This shouldn’t require an explanation, but for the sake of those who aren’t familiar with Facebook and for my friends who are, I’m going to give you one!
It’s been a year and a half now with Facebook, and the relationship has never been easy. The final straw was that three of my outgoing links were blocked today. That’s right, I posted links that someone decided were “abusive,” and Facebook shut them down. They censored my content, and even though at least two of those links are working again as of this writing, I can’t allow that. Neither should you, frankly, but I know how it is: “What about my friends?,” etc., etc. Believe me, I understand. It seems like everyone’s on Facebook, and now I’m leaving. This isn’t easy for me.
I’m a writer, though, and someone tried to shut me up. Nothing makes me madder! Even if this was an accident or a bizarre anomaly, it doesn’t matter: I’ve wasted too many precious hours bitching about Facebook, the energy drain has got to go.
Two of the links that were blocked, at least initially, led to articles mildly critical of Facebook. The third link was to a blog post about the oil well disaster in the Gulf! Figure that one out, if you can, I’m not going to try. Life is too short, and I’m not on the long end, either. I hate Facebook, anyway. (See this article to find out why others do.) Every time I’ve visited the site, I feel like I’ve fallen into 1990s AOL hell. Even when an outside link does work, Facebook takes you to a “warning” page that says ooohh, scary, watch out, you’re LEAVING Facebook! Yes, I know I’m leaving Facebook (please). Facebook isn’t the Internet, it’s just a website. That kind of paternalistic, fear-mongering, manipulative bullshit makes this Web guy furious. It isn’t good to get riled up and not DO something about it, ya know…
I can hardly believe this happened to me immediately after posting an article about how happy I was to reconnect with my nephews and nieces! THAT hurts, although in truth, establishing contact is more important than Facebook, which doesn’t give a damn. I did manage to grab a bunch of photos from their Facebook albums, and we’re all exchanging email addresses, so the rest is up to me, mostly. What I mean is, I was young once, and I remember how I felt about my aunts and uncles… It’s not easy to communicate on a one-to-one level across that gulf, but these guys are grown up now and smart. I love them and they make me proud. I will not fail in this.
So Jesse, Rachel, Anthony, Tina, I love you all! And I’m sorry Facebook isn’t working for me. Once I have all your email addresses and cell phone numbers, I’ll do a better job of being an uncle. I’m looking forward to it. You can sign up for email blog post notices if you like (thanks, Jesse!), and feel free to leave a comment. YOU HAVE AN UNCLE– a bunch of them, actually–and I won’t ever forget you.
For all the rest of you, my Facebook friends, virtual and otherwise, just visit me here at FarrFeed, on Twitter, or on the street. Email me. Call me. Text me. I haven’t “gone” anywhere at all. That part is up to God, in any case. If anyone else out there reading this wants to get out of Facebook too, this article is a good place to start. Read the comments, too! You’ll find even more reasons to never get involved. For example, it looks like they keep your data–everything you ever posted, all your pictures, your friends’ names, anything you ever “liked,” and so on–even after your account is supposedly deleted. They also make it almost impossible to quit: the relevant links are buried several layers deep, and “deactivating” your account isn’t the same thing.
Boy, howdy. Imagine being able to communicate without having my identity mined for marketing data. Imagine not getting upset over Facebook any more. Imagine getting on with life, however much of it remains! I could come back again, depending, and maybe I will if it gets too goddamn lonely out here. But that is how they GITCHA, don’tcha know, that fear of being left out, of doing the wrong thing…
Was life 10 years ago so awful, really?
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi John
Sorry you are leaving FB, really, even though I didn’t have you on my friend’s list as I check in here daily.
Just want to point out the FB isn’t the only place that mines your interests for marketing purposes, but nearly everywhere you shop on the internet does as well. Did you know there’s an application that websites can add that will pop up when you leave without buying and ask you why?
Probably even apple.com takes some data.
I really doubt it was FB that initiated blocking your links, most likely it was someone on your friend’s list who did so (there’s an “report abuse” button that anyone can use, I think when it is used the “abusive” content is automatically blocked until it is reviewed.)
