[HN Gopher] Deleting Facebook permanently
___________________________________________________________________
Deleting Facebook permanently
Author : joshmanders
Score : 187 points
Date : 2021-01-06 16:54 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.spacehey.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.spacehey.com)
| viewconstrued wrote:
| Deleted Facebook in 2010 when I graduated college. Deleted
| Instagram in 2017 but had it for a year recently while I was
| nomadic. I only use Facetime, Messages and the Phone app now.
|
| I'm only missing superficial connection as elegantly detailed in
| the Digital Minimalism book.
| pikseladam wrote:
| I just read Aaron Parecki's "How to leave Facebook" post
| yesterday and I think his way is much better. If you want to quit
| facebook don't forget to check it here first:
| https://aaronparecki.com/2020/06/14/14/how-to-leave-facebook
| johncena33 wrote:
| I would encourage people to delete Twitter first, and then
| (probably) Instagram. You can absolutely use FB productively. I
| have been using FB just to use specific nature and fitness
| realted groups. But Twitter is probably the most toxic mainstream
| social media and almost impossible to use without lowering
| yourself into the Twitter cesspool. At least I was not able to
| use Twitter productively.
| joshmanders wrote:
| It's not really "delete facebook because my friends are toxic"
| but "delete Facebook because the company Facebook, Inc is a
| truly evil company"
| MrDresden wrote:
| I'm a year and a half in on the removal of Facebook from my life.
| Deleted the account and didn't look back. Has not had any impact
| on my social or professional life. I'd recommend doing the same.
|
| I am currenlty well on my way in the process of uncondition
| myself from using Instagram, and I haven't touched WA in months.
| arconis987 wrote:
| Count me as another data point. I deleted my Facebook and
| Twitter accounts, and it has not affected my social or
| professional life in any noticeable way. I was worried I would
| lose access to my Oculus purchases, but I did not.
|
| The straw that broke the camel's back was reading my ads
| profile summary in Facebook settings. It claimed I was in
| "Established Adult Family Life with Children" or something
| similar. This was revolting. I was disturbed that Facebook
| seemed to know I was expecting a baby. I realized that Facebook
| was extracting far more value than it was giving, so I deleted
| my account.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I clicked on "Interest Categories" deep in ad settings and FB
| is reporting an error. Is there another way to get at its
| assessment of me?
| jackyrs wrote:
| I actually had the opposite experience: my profile was so
| inaccurate. It said I had kids when I don't, for example.
| keiferski wrote:
| I've become throughly convinced that the only way to dethrone
| Facebook is by creating the Next Big Thing and being crazy (and
| well-funded) enough to reject any acquisitions on the way up.
| "Delete your Facebook" social movements are doomed from the
| start.
|
| Social trends seem to come in waves, and people get bored
| quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if the world tires of today's
| brand of social media in a decade or two. The Facebook Killer
| will thus be something completely different, not merely a better
| or more ethical version of contemporary social media.
|
| Or maybe I'm just being too optimistic.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| TikTok is actually a great example of this, and it already
| exists! "But I don't like TikTok, therefore it's not a Facebook
| replacement!" you may be tempted to retort with, but the parent
| comment said it exactly-- it's something completely different.
| CivBase wrote:
| I haven't used Facebook in almost a decade and I haven't missed
| it for a second. I sometimes ask friends and family why they
| use it and the answer is always either "I don't know" or "to
| keep track of friends and family" (AKA: a glorified contact
| list). Many of them talk about getting rid of it, but few ever
| follow through.
|
| People love to speculate about "Facebook Killers", but what is
| there to even kill? Facebook doesn't offer people a useful
| service. It's just familiar and ubiquitous, so it exists in
| perpetuity.
|
| > The Facebook Killer will thus be something completely
| different, not merely a better or more ethical version of
| contemporary social media.
|
| Then it's not a "Facebook Killer", is it? It would just be
| another social media platform added to the pile. Just another
| Twitter, Snapchat, TicTok, etc.
| keiferski wrote:
| I had in mind more of a societal shift that makes FB/IG/etc.
| deeply uncool. Maybe living a super secretive life, never
| sharing anything, becomes the counterculture of the 2040s.
|
| I just can't imagine young people (main drivers of social
| media) are going to be happy with circa 2005 social media
| forever.
| CivBase wrote:
| As I understand, young people already aren't happy with
| Facebook. FB's heavy users seem to be primarily
| millennials, gen X, and boomers.
| paxys wrote:
| Snapchat and TikTok both did exactly that.
| core-questions wrote:
| They're fundamentally different, though. Tiktok is much more
| viable as a read-only, addictive content thing; but I never
| added people I knew on there during my month-long soujourn to
| discover what it was all about, nor did I feel any need to
| comment.
| fumar wrote:
| Are they better alternatives than Facebook's platforms?
| paxys wrote:
| Depends on who you ask I guess. I don't know anyone under
| 30 today still using Facebook.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| Because fb was all of those things? If people were more honest
| with themselves about what fb does for them and a healthy
| alternative like WhatsApp comes out that appeals to Americans,
| we'll be on our way. The Next Big Thing is never planned, it
| just happens.
| marcosscriven wrote:
| People want crazy profits for their crazy funding. I think a
| more viable solution is legislation to force data to be open.
| It's a complex thing to do however.
| pydry wrote:
| If I were an angel I'd be piling money into personal servers
| and open sourced self hosted software following the
| "commoditize the complement" strategy.
| tootie wrote:
| I don't see how any of the problems with facebook are due to
| any specific aspect of how they operate. It's the nature of any
| social network. Is there actually less garbage on Insta or
| Twitter or YouTube? The problem we people feeling compelled to
| post nonsense, to obsess over status, to be anxious about
| social inclusion and the free flow of disinformation. Happens
| everywhere.
| fumar wrote:
| How do you define the "nature of a social network?" Is it
| simply a place where one can connect digitally through a
| persistent profile? The social networks today are much more
| than that and heavily rely on algorithms to broadcast
| information. I think that is the main difference. We can have
| a social network that is much more static and probably less
| addicting, attractive, filled with ads, etc, if you skip the
| algorithmic feed. It may decrease the negative points you
| called out.
| throwaway7281 wrote:
| Probably so. The part of the population that reacts in any way
| to "delete your account" is probably 0.25% - FB knows that,
| too. Fine if every other month a #deletefb campaign comes
| around, the MAU is a harder fact.
|
| The next big thing must flush you with probably an order or so
| more dopamine - maybe some free artificial/AR world with
| hundreds of new cool friends who aren't real but make you feel
| better. That would be so 2020s!
| dylan604 wrote:
| I would love in some alternate timeline for someone to create a
| website called deletefacebook.com or something similar that
| allows people to create a profile and make posts about why they
| don't use facebook that becomes so large it replaces facebook
| itself. (obviously using facebook in the domain is ripe for
| getting it taken down, but you get the idea)
| keiferski wrote:
| Sounds like the beginning of a JL Borges story.
| linuxftw wrote:
| They tried. It was called gab.ai but it was deplatformed on
| mobile for wrongthink.
| hnarn wrote:
| I deleted my Facebook account permanently about two years ago. I
| created a new one this Christmas for one very simple reason: I
| wanted to be able to use Messenger, because it's the only common
| denominator for my entire extended family.
|
| Thankfully, it's completely possible to use _only_ Messenger, but
| you need to jump through some hoops. Facebook will automatically
| enable your "normal" account, so you need to disable it (not
| delete it) to "keep" the Messenger functionality while closing
| your profile.
