Signal, or an anonymous/private message board. Those are more sensitive cases which surely exist but I can't think of many situations where one needs to go to these lengths. I think the way FB and IG make money incentivizes them to violate your privacy through clicks tracking. This only works if you're on the platform like a zombie, clicking for hours on news or influencers or whatever. Maybe some of that truly is useful to you, for example my girlfriend follows a lot of people who do physical activity and exercise routines on IG. And from a privacy perspective maybe it's not even that big of a deal, but I think most people might find they don't need to waste so much of their time on these apps anyway. So at least for the case of FB, it isn't too hard to protect your privacy the ways it really matters and still get the benefits of FB apps.

vzaliva 7y ago

Am I the only one who finds this ironic that this discussion is held at TMZ?

ryanmercer 7y ago

The things that hold me to Facebook are: - It is how I know what's going on in the lives of all of my friends. While the bulk of us still live within 20 miles of each other, we might see each other once a year (if that) because most of them are married with grade school aged children and when they do have free time, they're using it to take family vacations or day trips. With Facebook we know what is going on in each other's lives and still interact just like we did in high school, shooting the shinola on each others posts just like we used to in the hall between classes. - As a strength athlete, it is how we find out about events. Take strongman, there are 200~ ish of us that are all mutual friends with the bulk of those being here in the United States. When someone creates a new FB event page for a competition, you find out about it because you see "friends a, b and c have expressed the are going/are interested in going" or someone tags you "you going to this?" or when the person putting the event on creates it, they tag 20-50 people that they know are likely to either compete or volunteer to work it. And during stuff like Arnold, those that are of the caliber to actually compete at the Arnold, we get play by play from the people competing and their coaches/handlers and those of us that aren't competing but went. When Jessica Fithen won the SHW championship belt in 2017, I was messaging her congratulations (and getting a reply) from my bedroom in Indiana about a minute before the online online feed even got to it. There just isn't a way to replicate either of those things without a social media platform. I like know what is going on in my friends lives even though we just don't get to see each other that often. Do we trade some privacy for that? Sure. Do we waste more time on the platforms than we should, for the most part yes, but considering I do get to see what is going on in their lives without having to schedule months in advance an hour where we might get to cross paths if something doesn't come up, then it is worth it to me. And with the strength sports thing, we might be in the same location once a year, even those that are here in Indiana with me we might see each other a few times a year because we are spread out 120-200 miles but Facebook lets us bust each other's chops and support each other and carry on just like we do in person on our phones all day long. A few weeks ago I was at an event volunteering and had a couple people walking by me "hey Mercer!" that I've never actually met but have this genuine friend/camaraderie connection with because we have this digital space where we are there for each other and do bust each others chops in a fun way.

cols 7y ago

I just passed my two year anniversary with no FB, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat and I've never been happier. I convinced my wife to cut the cord about a year ago and she completely agrees. For me it was an addiction. I was compulsively checking FB many times an hour to stay caught up with people. This was after culling my friends list multiple times. Turns out, life goes on just fine without a constant water hose of relationship/political drama. Ultimately, it is no more difficult to stay in touch with my real friends than it was with FB. I rely on text, phone calls, and emails. Occasionally, I will use LinkedIn to touch base with people, but primarily, I just text/call. And honestly, it's great. I highly recommend cutting the cord.

rv-de 7y ago
Congratulations! It's soon to be my first anniversary sans FaBIGWA. (only exception was the Go I recently sold and the Quest I might get in near future)
- NetOpWibby 7y ago
  If you or a loved one is suffering from FaBIGWA... Ask your doctor if happiness is right for you.
- levythe 7y ago
  Searching FaBIGWA just sends me to this thread, and I'm struggling to decipher what is in there. Looks like Facebook... And a whole lot of other stuff I can't glean.
  - guitarsteve 7y ago
    Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp? I’m just guessing.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
bduerst 7y ago
Same, but I can attest that you can do it without deleting your accounts too - just delete the apps and remove bookmarks. I have family that still use social and removing myself would make it difficult for them since they like to post about us. I don't think Woz's payment solution to "light" social interaction is not really feasible though.

gadders 7y ago

Do people really care what Steve Wozniak has to say on anything these days? He did some excellent hardware work in his day, but not sure that carries much weight on Facebook usage in 2019. He just seems to be a reliable rent-a-quote for journalists to go to when up against a deadline.