Anyhow, to each her own. You don’t like FB and think it’s evil. I like it and don’t. It doesn’t seem to matter what kind of website I’m on these days, if it has google ads or some type of ad like that, I’m being directly marketed to. I guess that is why FB doesn’t bother me so much.
xo beth
I actually encourage this for your health, but I will point out a pattern.
1. Get involved in X.
2. Get upset about X.
3. Rant a while about X.
4. Tune out, drop out, or eliminate X.
Political blogs come to mind. There’s nothing at all wrong with this, and I hope you find peace in it.
As for the question of whether life 10 years ago was awful. Nah. But I apply the extension of that. Would I be better off a hundred years ago, before all this technology. Low life expectancy, no leisure time. Before I had most of the information in the world at my fingertips; Before I could talk to people all over the planet; Before I could converse with people I never would get to otherwise; Before I could create and self-publish my creations to the four corners of the earth. And to that to I say, “Nah.” It’s romantic to think of living back then, but better it was not.
So John, I’ll miss you over on Facebook, and maybe when I think there is some real danger to me there I’ll join you in leaving there, but in the mean time, I’ll enjoy communicating there, and I’ll check back here often, as I have for years. I’m looking forward to continued mental and spiritual stimulation. — F
Hi Beth! Yes, I know lots of websites do the data-mining thing. But Facebook is by far the most egregious, and they’re obviously trying to hide what they’re really up to. It isn’t the ads I object to, it’s the high-handedness, secrecy, and lack of concern for members. The other day when I went to FB, I was greeted by a message that said they’d linked my profile to such-and-such, and I had no recourse. That made me furious. I have never ONCE visited Facebook without being pissed off for one thing or another, and if it was one of my “friends” who flagged my posts, then to hell with them. The point is, I don’t NEED this, not this kind of aggravation. And now it’s gone!
Fred, your “pattern” doesn’t seem to be anything unusual at all, and I wonder why you even bothered to bring it up! How does one know the true nature of a thing unless one gets involved in the first place? You baffle me. Surely I’m not required to like everything I encounter in my life.
So far, at least–after less than 24 hours!–there isn’t anything I’m missing about Facebook. It never worked for me the way it was supposed to–I could never see all my friends’ updates, for example, and performing even a simple task through the godawful interface was monumentally difficult. So call this an exit of conscience and geek protest. Facebook doesn’t deserve my support, basically, and now I feel much “cleaner.”
It feels wonderful to be out, frankly. It’s like I have a life again.
And if you did ‘go back’, ie, sign up again, and used it only for connecting with actual friends (not for driving traffic to FarrFeed or whatever), you could set it up with no information in the profile, and never do that like-fanpage-applications-etc stuff, so FB would have nothing to steal, share or market. My FB presence is fairly stealthy. Seems to work. They may be spying on me, but I’ve given them nothing to see except who my 27 friends are.
Mir B, yes, that’s a good solution. I already had no information in the profile except my Taos location. In fact, if I do it again, I’ll enter false information and not use my real name. No one would even know I’m even there unless I tell them. I was going to transform my original account into something like that, but I couldn’t bear to “unfriend” other people individually and had to do it all at once. After the current account finally dies, I may consider this.
A “stealth” account for family members and about a dozen friends might be okay, although the issue of Facebook constantly changing the back end would still be there.
Hi John (again)
I’m not trying to convince you to like FB.
I just wanted to say that I think that maybe a lot of what made your FB experience so bad is that you were receiving everything. I have everything I don’t like hidden. I play one game (yes, I’m a Farmviller…LOL) but have all the others hidden, as well as hearts, flowers, gifts, in fact as soon as one of my friends posts something I’m not interested in, I hide that application.
When I ask to be a friend to someone on FB, I warn them up front that I play Farmville and let them know how to hide that if they are not interested. Because, you know, it can be a real PITA to have 200 FV messages come up in one day if you don’t play.
