5 ms·

I have one and I love it. I find an enormous amount of hostility on HN towards facebook, even going so far as a lot of people proudly mentioning that they will

I have one and I love it. I find an enormous amount of hostility on HN towards facebook, even going so far as a lot of people proudly mentioning that they will never touch it. I don't see why it gets such scorn, I think its a wonderful site. Some notes on my usage, though: All of my privacy options are on the lowest possible setting. I treat anything that occurs on the site as if it were public. I don't see why not, I'm not going to pretend that photos of myself or my wall postings are anywhere near interesting enough to hide. In fact I'm not sure why people who put things on facebook want privacy at all. I never worry that something I say might be picked up on by the wrong person because I'd never say anything that I wouldn't want the world to hear. To a shy person, the usefulness of the site is astronomical. Among others I am friends with my boss, my mother, my little cousins. Facebook lets shy people like me keep in touch with a massive amount of people where I can write them the modern equivalent of letters very quickly and easily, as well as let them broadcast their life's updates to me. I can keep in touch with all manner of people. I love writing letters, people love getting letters. Facebook is not far off. Without facebook, I'd have no idea cousin X is having a baby, or that Y is having apartment trouble that I can help them with, or that Z got a new game we can play together, or person A is considering selling their car, and so on. If I meet someone at an event and really hit it off (romantically or not), I can go on facebook the next day and look them up by name and add them. No exchanging phone numbers or emails or anything like that. I just search for them and find them. In college it was enormously useful for making friends and I still find it useful now that I've graduated. I made a page for my hometown (90K population city in NH). I broadcast events going on around the city (fireworks, beer festival, city meetings). In this way I help my community learn about the goings-on of the town. It's a surprisingly popular page (more popular than the local newspaper's facebook page). I could go on, but this is probably enough to give those who don't use it an idea of why I enjoy it so much.

rexf 15y ago
Facebook is useful for letting you know when it is your friends' birthdays. Ironically, I don't list my birthday on Fb, because that's one piece of information that is relevant for identity fraud.
- gm 15y ago
  In this day and age, if you think you can contain basic info such as your birth date unknown you are deluding yourself. It's as findable as you full name. Just go to the right background check company. They will have your birth date and much more.
  - randomdata 15y ago
    For some reason, I still remember most of the birth dates of the people whom are the same age as me that I went to school with. Probably because we celebrated their birthdays in class each and every year. It's amazing to think that some consider it private information.
  - pagekalisedown 15y ago
    That's true, but fraudsters prefer low hanging fruits, so there's no reason to make it easier for them.
- AzAngel 15y ago
  I know of a guy who changes his birthday every month on FB just to see who wishes him a happy birthday. Every single month the same people fall for it.
drhowarddrfine 15y ago
You can do that on Google+ too but with the privacy of not letting certain "circles" know things you don't want them to know or it's irrelevant.
- hitonagashi 15y ago
  Except for the fact that none of the people who would give me the updates I'm interested in are on Google+...
ansgri 15y ago
Two Things: * In the ordinary world, public <> searchable. * People forget things. The Internet doesn't.
chollida1 15y ago
> Without facebook, I'd have no idea cousin X is having a baby Maybe I'm taking this a little too literally but I find this statement disturbing. How can someone not know that one of the biggest life events happened, one that takes 9 months at that, to a family member without being on facebook?
- gills 15y ago
  I also find it disturbing. This sort of thing is exactly why I disabled my account; the family and friends who use Facebook heavily have forgotten how to communicate directly, they rely entirely on shouting into the hurricane and expecting everyone to pay attention. Good luck with that.
  - AznHisoka 15y ago
    Ditto. I grimace when I receive an invitation that has obviously been mass-sent. What happened to the personal touch? Seems like everyone just wants attention.
mekoka 15y ago
I have an account that I now visit at most once a month. I used to enjoy facebook when it was really about keeping in touch. When I joined in 2007, I really just wanted something to share pictures and stories with family and friends. Then facebook decided it wanted to become the "operating system of the web". I think that was the beginning of the end for me. Maybe many people liked this and actually (over)hyped it, but to me it made fb look more like all the previous social networks that I had (successfully) managed to avoid until then. To me, facebook had the responsibility to handle the information you provide with care, but I believe that in their quest to become profitable, they've been quite cavalier with this notion, that is until now that viable alternatives are creeping up. I'm of the opinion that people love to know the truth, but they just don't like the lengthy process it sometimes requires to get at it, so they make judgment calls on the slightest bit of information, whether it's only a version of the truth or a partial truth. Politics is a prime example of a domain where this is usually exploited. I had an early taste of the destructive potential of facebook when I witnessed the scandal that ensued, when an acquaintance was tagged in a "compromising" photo. It was an admittedly amusing and entertaining event from my standpoint, but it prompted me to remove some of my personal information and some public pictures and set my email to warn me if someone tagged me in a picture or posted on my wall. Then came facebook-connect, a private alternative to the public and more open OpenID. I know the latter was flawed in many ways. Call me paranoid, but I don't believe facebook was more motivated in unifying the authentication process than it was to know where its users went in the web. fb-connect imo, was an excellent trojan horse on their way to track users' habits across the web, but it wasn't perfect. Most websites still offered an alternative to people who didn't have a facebook account, to sign in with a more traditional sign-on. Also, having implemented fb-connect in the past, I distinctively remember that back then, it required the site's visitor to explicitly authorize this affiliation to take effect. Something that I've always refused to do in my effort to keep what belongs in facebook in facebook. Then one day, after reading an article on techcrunch, I was about to post a comment and I saw the Comments box with my actual fb profile picture and name next to it. A website that I seldom visited, could now know that I was there, just because it was affiliated with facebook and I was still signed on to facebook during my visit. This new widget didn't even bother asking me if I was ok with that. That was when I started actively logging off of my fb (until then, I was just closing the window). Later on, some users started reporting that facebook actually kept tracking cookies across its affiliated sites even if they were logged off facebook. At that point, I started using a different browser just for it. I don't understand people who don't understand why facebook get such a scorn. I like my family and my friends and I like keeping in touch with them. Just because I happen to do it with facebook doesn't mean I have to become a fan by association.