vikingcaffiene 7y ago

I respect Woz and his contributions to computer science. Tbh tho every time I see an article like this it makes me scratch my head. It’s always something along the lines of “Woz says you should do something that has been old news and most anyone who would care is already doing or agrees with”. It’s not that he’s wrong. It’s just... why is this news? He’s just making a very safe statement for the audience being targeted.

resonanttoe 7y ago
It makes news for a couple of reasons. (and assuming this isn’t a rhetorical idealistic question about what is and isn’t news…) 1. He’s a notable technologist (or whatever term you’d prefer to use for someone who is seen as intrinsically linked with the rise of computation tech) 2. It’s Gizmodo, they’re not exactly looking for revolutionary stuff here. 3. It’s your standard confirmation bias as well. Most people who read the article probably already have fairly strong anti-facebook-usage feelings to begin with. This reaffirms their stance and belief by presenting someone who isn’t a dickhead as being on the same side. All of the above leads to a click and a comment, which is good for the ol’ bottom ad-dollar :D.
- vikingcaffiene 7y ago
  Yeah I guess I just expect more out of the guy (Woz). To be fair, he doesn't owe me or anyone else shit. It's just a let down to see him never take a firm stance on anything until it's very very safe to do so.

nao360 7y ago

Left 4 or 5 years ago for employer/work reasons. Had a couple of hundred friends, and a started few groups that accumulated thousands of members. Not surprisingly, everyone I mattered to managed to find me and reconnect via email, sms etc. I don’t miss it at all, and I’m happy I don’t waste time like that anymore! Community argument is compelling, but there are so many ways for communities to stay in touch now. I don’t think it has to come at the cost of so many Facebook negatives (privacy, addiction, mental health, etc.)

sdegutis 7y ago
The community argument isn't actually compelling. It creates "ghost-like" relationships, where you don't really know someone anymore and haven't for years, but act like you're still best friends, with occasional empty comments or likes. It's like eating cotton candy for dinner and acting like you have the energy a good steak would have given you. Many of them don't have email though, and phone chats are often difficult to coordinate. I think occasional visits is probably the best way to keep in touch with people you don't live near and thus see regularly. And if neither of you can manage to schedule that, then maybe there's no real connection there after all.
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  How can you do occasional visits if you don’t live nearby? A lot of people I know live across the country or in the middle of America or outside the US. Even seeing all of them occasionally would be very difficult. Unless you mean every few years? But that’s barely anything.
  - sdegutis 7y ago
    It seems to me life is meant to be lived most with the people you live near. No matter how much technology improves the ability to communicate long distances, it's never the same as being with those people. So maybe it does mean visiting only every few years, and maybe even less often. It's hard when those people are family though, because then you have a permanent connection with them. But sometimes friends drift apart (physically) and you make new ones (locally) instead, and that's okay.

nwah1 7y ago

Agreed, and they should also ditch all Apple products.

jasonvorhe 7y ago

Why do people still care about his opinion?

duxup 7y ago

I login here and there to Facebook. I see usage among my circle of even older folks fading fast. Updates are way less frequent. Having said that, I kinda miss it being an option, for some of these folks I'll probabbly never know what is going on with them again.

jokoon 7y ago

I wonder if reddit and facebook can be compared, because I go on reddit a lot, even though I only read comments, save wallpapers and articles to read later, I very rarely upvote.

FpUser 7y ago

While I do not care about / immune to FB, Twitter, etc etc, I liked the first comment I saw on that page: "I really don’t need Woz or anyone else telling me what I need to do!"

s3cur3 7y ago

Question for people who have nuked Facebook: what do you do about a job that needs you to have Facebook for, e.g., API keys or group moderation? Did you just create a new, “friend-less” account and transfer the credentials over to it?