|
| As for FB as a social network, I don't know. I'll echo the
| sentiment in the currently top voted comment here: nobody I know
| uses it that way anymore, except the oldest ones in my family.
| Looking at it cynically, I guess it makes sense that the
| generation that are the least resilient to online disinformation
| are also the last ones to jump ship.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| I am 28 and none of my peers is using FB anymore. I have some
| older friends that do their yearly christmas party invite on FB
| and some people who chat with me on FB messenger. There primarily
| are ads, spam, people posting commercial content and people
| congratulating each other for their birthdays. Is facebook this
| dead for anyone else?
| polka_haunts_us wrote:
| I have one friend whose wife posts pictures of their infant son
| on Facebook, other than that yeah, my Facebook account is
| basically just there so I can use Messenger to talk to mom,
| sister, and a couple friends who are only there b/c of their
| friends.
| ryanianian wrote:
| One thing I don't see mentioned much here is the local or
| topic/interest facebook groups.
|
| I have a house in a remote community where it's hard to find
| contractors and the like. The local FB group has been
| invaluable in finding local resources, getting to know
| neighbors, and alerting neighbors of local conditions. The
| alternatives are basically Nextdoor and craigslist which suffer
| from network effects among other things.
|
| Of course people use the group as a soap-box or meme/clickbait
| sprayer at times, but the mods do a pretty good job such that
| there are very few wortwhile "forked" groups.
|
| Similar applies for a few other interest groups I'm in.
| Groups.io is starting to eat their lunch on that, and reddit is
| gaining steam in the mainstream, but again network effects are
| strong.
|
| When using an app container and limiting engagement with
| clickbait content, there is still some human value in
| participating on facebook in these very limited ways.
| meatpuppeting wrote:
| Yeah basically same purpose as you. FB messenger to talk to
| some people or have old friends keep in touch.
| random5634 wrote:
| I've been very inactive, in the older age range. That's a big
| shift. It was driven by the move to just constant clickbait
| controversy / political shares in news feed and other factors.
| Way back in feb I made a post suggesting masks might be a low
| cost / useful way to reduce spread of covid, that was attacked
| by everyone as not recommended and that they don't work, and so
| I just gave up on facebook at that point.
| sidr wrote:
| > Way back in feb I made a post suggesting masks might be a
| low cost / useful way to reduce spread of covid, that was
| attacked by everyone as not recommended and that they don't
| work
|
| Was this back when the CDC guidelines were saying the same? I
| can't fault lay people for placing faith in the words of
| supposed science/data-driven institutions (if that was what
| was happening rather than people spouting ridiculous
| conspiracy theories).
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I still have the account. But have not logged in in months.
| There is one or two people who that is the only way I can
| contact them at all. I have been backing away from it for
| about 3-4 years now. My wife blew away her account 5-6 years
| ago. It was mostly a nice way to reminisce about old
| friendships, _at_ _first_. But then you quickly remembered
| why they are no longer current friends.
|
| I figured out that Facebook itself is not awful. It may be in
| many ways, but it is my 'friends' who drove me away. When I
| was around them they seemed semi normal. But put them behind
| a keyboard and the truth came out of what they were and how
| they really thought about me and my beliefs. Their inner
| keyboard warrior came out. They were not real friends but
| 'friends' of proximity. I had confused friendly with friends.
| FillardMillmore wrote:
| > They were not real friends but 'friends' of proximity. I
| had confused friendly with friends.
|
| I had similar feelings before I left Facebook. This sort of
| thing even irked me back in high school, but I couldn't
| quite put my finger on why.
|
| Every time it was my birthday, my timeline (or "wall" as I
| think it's known on FB) was inundated with Birthday wishes
| and greetings. Most of these greetings and wishes came from
| people who very rarely, if ever, talked to me on FB and
| oftentimes, never talked to me in real life (Usually my
| "true" friends would send me a direct message and wish me a
| Happy Birthday), and these people most certainly wouldn't
| know when my birthday was if Facebook hadn't reminded them.
|
| It all just seemed so disingenuous, fake, and at the risk
| of exaggerating, inhuman. It all felt so joyless and
| disconnected. Before I left FB, I simply got to the point
| where I wouldn't comment, like, or interact with these
| birthday wishes in any way. Eventually, the amount of
| birthday wishes I received became less and less. Thinking
| about it now, I probably should've just removed my birthday
| from Facebook.
|
| Regardless, I'm happier without Facebook and I certainly
| don't miss it.
| eloisius wrote:
| They all just shadow banned you by setting the privacy settings
| on everything they post to exclude you.
| tenaciousDaniel wrote:
| I'm 36 and it has nearly 0 value for me. I still use FB
| messenger to talk to a lot of my friends from around the world,
| but outside of that I'd say I haven't actually looked at my
| Facebook feed in months. I don't see how FB hasn't tanked yet.
| Cmortoc wrote:
| What are you all using instead?
| polka_haunts_us wrote:
| Most of my friends group primarily uses Discord these days.
| It isn't a full throated replacement for Facebook b/c the
| server isn't full of anonymous randos, but I don't think most
| of us want that anyways.
| Shared404 wrote:
| I don't use it, but most of my peers would use Snapchat
| instead. It doesn't fill the exact same role, but it's the
| closest I can think of.
| paxys wrote:
| Group texts became the preferred social media platform a few
| years ago, which is why Facebook bought WhatsApp.
| lhorie wrote:
| Same boat. I mostly use WhatsApp (though, honestly, I don't
| use it regularly). My wife also uses WeChat.
| ok_coo wrote:
| Snapchat is what my extended family uses to communicate with
| each other and send fun stuff.
|
| Whatsapp for group communication with friends overseas.
|
| Both of these apps don't have the BS that comes with
| Facebook.
|
| If you still want to get your fix, TikTok is better platform
| for getting a mix of interesting content from normal people.
|
| Aside from using Facebook messenger to chat, I don't see a
| good purpose for Facebook any more, maybe the groups are
| useful for people?
| kingaillas wrote:
| Do Snapchat, Whatsapp, whatever else have scheduling
| features? I have friends that use FB to schedule events and
| send invites out. And various groups I'm in use the
| scheduling feature to set event times, etc.
|
| One group I'm in, entirely devoted to online games, has
| switched to Discord. But there is a 0% chance Discord will
| be adopted by the rest of the groups/friends that use FB
| event scheduling and messaging.
| ok_coo wrote:
| I don't think Snapchat/Whatsapp has any sort of
| scheduling features, just sending pics and video to
| groups of people.
|
| From what friends have said, FB groups features
| (scheduling, etc.) are what keep them on that platform,
| along with messenger.
| bromonkey wrote:
| Signal Messenger
| [deleted]
| hugh4life wrote:
| I don't use facebook, but one thing I noticed with my parents
| it that it's pretty much replaced craigslist.
| shishy wrote:
| They're all just on other facebook platforms like IG / WhatsApp
| anyway.
| citizenkeen wrote:
| I find nothing more dumbfounding than people who talk about
| quitting facebook, but are on insta daily.
| dvtrn wrote:
| I use instagram because several of my friends are amazing
| photographers and I like their photo diary uploads, others
| are graphic artists who often release their work in
| progress on the platform. I quit facebook because it
| stopped serving any useful purpose to how I consume content
| from actual friends and in general became rather boring.
|
| Is this an equally dumbfounding use?
| shishy wrote:
| No, your scenario suggests you migrated platforms because
| one stopped being useful and one was more useful, which
| is just a clear example of network effects, and sensible.