rexf 15y ago

Facebook is useful for letting you know when it is your friends' birthdays. Ironically, I don't list my birthday on Fb, because that's one piece of information that is relevant for identity fraud.

gm 15y ago
In this day and age, if you think you can contain basic info such as your birth date unknown you are deluding yourself. It's as findable as you full name. Just go to the right background check company. They will have your birth date and much more.
- randomdata 15y ago
  For some reason, I still remember most of the birth dates of the people whom are the same age as me that I went to school with. Probably because we celebrated their birthdays in class each and every year. It's amazing to think that some consider it private information.
- pagekalisedown 15y ago
  That's true, but fraudsters prefer low hanging fruits, so there's no reason to make it easier for them.
AzAngel 15y ago
I know of a guy who changes his birthday every month on FB just to see who wishes him a happy birthday. Every single month the same people fall for it.

drhowarddrfine 15y ago

You can do that on Google+ too but with the privacy of not letting certain "circles" know things you don't want them to know or it's irrelevant.

hitonagashi 15y ago
Except for the fact that none of the people who would give me the updates I'm interested in are on Google+...

ansgri 15y ago

Two Things: * In the ordinary world, public <> searchable. * People forget things. The Internet doesn't.

chollida1 15y ago

> Without facebook, I'd have no idea cousin X is having a baby Maybe I'm taking this a little too literally but I find this statement disturbing. How can someone not know that one of the biggest life events happened, one that takes 9 months at that, to a family member without being on facebook?

gills 15y ago
I also find it disturbing. This sort of thing is exactly why I disabled my account; the family and friends who use Facebook heavily have forgotten how to communicate directly, they rely entirely on shouting into the hurricane and expecting everyone to pay attention. Good luck with that.
- AznHisoka 15y ago
  Ditto. I grimace when I receive an invitation that has obviously been mass-sent. What happened to the personal touch? Seems like everyone just wants attention.

mekoka 15y ago

I have an account that I now visit at most once a month. I used to enjoy facebook when it was really about keeping in touch. When I joined in 2007, I really just wanted something to share pictures and stories with family and friends. Then facebook decided it wanted to become the "operating system of the web". I think that was the beginning of the end for me. Maybe many people liked this and actually (over)hyped it, but to me it made fb look more like all the previous social networks that I had (successfully) managed to avoid until then. To me, facebook had the responsibility to handle the information you provide with care, but I believe that in their quest to become profitable, they've been quite cavalier with this notion, that is until now that viable alternatives are creeping up. I'm of the opinion that people love to know the truth, but they just don't like the lengthy process it sometimes requires to get at it, so they make judgment calls on the slightest bit of information, whether it's only a version of the truth or a partial truth. Politics is a prime example of a domain where this is usually exploited. I had an early taste of the destructive potential of facebook when I witnessed the scandal that ensued, when an acquaintance was tagged in a "compromising" photo. It was an admittedly amusing and entertaining event from my standpoint, but it prompted me to remove some of my personal information and some public pictures and set my email to warn me if someone tagged me in a picture or posted on my wall. Then came facebook-connect, a private alternative to the public and more open OpenID. I know the latter was flawed in many ways. Call me paranoid, but I don't believe facebook was more motivated in unifying the authentication process than it was to know where its users went in the web. fb-connect imo, was an excellent trojan horse on their way to track users' habits across the web, but it wasn't perfect. Most websites still offered an alternative to people who didn't have a facebook account, to sign in with a more traditional sign-on. Also, having implemented fb-connect in the past, I distinctively remember that back then, it required the site's visitor to explicitly authorize this affiliation to take effect. Something that I've always refused to do in my effort to keep what belongs in facebook in facebook. Then one day, after reading an article on techcrunch, I was about to post a comment and I saw the Comments box with my actual fb profile picture and name next to it. A website that I seldom visited, could now know that I was there, just because it was affiliated with facebook and I was still signed on to facebook during my visit. This new widget didn't even bother asking me if I was ok with that. That was when I started actively logging off of my fb (until then, I was just closing the window). Later on, some users started reporting that facebook actually kept tracking cookies across its affiliated sites even if they were logged off facebook. At that point, I started using a different browser just for it. I don't understand people who don't understand why facebook get such a scorn. I like my family and my friends and I like keeping in touch with them. Just because I happen to do it with facebook doesn't mean I have to become a fan by association.