BozeWolf 7y ago
Got a fake account for that “benny van gisteren”. Funny to translate in dutch. It is a saying for “i am not a fool”). Did not use it for years now. Most companies have a specific account which can be used. Also not into building that social crap.
icebraining 7y ago
Even if you want to keep a personal account, definitively don't use it for work purposes! We created a shared FB account for registering an app, and just manage it like any other company account.

mayankkaizen 7y ago

I deleted FB 4 years back and at that time I had around 1000 'friends' on FB. Needless to say I didn't miss a thing and life has been only better. But there was one subtle interesting thing I noticed that nobody missed me on FB. Nobody was like, "wait, where did that guy disappear". The people who mattered were always around me and are still around me. Only after deleting FB I realized what a cancer FB was. I hear it has become even more cancerous. The only thing I seriously want to give up is this Whatsapp app, especially because it is now FB product. Otherwise, the way I use Whatsapp, it doesn't pose much problem.

skinnymuch 7y ago
People might notice but just not saying anything. I notice when occasionally someone is not on FB anymore. I rarely point it out. Because the reason is always the same one or two reasons.

tonymet 7y ago

This is one of those cases where you should definitely consult woz on how to build a hobby computer but take light any advice he gives you on how to live your life.

dpcan 7y ago

I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy. It's important to me for a number of reasons: - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. - For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info about anything that is going on with them. And honestly, I don't mind. It works well. - Businesses use it to send deals to their customers, notify them of events, post pictures, etc. - I manage business Facebook pages as part of my business, so I can't get rid of my personal account. - I also use the Marketplace a lot to sell off stuff from my house and it works brilliantly. HOWEVER - I have technically stopped "using" Facebook. For the last 3 years now, I've made my profile totally private. I haven't posted photos or shared stupid things. I un-followed (but stayed friends with) EVERYONE except my wife and parents and a close friend. My news feed is empty except for posts from the groups I'm a part of and stuff from close family members. And there's an added benefit - when I DO post something now, on a rare occasion, people actually take notice. If everyone would only post when it's really important, the system would be useful and interesting. Otherwise, it's full of garbage. Facebook is not all bad, but certain people ruin it with their constant garbage posting, and that's too bad.

JustSomeNobody 7y ago
> - Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that aren't as active. If only there were another technology one could use to distribute messages by electronic means from one computer user to one or more recipients via a network.
- dang 7y ago
  "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
grogenaut 7y ago
If you have a facebook login active then facebook is still tracking you and able to advertise to you, so you are using facebook for the only things they care about. You are still generating content (your web traffic via like buttons) and revenue (via ads).

spurmboy 7y ago

I opted out of social media when Facebook came out. I did it because I was smart and I saw all this coming. Boy have I been feeling smug for the past three years.

wilsocr88 7y ago

Wow. What I would do to be a fly on the wall in the impromptu, perhaps slightly anxious meetings at FB HQ right now. I imagine they're discussing whether or not they should be worried, what they should do about it, or whether they should do anything at all. This has to be an insane position to be in. If you're responsible for the PR (or anything else) of a company that an ever-growing number of people are starting to suspect shouldn't exist (at least in its current form), what do you do? Where you do you even start? The only other such case I can think of is big tobacco. Facebook is (probably) not quite that harmful or toxic, but I imagine FB and Philip Morris would have a few things to talk about over dinner.

gwbas1c 7y ago

I recently realized that Facebook is addictive like cigarettes. Why? Think back 10 years ago when everyone was designing their apps to be engaging, sticky, ect, and judging success based on how long people stayed on their app. Facebook has turned into the internet equivalent of cigarettes. What's really strange is the way we all make excuses to continue to use it, kind of like how many smokers make excuses about why they continue smoking. We're all hooked, even me!

tracker1 7y ago

Facebook is really the only place I'm able to connect with most of my extended family and friends. I'm active on a few FB groups by interest, but also with old friends from H.S. and a lot of other groups of people it would be difficult to break or migrate from. If there were a social network that charged an active fee, that I could say pay $20-40/year for myself and be able to invite maybe 10-15 others whose fees are covered by my own, that might get people to move. No ads, no selling customer data, minimal intrusion.

spacegod 7y ago

why not just unfollow everyone? You can still message people but it isn't addictive because there will be nowhere to scroll outside of messages.

grandridge 7y ago

It's funny watching you all justify your Facebook account

sonnk 7y ago

Even if you don't have a Facebook account, Facebook still has your browsing history via the their SDK that is usually used to implement the "login with facebook" button. The sdk actually injects a iframe on the hosting website, allowing Facebook to know every time you go to this website.