|
| It would be silly if your reason for quitting FB was
| because you were opposed to them, and then you ran onto
| IG anyway. Sort of silly when that happens.
| dvtrn wrote:
| Fair enough. I was just wondering where the lines of
| nuance were being drawn.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I mean, they're different products. There are good reasons
| for quitting the Facebook social network product which are
| separate from reasons for quitting all Facebook-owned
| products.
| mgh2 wrote:
| From a social (ironic) impact perspective:
|
| My first wake up call came from Trump winning the 2016
| election, 2nd from Cambridge Analytica. 3rd, _The Social
| Dilemma_ put the nail in the coffin.
|
| I just could not see myself contributing directly or indirectly
| to these externalities. The costs outweighed the benefits (if
| any at all)
|
| PS: I know this post might be marketing for you, but ultimately
| all social networks will become polluted as long as they
| encourage the weaknesses/dark sides of human nature. I don't
| see Spacehey being any different.
| [deleted]
| 101008 wrote:
| Almost same for me. People on my network are all relatives +40
| years old who share news, political images/memes, and lost dog
| announcements. Young people dont use it anymore, maybe only for
| events (not one this year).
| atty wrote:
| I'm 2 years older than you, and I'd say in my friends group,
| Facebook is still moderately active, with the more social
| people posting daily still. But it's also active for my (very
| large) family, with a lot of my aunts and uncles being on the
| platform and engaged.
| rocgf wrote:
| I quit it about a year ago and I cannot even remember what it
| was like having an account, it just seems so strange that this
| would be such an important part of their online life.
|
| Everybody I know is on Whatsapp/Signal, so I really don't feel
| like I'm missing anything.
| tdfx wrote:
| > Everybody I know is on Whatsapp/Signal
|
| I wish I could say this. It seems the US is the only country
| where everyone wants to continue using SMS/iMessage for
| everything. It's literally the only way to communicate with
| most of my American friends.
| pmarreck wrote:
| > It seems the US is the only country where everyone wants
| to continue using SMS/iMessage for everything.
|
| I use Whatsapp regularly and it still can't hold a candle
| to iMessage. I blame Android adoption, and the fact that
| Google never built an iMessage competitor so they are stuck
| with 20 year old SMS.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| Google does have RCS:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Servic
| es
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Everybody I know is on Whatsapp /Signal..._
|
| Same, and in addition, everyone I know has since moved to
| Instagram. I think what Google+ wanted to do with "circles",
| Twitter and Instagram did it more elegantly with "follows".
|
| Reading between the lines of this presentation at f8 [0], I
| think, even Zuck's resigned to the fact that Facebook the
| company is now all about WhatsApp and Instagram.
|
| The more I think about the WhatsApp deal, the less it makes
| sense for Jan and Brian to have cashed out. It could have
| been a different world had they not.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/U8SXVlfh5k0
| react_burger38 wrote:
| Deleted FB, Insta and Snap a little over four years ago... It
| was revealing how many friends I actually had compared to how
| many I thought I had. Surprising as well how much I don't miss
| it.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Social networks love to throw around the term "friend" as
| though all the kinds of relationships it denotes are the
| same. Clearly, it isn't.
|
| There are people I know from mailing lists and newsgroups and
| fora who are my acquaintances, even though we've never met in
| meatspace. I have cried over their deaths and been happy at
| news of their joys.
|
| There are people I remember from tens of years and thousands
| of miles away, whom I hear from more regularly because of
| social media networks. That's nice. It's low effort for me,
| it's low effort for them, and we all get more out of it than
| we put in.
|
| If what you mean by the word "friend" is, someone who will
| answer your call in the middle of the night and bring over a
| shovel and a tarp -- I have only a few of those. Those
| relationships take more work, and are not fully sustained by
| social media, though they may be partially supported by it.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Your mention of mailing lists/fora/newsgroups made me
| wonder about how easy it is for people today to forge those
| same (non-"friends", but still) close relationships with
| strangers today. I definitely remember those close bonds
| with other internet users in the 1990s and early
| millennium.
|
| However, today due to everyone moving to Facebook and other
| content silos with a mobile app, independent website forums
| are severely hollowing out. On some of the forums about
| various hobbies that I follow, the most active posters left
| are often extremely curmudgeonly elderly people, and if
| they hail from very polarized countries they are quick to
| descend into political rants to the point that they do
| little on-topic posting. Facebook isn't a satisfying place
| for friendship due to the feeds and algorithms, and
| independent forums can now be high-stress environments.
| Consequently, the internet feels like a more lonely place
| than before.
| dsr_ wrote:
| People being people, they _can_ use any medium they can
| find to make acquaintances.
|
| Tools being tools, some of them are better than others.
|
| Here's a list of subjects that I know people have bonded
| over:
|
| - fandom of specific works - generic fandom - fish
| aquaria - genre literature - a period of history - games
| (video, board, role-playing, LARP...) - sports - watches
| - cars - appliance repair - carpentry
|
| You need strict enough moderation that firefights and
| trolls are quashed immediately, and loose enough
| moderation that the occasional side-conversation or on-
| topic rant is allowed through. Proper threading and the
| ability to know what you've already seen and what is new:
| those are also necessary.
|
| The internet is what you make of it.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| I feel that your optimism is unfounded. The specific
| kinds of fora you say are necessary, are a dying breed.
| They simply aren't as available to an internet user as
| before the rise of walled silos. Even where a forum is
| available or a user has the technical skills to put up
| his own forum, that forum is nothing without people other
| than yourself congregating there, and they have mainly
| left forever for the walled gardens.
| sli wrote:
| Deleted FB long ago enough now that I can't remember when
| exactly it was, but what I do remember is exactly zero of the
| people who I talked to primarily on Facebook contacted me any
| other way despite asking for contact details.
|
| Not only do I not miss it, I'm actively hostile towards
| Facebook for the damage it does to the idea of friendship.
| piyush_soni wrote:
| But aren't all those youngsters using instagram (which is
| relatively more 'intellectually demeaning' IMO, and still owned
| by Facebook)?
| vmception wrote:
| I'd say the same shift is happening there
|
| Although the instagram platform is more active than ever for
| browsing chatting and comments, the individuals aren't
| posting often and the individual activity has shifted to
| TikTok.
|
| People used to post images every day on Instagram, that's
| down to like once a year maybe amongst my friends in their
| 20s and younger.
|
| With the ephemeral stories being common-ish.
|
| And it seems like most of the viral stories/reels/IGTV are
| just resyndicated from TikTok.
|
| Meme/activist/comedian/lifestyle brand accounts are like all
| the static post activity. Which is a lot of activity and
| growing, but I don't think it is fulfilling the "social
| network" itch that people think it is, the itch where people
| have just gotten used to seeing a feed/stream of their
| friends over the last 15 years. I think that has moved on
| elsewhere.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| At this point I feel like instagram is only popular because
| there is a generation who can't/won't read anymore. We are
| slowly turning into degenerates. Maybe Idiocracy was right
| after all.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| I wouldn't say that it is a generation that can't read,
| rather I would word it as a generation that cannot _write_.
| The death of long-form text in user-created content on the
| web came largely from people starting to use their mobile
| phone as their primary device. A touch keyboard just isn't
| as inviting a tool for expressing thoughts at length as a
| computer keyboard.
| piyush_soni wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. I have literally asked my friends list
| on facebook to write more - in whichever language they're
| comfortable with, rather than just posting images of their
| food or the artificial and inflated display of how rich and
| happy they are. It's pretty sad, but to each his own, I
| guess.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| Pretty much everyone under 25 seems to be on Discord
| tdfx wrote:
| I only use Discord for a very specific group interaction. How
| is it used more generally?
| CarVac wrote:
| When the group becomes your community, a server acts as a
| sort of "home" with mostly familiar people talking about a
| wide range of topics.
| ffpip wrote:
| No teenager uses discord as their only social app. It is a
| supplementary chat app for gaming, chatting with friends and
| anime. Most are on Instagram or twitter, very few on
| Facebook.
| packetlost wrote:
| I'm 23 and I use it for memes, groups (photography, cars),
| local events, and keeping up with some of my less 'close'
| family members (as in, it's the only reasonable means I have of
| contacting them). I occasionally post some of my photography
| projects so my grandparents can see them. FB Marketplace is
| leagues better than Craigslist and I have sold several items on
| it. Don't get me wrong, I _hate_ facebook, but if used
| moderately /correctly, it isn't terrible. It's definitely not
| my preferred social network, nor is it by any of my peers the
| same age as me.
| benbristow wrote:
| The new 'Dating' feature is pretty good too. Not overly
| monetised unlike the alternatives like Tinder.
| blunte wrote:
| If by "not overly" you mean "completely and invisibly",
| then sure.
|
| There's extra financial value in knowing who is attracted
| to whom.
|
| I cannot imagine just how terrible the privacy must be for
| people dating via Facebook.
| benbristow wrote:
| Yeah, of course, the data is what you pay with. But it's
| sure as hell nicer than seeing an advert every few
| swipes, constant notifications asking you to pay for
| expensive tiers of memberships etc. etc.
| zucked wrote:
| I am OLD - I had FB when it was a private, university-only,
| and people were giving out their dorm buildings and rooms.
|
| My FB was becoming a ghost town 5 years ago, so I stopped
| using it, then deleted my "real" profile. I maintain a shell
| account now for Marketplace, Groups, and Messenger. I have
| the "light" apps on my phone with all requested permissions
| denied.
|
| Marketplace SUCKS from a usability perspective, but it's
| become equally as active than CL in my area.
|
| Groups are a goldmine of information - my neighborhood has
| one that is active, I have an active one for my model
| vehicle, and there are B/S/T groups that are nice, as well.
| Groups have effectively killed the old Forums/Bulletin
| Boards.
|
| Messenger is required if you want to buy/sell, etc. I don't
| use it for anything useful.
| enigma20 wrote:
| I have only a Messanger app on my smartphone. And using the
| website from time to time because of some expats groups
| (hiking, biking).
| [deleted]
| powersnail wrote:
| Pretty dead to me. Nobody in my friendlist post anything
| anymore.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Private Facebook groups are pretty fun
| drdaeman wrote:
| 35 here. Facebook never had any significant value for myself or
| anyone I've talked about it. Some use or had used it as a
| public blog, some use it to connect to businesses or artists,
| in the past it was used for second-hand meme reposts, but
| that's about it, I think.
|
| So, whenever someone makes a fuss about that huge importance of
| deleting Facebook and how supposedly hard it is - I genuinely
| fail to understand the problem.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| My take is that FB lost its value when it started to become
| taken over by content that wasn't part of its initial
| offerings. Instead of photos and personal posts, we mostly see
| news, political posts, ads, pages, groups, etc. It starts to
| become more like an aggregator of things we did not initially
| intend to follow, but we've chosen to follow bit-by-bit - maybe
| that speaks to the design of Facebook leading us down that
| road.
|
| Instagram was better for the longest time. I noticed a trend of
| friends using Facebook for events and nothing else, but they
| were still posting personal content on Instagram. But during
| this presidency, with everyone being politically charged and
| angry all the time, I noticed people were posting political
| content to leverage their Instagram followers, and now that too
| is overwhelmed by it.
|
| All that said, Twitter comes off to me as the biggest cesspool.
| Its entire format is built around short hot takes, sniping at
| others, "virality", and other societal dark patterns. Reddit is
| almost at the same degree of cesspoolery with their new
| designs. Both are also a lot more of an echo chamber than
| Facebook for me, although I do like that you can use them
| anonymously (without a real name). Personally, I really can't
| see why all this hatred is directed at Facebook when Twitter
| and Reddit are around.
|
| But this isn't a binary choice either. I do get the sense that
| society would be better off if everyone disengaged and de-
| escalated from social media in general. It's just hard because
| it's an effective way to spread one's (political) ideas and
| gain exposure, and so it's a bit like asking for mutual
| disarmament.
| joshmanders wrote:
| > Personally, I really can't see why all this hatred is
| directed at Facebook when Twitter and Reddit are around. But
| this isn't a binary choice either.
|
| Can't speak for anyone else, but as OP my post isn't about
| deleting Facebook because social media is rampant cesspool of
| dopamine hits. But because Facebook, Inc is an evil company
| and we shouldn't use their products.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| > But because Facebook, Inc is an evil company and we
| shouldn't use their products.
|
| Sincere question: what do you mean by this? I don't
| perceive them as "evil". That comes off as a vague and
| subjective accusation. What specifically are you referring
| to? What makes them worse than other organizations?
| drcongo wrote:
| Facebook has shadow accounts, so even if you don't even have
| an account on Facebook, they know exactly who you are, where
| you live, what you browse on the web, who your friends are,
| what you buy and where you buy it from, what illnesses you've
| been looking up on WebMD, who your health insurance is with,
| and so much more.
|
| Twitter and Reddit aren't even playing the same game, let
| alone in the same league.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| > Facebook has shadow accounts
|
| This is typical for every company to the extent that they
| have the data to do it. Reddit for example, can personalize
| your feed without needing an account, because they are able
| to track your behavior based on IP address. Google does the
| same thing across all their properties, such as YouTube,
| and arguably their presence is more pervasive than
| Facebook's.
| [deleted]
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| I'm 30 and my social circle as well as myself regularly use FB,
| Instagram, and FB Messenger.
|
| FB main platform I'll use for events and, most importantly,
| Groups. I have been overall quite impressed with the communities
| in the FB Groups (of course some are better than others).
|
| For example I've been a huge fan of the Streets of Rage series;
| SOR4 came out last year, 25 years after the previous release. The
| Streets of Rage 4 facebook group has been an absolute godsend.
| Very active community, tons of expert players posting videos,
| very easy to find people to play with, funny memes, the works.
| The SOR4 discord is hit and miss and reddit is too much of a
| message board and isn't so active. FB Group is light years ahead
| of any other community for this game that I've found.
|
| I've also joined groups for The Office, Futurama, etc (all of
| have dozens of different groups, each tailored slightly
| differently). I laugh at anyone who says all they see on their
| feed is people posting bullshit, vitriol, and misinformation.
| That is a YOU problem, not a FB problem. My feed is filled with
| relevant updates from friends, as well as a constant stream of
| The Office/Futurama/Streets of Rage 4. Exactly how I want it.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Down for me, Archive.today has a copy:
|
| https://archive.vn/029SN
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I deleted mine several years ago, but was only using it once
| every few months for a few years before that. There wasn't
| anything there of value anymore for me. If I want to check up on
| someone, I call/text and have even been drug into a snapchat
| group.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Many times you want to connect to someone but don't know
| anything but their name and who they're friends with. For
| example, my dad (who is 75 and whose wife died this past year)
| is engaging with many people on FB now, and it seems good for
| him
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Yeah I can see how there could be some value for some folks.
| aorth wrote:
| I deleted Facebook permanently in 2005. Never looked back!
| meatpuppeting wrote:
| One of the biggest (but dumbest) things is I signed up for
| Spotify with Facebook...and need it to log in.
|
| I'm too lazy to like transfer all my playlists and liked songs to
| a new account.
| kgog wrote:
| I don't remember how but I was able to remove FB from Spotify a
| few years ago. Maybe had to set a password and/or contact
| support.
| ajcp wrote:
| You wouldn't have to transfer to a new account, you'd just have
| to create the account and link it, then remove the Facebook
| connection.[1]
|
| [1] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Answers/I-want-
| to-d...
| ChicagoDave wrote:
| I suspect most people <30 use FB for family stuff only and don't
| actually "hang out" there. But they do spend time on IG, so FB
| has their bases covered.
|
| If you want to get out of the FB world, you need to delete FB and
| IG.
| dylan604 wrote:
| AND WhatsApp
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dionidium wrote:
| It's odd to me that people make such a big deal about Facebook,
| relative to other platforms. When I log on to Facebook I see some
| old friends having pretty banal conversations. It's not very
| compelling and it's definitely not threatening.
|
| Twitter, on the other hand, is both compelling and threatening.
| It draws me in and sucks up far too much of my time. And when
| I've waded into controversial waters I've been met with hordes of
| strangers calling me names, making fun of my appearance, and even
| in one case _emailing my employer_ in an effort to materially
| harm me for _disagreeing on the internet_.
|
| Nothing like that has ever happened to me on Facebook.
|
| Between Facebook and Twitter I find the latter both far more
| threatening and, because it's also actually compelling, far more
| difficult to leave.
|
| Facebook is a zero by comparison.
| subsubzero wrote:
| I deleted facebook in 2015 and have not regretted it one bit
| since. I also deleted Instagram in 2018 and have not regretted
| that either. I feel like I am not missing out on anything of note
| and really glad I dodged all the election misinformation that FB
| and co. were pushing during the past election year. Not having
| toxic ideas being force-fed to you via social media can do
| wonders for your mental and physical well being.
| Bakary wrote:
| My own purely anecdotal findings:
|
| 1. I quit fb many years ago. In my case, using it made me anxious
| so getting back on it would have been the challenge instead. The
| main drawback is that you lose out on some of the organic
| meetings that strengthen relationships. It's not that people
| forget about you, but that by simple friction you will not
| participate in certain interactions. This will be generational as
| the youngest users will be on another service and older users
| will have networks that aren't as influenced by fb. Note that fb
| is still extremely popular even among the <30 crowd in Europe.
|
| 2. I eventually caved in and installed fb messenger without
| linking it to my account, which I use for certain group chats. I
| don't regret this usage at all, as it's only intentional
| communications and there is none of the browsing aspect that
| makes fb notorious. The other advantage is that I no longer have
| to explain to new people why I'm not on fb, I just add them to
| messenger. Many years ago, people would actually be insulted if I
| told them that as they would interpret it as me not wanting to
| connect with them further. This was particularly true in places
| outside of Europe and the US where fb pretty much was the
| internet for people.
|
| 3. I had a negative impression of Instagram from the get go. I
| use it to look at the work of artists and photographers, but
| exclusively on the laptop. In this specific use case, it's pretty
| great. The purely social or cultural aspect of it (by that I mean
| the culture and behavior that is a consequence of the app itself)
| is absolute cancer in my opinion. Almost like a mental illness
| and conformity factory unless you already have high social status
| or some instagrammable quality, in which case you will get much
| out of it I suppose.
|
| 4. Of course, it's one of the oldest traditions in the world for
| older generations to completely misunderstand the young. I do not
| envy people growing up today however. The fear of being filmed
| doing dumb stuff or the constant pressure is no joke.
| rasengan wrote:
| Deleting Facebook/Instagram/etc will give you your life back.
| Shared404 wrote:
| How does one delete HN? :P
| dylan604 wrote:
| vim /etc/hosts
|
| news.ycombinator.com 127.0.0.1
|
| or whatever the formatting should be
| rasengan wrote:
| Just swap the IP and host name parameter! xD
| ChicagoDave wrote:
| Also, Vero is a decent alternative if you can get your circle
| into it.
| drcongo wrote:
| Counterpoint: https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/03/how-vero-
| went-from-mos...
| ChicagoDave wrote:
| That's unfortunate. I do like the model Vero has created,
| though I would never be impacted by the sales model since I
| was just looking for a social network where I can keep in
| touch with a group of friends and family.
|
| Unfortunately, I never been able to get people to try it.
|
| Even so, the fidelity of access you have control over is
| brilliant. I can hide my content, open it up, hide it
| again...whenever I want and instantly.
|
| Something to think about if anyone were to try to create a
| new platform.
| drcongo wrote:
| Good to know, thanks, that does sound good.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Delete the Facebook and Instagram apps off your phone along with
| Messenger and it becomes much easier to not use them out of
| habit.
| 19g wrote:
| I deleted the Instagram app from my phone a while back, but
| still was stuck browsing on the web version.
|
| More recently, I've had issues logging in via mobile browser so
| that's helped as another blocker.
| Simulacra wrote:
| Facebook was very useful in connect with likeminded people,
| particularly on my hobbies, but Facebook scares me now. I'm 49.
| Posting the wrong meme could destroy my career and upend my life,
| and it's just not worth the risk. I've chosen to delete my
| Facebook account to limit my potential exposure to cancel
| culture. The privacy aspect never bothered me much because that
| ship left the harbor long ago, there's no going back to "privacy"
| online. Cancel culture, on the other hand, can come out of
| anywhere, any time, for any reason, and that scares me. For that
| reason alone, Facebook IMO is a very dangerous, unsafe place to
| be.
| [deleted]
| billpg wrote:
| I've written a bot that picks up birthday notifications and
| automatically writes a "Happy Birthday" post. Saves me time and I
| never miss anyone.
|
| * Not really.
| lovetocode wrote:
| You know what is scummier than Facebook? Posting a blogpost of
| your new social network startup guised as a public service
| announcement.
| drcongo wrote:
| I deleted it 8 years ago when it first became obvious what was
| going to happen. Have never missed it for a second and I feel a
| bit sorry for people who think they can't do the same.
| tootie wrote:
| Serious question: What happened?
|
| I was a FB member for a few years and quit mostly because I
| wasn't actually interested in what anyone was up to. As far I
| could tell, FB worked perfectly fine. My breaking point was
| realizing that my friends and family aren't that interesting.
| drcongo wrote:
| I'm a social networks veteran - from Friendster and early
| very Flickr on. By 2012 it was pretty obvious to most people
| working in tech that Facebook was heading in a bad direction
| with scant regard for users' rights or privacy. Looking back
| now, it was all pretty benign compared to what it has become,
| but there were enough indicators like the constantly changing
| privacy UI which, with every tweak, made it harder to protect
| your privacy. Add in the fact that the "Like" button started
| appearing on sites external to Facebook so that they could
| track your browsing outside of their platform and that was
| enough for me. At that point it is spyware.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I guess you just never get invited to stuff or have birthday
| wishes sent your way lol
| suyash wrote:
| Alternative : For those who are too much invested and tied into
| FB ecosystem with IG, Facebook Groups, Fan Page etc --> just
| limit your use of FB, consider deleting the app or blocking the
| website so you are limited to check it on only one platform and
| it will also be a reminder to limit social media.
| Lendal wrote:
| I've considered joining Facebook but only to run it on one
| laptop inside a Facebook container, and never install their
| mobile app.
| suyash wrote:
| good idea, some people use the mobile website on phone and
| don't install the app because of privacy/tracking reasons.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| deleted mine many years ago, only thing I feel like im missing
| out on is marketplace. had a much easier time selling random
| stuff there vs all other alternatives, but good riddance
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Facebook is a once-promising neighborhood of a bustling city that
| became a bad neighborhood. Your two options are becoming bad
| yourself or packing up.
| superkuh wrote:
| Careful, if you've bought any Facebook VR equipment recently it
| will stop working if you do this.
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| Kind of a tangent...
|
| But, with all the people I know who don't have a Facebook at this
| point, I'm gonna just say I have zero confidence most of their
| users aren't bots. I would be surprised if FB had a billion real
| users at this point. It should literally be close to impossible
| to find folks without them in western countries, statistically,
| but it's not. It's becoming easier and more common... or folks
| just lie about not having facebook for some reason (which is
| plausible though very weird).
| dylan604 wrote:
| Maybe you're thinking of the Facebook dating app?
| nrvn wrote:
| A bit offtopic but You know what?
|
| 1. I am not using whatsapp and recently I stumbled upon an iOS
| app that asked for a phone number to register and then tried to
| send OTP through whatsapp. SMS was a fallback option there which
| showed afterwards and was not active for 5 minutes because of the
| "timeout" between otp requests )))
|
| 2.A bottle of water advertised some lottery and had a QR code
| which was a FB link leading to a page that showed me a vague
| message about FB messenger which I don't have.
|
| It turns out that some people/companies nowadays assume FB and
| affiliated/owned companies to be a kinda standard for
| communication.
|
| Boys and girls, write down and remember a simple rule: none of
| the commercial organizations will provide means of communication
| (apps, public APIs and SDKs) as standards unless those
| aforementioned means fit their business model.
|
| Real standards belong either to public domain or to established
| non-commercial foundations with clear and transparent governance,
| leadership and policies.
|
| Back on topic. I remember FB as a site that united students and
| alumni of major universities. This was probably the only period
| of fun in facebook history.
|
| I remember VK.com being a Russian facebook clone with similar
| initial posture and user base which was also fun until its users
| started to go to jail for political reasons.
|
| I would argue that this fate is waiting any "social" "network"
| after some point in their evolution.
|
| A Cozy platform for chitchats and pic sharing gains more and more
| users, attention and money and transforms to a monster that
| starts eating its children and encourages all the deadly sins.
|
| If you know an example of a social media that managed to escape
| this fate I will be happy to stand corrected.
| yabones wrote:
| What I want is a social network you have to pay for. Make it
| $2.50/month, and make everything order by 'created date' (ie no
| magic sorting algorithm). Then, every quarter after the hosting
| bills are paid put whatever's left into some sort of shares that
| each member owns (sort of like a co-op).
|
| E2EE, Federation, self-hosting, open source, etc. are all great,
| but they don't really address the real reason social network
| sites are so toxic - We have to entirely remove the advertisers
| from the equation.
|
| People would be far less likely to post or share dumb stuff if
| being banned means there's a risk of losing your 'equity' in the
| platform.
| z3ncyberpunk wrote:
| Advertising needs to be removed from the world entirely. There
| is no advertising in the sense that you would make a post in
| your local newspaper about goods you're selling, all
| advertisements since the days of mad men are nothing short of
| propaganda.
| mgh2 wrote:
| > People would be far less likely to post or share dumb stuff
| if being banned means there's a risk of losing your 'equity' in
| the platform.
|
| Isn't this like HN already? Also who will define what is "dumb"
| if even the community can be eventually polluted and biased?
| Would a moderator or owner decide this?
|
| Careful, money and greed can pollute anything. I tend to find
| that content that is not profit motivated are often the most
| truthful- ex: whistleblowers
| savanaly wrote:
| Why lump getting rid of the algorithm in with the other stuff?
| I don't use facebook but I use Youtube which also has a much
| ballyhooed algorithm. I've tried skipping their homepage (and
| thus skipping the algorithm) and just going to the list of
| videos posted by my subscribtions in what I presume is
| chronological order, and let's just say I usually find what I
| want more quickly the former way than the latter. I can only
| imagine it would be the same with a social network.
|
| It turns out that even for channels I subscribe to the
| percentage of stuff they post that I want to see is pretty damn
| low, even lower than the "hit rate" of the algorithm which also
| isn't great. Now imagine a social network where you connect
| with people for reasons other than that you think you'd like
| what they post (you met them IRL and they asked you to add
| them, you want to talk, etc). An algorithm of some sort would
| be absolutely mandatory.
| Everhusk wrote:
| This is effectively social.network. It's powered by a
| decentralized autonomous organization called the Social DAO
| which is where username registration, governance, and economic
| incentives are coded. The goal is to change from an ad driven
| model to one that creates a better society for future
| generations.
| andred14 wrote:
| A fantastic idea.
|
| It is fine for internet companies to censor hate, violence,
| nudity etc. but not the opinions of people that are politely
| presented simply because they disagree
| anorphirith wrote:
| I've also deactivated FB and Instagram about 2 weeks ago. I kept
| telling myself I was in control, but the truth is that I wasn't,
| somehow my brain was craving that infinite scrolling of pure
| trash. I feel like I've regained control over my life and I am
| much more productive now. As if they had managed to get me hooked
| and sell days of my life away for a few cents here and there. I
| blame myself
| zimmertr wrote:
| I was totally indifferent when I deleted Facebook. Maybe for a
| week after I would catch myself subconsciously opening a new
| tab and typing `fb.com` when I was bored before realizing what
| I was doing.
|
| I held out on deleting Instagram for literal years until about
| 2 months ago. I finally got fed up when they overhauled the UI
| to focus on selling cheap and crappy goods. I always thought it
| provided a lot of benefit to my life because it was fun to
| share pictures. Turns out I didn't even care when I deleted it
| lol.
|
| I think about deleting Twitter too, but it's just so darn
| useful for breaking news. And I could never get rid of Reddit.
| It is certainly an echo chamber but unless something bad
| happens it's basically the best website to find other hobbyists
| and even ask technical questions.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| The best thing I ever did on Facebook was unfollow everyone, it
| allows me to keep in touch at my leisure, without that dopamine
| hit from refreshing the feed and seeing nonsense.
| xeromal wrote:
| I deleted fb years ago but came back partially in order to keep
| up with my family. It's where everyone talks for better or worse
| and I'd rather keep in touch with my siblings and cousins than
| make a point. It bums me out but my relationships have improved a
| ton since I'm in all the group chats.
|
| To manage the best I can, I purely use messenger.com and stay out
| of facebook.com. I keep in touch but I don't get caught up in the
| rest of the BS.
| w1nk wrote:
| It's more than just making a point though. It's having a
| principled belief in something and standing by it. That's fine
| if you don't feel that way, but there are lots of us that feel
| very negatively towards facebook and its impact on society.
|
| It's not about making a point, it's about not actively being
| part of the thing I see as a problem.
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| Am I the only one who only used/uses IRC? Back in '92 I started
| using IRC as my primary "group chat/social platform", and ICQ for
| IM's among closer friends. I stayed on IRC for a very long time,
| and grew-older with the same circle. It was nice. It was
| personal. I know people in that group that got married.
|
| Time passed, people moved on; had families, etc. I've tried a few
| other platforms like facebook, but they all seemed so fake,
| shallow, and "designed for AOL'ers" that was a recipe for crap.
| So I never stuck around.
|
| G+ arrived and had the right feel, but it never grew legs.
|
| Facebook has two things going for it. (1) it's an echo chamber
| (2) the "OMG I can communicate with somebody over the internet"
| dopamine spike
|
| Well I got #2 too, but I was 12 years old on a C64 connecting to
| BBS's. So I out-grew it. Why can't all these people outgrow this?
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| I use a tad bit of IRC, but I prefer Signal messenger and
| Discord for gaming specifically. Signal is encrypted, allows
| videos, audio messages, emoji reactions, has search
| functionality, it's just a great app IMO.
| dano wrote:
| I continue to use IRC with friends I've known for 20+ years.
| Some of my IRC groups have migrated to Discord or Slack, but
| IRC is still on in the background.
|
| You've touched on a fundamental point that G+ was trying to get
| across with "circles." I'm a member of probably 20 different
| groups across various messaging platforms. These are tight
| little communities with a lot of trust. It isn't that we all
| agree politically or anything, but we trust each other to be
| kind, consistent, and not too spammy. Anyway, I think small
| groups in WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, IRC, etc.. are the present
| and future of good social interactions.
| ilikedthatone wrote:
| what is facebook? We show our faces?
| jart wrote:
| I actually like Facebook. It used to be a fantastic place to hang
| out online and be open from the comfort of my home, without
| having to drive somewhere, or be in the public sphere. I'm also
| somewhat of an oddity because my friend list never went above
| dunbar's number. Then when when the tide turned against Facebook
| with events like Cambridge Analytica, it turned into a ghost
| town. Everyone I know just stopped using it, and stopped sharing,
| because no one trusted it anymore. So if you still think of
| quitting Facebook as a choice, chances are you're friends with
| too many people. How could people here honestly suspect their
| friends of being bots, unless they needed the self-esteem boost
| of having 5,000 "friends"? Fact is, the platform was ruined by
| too many people using it for the wrong reasons and that's what
| the app makers and the bad policies exploited. The Facebook that
| friend judicious people like me had had is gone and I don't think
| there's going to be anything to replace it.
| devchix wrote:
| I've never had a FB account, never thought I missed anything.
| But, there's a Buy-Nothing group I want to join, and they are on
| FB. I admire the concept of Buy-Nothing, but I abhor FB and am
| not going to make an account to join Buy-Nothing. Even if I were
| to start a new Buy-Nothing group, FB provides the most reach
| because it's pervasive and probably easiest to use, and one can
| be tagged with one's location. Mailing lists don't thread well,
| GoogleGroup is a dumpster fire. What other tools can I use to
| build a like-minded community for good?
| OceanKing wrote:
| Reddit.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| Deleted it years ago... disgusting.
| WaterForest wrote:
| Most people I know have deactivated their account. I just use
| messenger.
| mgh2 wrote:
| I used to do this, precisely because I feared losing my
| Facebook contacts. Messenger is very efficient & light, but
| once I realized how much I used other (although heavier) mssg
| apps instead, I saw no need for anything else. Mssg app for
| international family and friends, SMS for local, LinkedIn,
| Slack, Skype for work.
|
| There are so many app alternatives out there (that are as well
| built technically) that you don't need to rely on anything from
| Facebook's ecosystem anymore. Give it a try, no disappointments
| meatpuppeting wrote:
| Yeah same, it's pretty nice that like Messenger app and their
| site Messenger.com exists to just totally avoid the feed and
| everything aspect of Facebook.
| joshmanders wrote:
| I had been doing that for a few weeks now, but I don't agree
| with Facebook anymore and by passively using their products I
| am telling them that their actions are ok.
|
| By deleting completely and going to alternatives, that's how we
| tell them it's not ok.
| krisdol wrote:
| Did it 4 years ago. Saved a backup of my data, deactivated,
| and then completely deleted. Yes there will always be a
| reason to have facebook around, but 4 years on, missing out
| on all those little reasons people use to defend facebook
| didn't end up materializing in any meaningful inconvenience
| or obstacle to living without it.
| joshmanders wrote:
| Yup, exactly what I am doing. I posted that I am deleting
| my account in 30 days, and linked my SpaceHey profile for
| people to sign up there and friend request me if they want
| to stay connected on social media.
|
| Got a backup being generated right now by Facebook of all
| my data, and will be permanently deleting it after that.
| Yuioup wrote:
| I see that the OP is using spacehey (which I've never heard of
| and seems to be slow for some reason), but how can anyone be sure
| that it won't be overrun by bots and unsavory characters?
| joshmanders wrote:
| Hi, I use SpaceHey because my friend An made it as a throwback
| to 2005-2008 MySpace and it is taking off like no other. It is
| slow right now because he's getting an influx of something like
| 5k users a day from the viralness of it.
|
| How will it not be overrun by bots and unsavory characters? We
| don't know. It's not a corporation backed platform. It's
| literally an 18 year old developer who pined for a simpler time
| that he unfortunately only got to experience vicariously
| through those who weren't a toddler as he was.
|
| But I've made it my non-business related social media platform
| and support him and it.
| fumar wrote:
| How will SpaceHey support itself?
| joshmanders wrote:
| There's a shop you can buy things to support it. I also
| plan to host the social network on my cloud hosting
| platform and if I have to help foot the bill, I will.
| fumar wrote:
| Thanks - just supported SpaceHey.
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| How does everyone else who deleted FB deal with the "old friends"
| problem? I don't have email or phone numbers for dozens of old
| friends from HS and University, it'd be fun to ping them with
| this or that once in a while.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| My form of dealing with that is by not having friends.
| codemac wrote:
| I struggle with the same thing. If we were close enough in the
| past I'm much less shy now of asking for a phone number/email.
|
| If we're just passive where I'd love to see an update about
| life stages and progression... fb it is. Really wish the world
| was but a series of email mailing lists.
| virtualritz wrote:
| The only reason I'm on FB is my past time: dancing tango.
|
| It is the platform that social group has settled on, somehow,
| worldwide, for advertising & organizing events and, most
| importantly, communicating last minute changes to those/after
| parties, etc.
|
| If you are a tango dancer and not on FB you must communicate with
| people who are, constantly, to not miss stuff. It's not
| practical.
|
| That being said: I never look at my stream. I mostly use
| messenger and post in groups, when looking for flat-/car sharing
| for tango events.
| [deleted]
| oli5679 wrote:
| If you want to keep the 'events' capability but remove your
| newsfeed then it's possible to write a bot that unsubscribes from
| all of your friends. This also works well for LinkedIn I find.
| tyc85 wrote:
| Second that, and I'd like to add google too with the following
| alternatives: 1. search: duckduckgo 2. email: proton
|
| I know google is more pervasive in services, these two can be a
| good start.
| joshmanders wrote:
| Yup, Email is the only thing I haven't migrated off Google yet,
| that one is tougher so far.
|
| But also instead of Chrome use Brave or Edge, both built on
| Chromium and are essentially Chrome, but without Google's
| spyware bloat.
| deltron3030 wrote:
| Vivaldi (also Chromium) is another option. I've used Brave
| for a while but I got annoyed by them modifying my settings
| through user experiments without any form of opt in.
| willis936 wrote:
| After losing control of my Yahoo email after trying to delete it,
| I have learned that it's not smart to give up control of
| something that has your identity.
|
| I never use facebook, but I will never delete it. I don't trust
| facebook.
| emsy wrote:
| That's a terribly generalized advice. At least in the EU
| companies are obliged to delete your data (I don't know about
| the US). Of course whether they delete it is another matter but
| that would be a violation of GDPR.
| willis936 wrote:
| At the end of the day it boils down to trust. It's general
| because companies are not trustworthy in general.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| You are tacitly voting that Facebook should be viewed as an
| arbiter of identity by taking this point of view.
| aaomidi wrote:
| When society views Facebook as part of your identity you're
| forced to also keep it. It's not always possible for
| individuals to reject it.
|
| You end up with this self-feeding cycle of people keeping
| facebook around because they have to. Eventually what ends up
| happening is an alternative comes along and people
| essentially forget about the platform that it just shuts down
| and collapses on itself. We're slowly inching towards that
| final outcome.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Hard disagree. Facebook only has legitimacy if you
| personally agree it does. The minute you walk away, it
| loses all legitimacy. Same for LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. etc.
| There is no sense in which society at large using the
| product creates any degree of legitimacy for important
| functions like identity management. Precisely zero.
| tonymet wrote:
| Once you release your id back into the pool, a criminal can
| commandeer it to attack your other accounts . It could be used
| for phishing through your network or resetting your other
| accounts
|
| Keep the account . If you are worried about discipline , reset
| the password to a random password and lock it in a safe
| lrossi wrote:
| Giving up emails or phone numbers can be risky since someone
| else might take it and do something unpleasant with it.
|
| Facebook accounts cannot be taken that way.
| dharmab wrote:
| When I was younger, a friend created a Facebook account in my
| name as a joke. My facebook-using parents found it and became
| very panicked that someone was stealing my identity.
|
| I now have a minimal facebook account that I log in twice a
| year to keep a current photo. It's like how businesses have
| to squat their own domain names on TLDs they don't use.
| ourmandave wrote:
| Some years ago my daughter set up a fake account with my
| name and friended a bunch of people from my old high
| school. When I found out I changed the password and have
| ignored it since.
|
| I now have a real account just for my gaming group and my
| old account occasionally pops up in my suggested friends
| list.
| lrossi wrote:
| I didn't think of that. It's a good point, thanks for
| sharing.
| polka_haunts_us wrote:
| I'm curious if you could go more into the unpleasantness
| someone could do with an abandoned phone number. I inherited
| my mom's phone number years ago and recently had to dump it
| when I swapped my data plan. It honestly feels like the best
| thing that ever happened to me b/c I used to get daily spam
| calls and since getting the new number have gotten maybe 1
| spam call total in the past two years, so had planned to
| change my number more frequently going forward.
| lrossi wrote:
| Account takeover for services where you registered the
| phone number for verification.
| dylan604 wrote:
| But if you don't have a FB account, how will customs ever let
| you into whatever country you are trying to enter?
| linuxftw wrote:
| Interesting point. Better to have a 'real' facebook than some
| imposter pretending to be you.
|
| In some ways for a business, not having a facebook is like not
| having a URL.
| poisonborz wrote:
| Just checked, Facebook is still there :(
| staticelf wrote:
| I have deleted my facebook account about like 3 years ago, I
| still have a fake account around tho with a fake name, fake
| image, fake background etc.
|
| Just to be able to read and post in local groups to my community.
| I use a special browser for it with facebook container installed.
| dylan604 wrote:
| When you have to sanitize your environment like your are in a
| Level 4 Biohazard research facility, then maybe the thing you
| are trying to use just isn't worth it.
| atarian wrote:
| 14 years ago everyone wanted to move off MySpace to Facebook.
| We're coming around full circle.
| joshmanders wrote:
| Apologizes if you are having trouble getting to the site, An has
| been receiving a massive influx of users over the past few days
| so it can be slow at times.
| piyush_soni wrote:
| I deleted the facebook _app_ from my phone years ago (use the
| mobile /desktop website instead), but don't want to delete my
| facebook account altogether. I still actively use it to share
| ideas, opinions with my friends, talking to them, getting updates
| of their lives, talking on interesting groups and so on.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| https://github.com/weskerfoot/DeleteFB
|
| for some handy automation of this (previously:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19963599)
| tschellenbach wrote:
| People tend to just blindly follow what the news reports to the
| extent that this is now very relevant for Facebook:
| http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
| tootie wrote:
| Ha, I love it. I have two opinions that fall into that
| category. One is that people shouldn't own pets. Least of all
| sapient creatures like dogs. I'd wager that will become a
| common point of view a century or two after I'm gone.
|
| The other one (relevant to this thread) is that Facebook is a
| great product and people only hate it now because it's a such a
| horrendously efficient mirror of the ugliness of humanity.
| pmarreck wrote:
| > One is that people shouldn't own pets. Least of all sapient
| creatures like dogs. I'd wager that will become a common
| point of view a century or two after I'm gone.
|
| Considering that cats 1) have been human companions since the
| ancient Egyptian days, when the penalty of killing a cat was
| death, 2) ONLY became human companions of their own volition
| after their utility in eradicating mice and rats was
| recognized (note that until a few decades ago, pets were kept
| outdoors most of the time)... I really, REALLY doubt this
| prediction tremendously LOL.
|
| Also, you have _entirely obviously_ never had a cat. (I 've
| had both dogs and cats. Cats are more interesting. Dogs are
| like permanent 3 year old boys.)
| etothepii wrote:
| Reminds me of this College Humour video - If People Left Parties
| Like They Leave Facebook
|
| https://youtu.be/mGcHNnI2mh4
| pmarreck wrote:
| hahahah that was great, never saw that
| pikseladam wrote:
| I miss zack
| k__ wrote:
| I have to admit, in times of Corona, without parties and
| concerts, the value of Facebook has sunken drastically.
|
| My main activity was to stay up to date on events. What's
| happening, who goes where, etc.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I have to admit, in times of Corona, without parties and
| concerts, the value of Facebook has sunken drastically_
|
| Huh? For many people it's exactly the opposite. The value of
| Facebook was in casual chat, posting, etc, to connect with
| friends and random followers in the age of Corona.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| They specifically say "My main activity was to stay up to
| date on events". Which seems to be a significant portion of
| FB users - Events seem to be/have been its most important
| feature for a lot of people. As someone who has never once
| used that feature, that was a surprising thing to learn for
| me.
| k__ wrote:
| I don't know, but I do these things mostly via other social
| media platforms.
|
| My friends use WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Twitter, Instagram
| etc.
| bromonkey wrote:
| Why do you care what other people are doing? If it's important
| they'll tell you about it.
| lrossi wrote:
| For those who don't have a Facebook account: Replace "delete"
| with "abstain", and "Facebook" with "alcohol" or "smoking". These
| articles will then make sense.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I delete facebook years ago, and just delete instagram for good
| on 12/31. Replacing every single minute I wasted on instgram with
| reading history. Looking forward to 2021.
| standardUser wrote:
| I've gained too much from different Facebook groups (when living
| abroad for example) and get too much value from important social
| connections (seeing friend's photos of their kids, for example,
| or chatting with my one uncle who only uses Messenger) to just
| ditch Facebook. I don't "use" it very much, but deleting it all
| together would have a big negative impact on me and I fail to see
| I what way I would gain.
| Lendal wrote:
| Anyone who would only delete Facebook for personal gain fits
| right in with the Facebook ethos, and therefore should not
| delete Facebook.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Anyone who would do something only for personal gain would
| make a pretty sweet market theory...
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