Carry on. xo beth
Hi Beth! Yes, I know. You would never do that. I’m enjoying life on the outside now, anyway, so Facebook is moot. That transformation by itself is a great accomplishment, I figure.
Marty never joined, you know. Security issues too serious for him, I’ll bet.
and then, there is this…
http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/spokeo.asp
nice talking to you John it has been a while. xo beth
Beth, that Spokeo.com thing has been around for a while. I tried to opt out of that, but apparently they didn’t have anything on me from my Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, or Facebook profiles. Whatever’s there comes from state databases, etc., in other words.
In any case, security has never been the issue for me. I’m mostly careless and stupid about that. But for whatever reason, every time I ever had anything to do with Facebook, it made me ANGRY! One could analyze this or just move on. I’ve moved on, because FB has no intrinsic value for me. Not like I have to save a marriage or anything.
Twitter is fabulous because I can learn stuff. I’m not socializing on Twitter, but following certain people in epublishing, Web design, finance, and so on. It’s not who people are, but rather what they do. I have a special app that collects and holds URLs I want from Twitter posts, so I can visit the sites later. There’s so much info available, and I have Twitter lists set up so that I can just read certain categories of tweets. I know people who jabber on Twitter, but for me, it’s mostly news… and there’s not a bit of the awful, invasive crap one sees on FB.
With my FB account, I had NO personal data posted except my hometown. But that didn’t stop the irritation I felt. Probably the worst thing they do is continually change the back end and reconfigure everyone’s accounts without giving them a choice (unless one can figure out how to undo it later). Better for me just to leave the damn thing.
Yes, nice talking to you, too!
Thank dog – only twitface and linknutz to go and then you’ll return to the world of semi-normal humanity – one person, one website, one email.
Get off the stupid bus, and return to the smart bus.
MZ
Egad, it’s my TECHNICAL ADVISER from the Land Down Under!
I agree with you for the most part. Twitter is quite alright, however, and very useful. LinkedIn… I have no idea why I’m on LinkedIn… maybe I should dump that. But your recommendation goes counter to all conventional hype on this matter. Is this technical advice or do you just feel the way I do about social media in general?
Hi again John.
I was reminded of an earlier Facebook kerfuffle about privacy, targetting of ads, etc, from November 2007.
Facebook Whingers:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2007/11/09/comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups/
Michael Zerman writes Re: “Hey Facebookers, it’s what you signed up for…” (Yesterday, item 3).
“Geez kids, far be it from me to complain about life, but internet whingers are the end. Was anyone forced to join Facebook? Any broken or twisted arms? Did people pay to have their “profiles” hosted or launched on Facebook? Did any of the Facebook Whingers swap songs, CDs or other pirated material without paying royalties to artists? And then brag about their cool file-sharing activities? Do Facebook Whingers dream of electric sheep? In fact, are Facebook Whingers sheep, electric or otherwise? Get off the bus if you don’t like the route.”
Yeah, I hear you. I’m getting some flak from other quarters along the lines of “why not just quit Facebook and shut up, ” or is it the other way around? Another guy gave me hell because I’m wasting my talent ranting about crap, or is that crapping around with rants?!?
It’s all good, though. I’m SO HAPPY to be out of Facebook! It’s glorious! Facebook was like a wreck on the highway that I couldn’t help but gawk at. Worst thing I ever did was join up in the first place. Hated it from day one because it was supposed to be so cool and I wanted to belong, to be a part of what everyone else was doing, plus it was supposed to help my business, but it never worked for me. I felt stupid and cheated. I couldn’t understand why other people seemed to be having so much fun, and all I felt was aggravation.
Later I kinda got into it for a while, and then I understood: most Facebook members just don’t CARE about the things that bothered me. Still, I wanted to quit for months, but the emotional mindset was that I’d be letting my “friends” down. I hooked up with people from the past but kinda wished they’d stayed there. Anyone with anything to say to me knows where I am and how to find me. Facebook didn’t make any of us more relevant to each other than we were before. That, and I’m just not “social,” maybe.
When my content got temporarily censored, that hit me like a slap in the face, and “thanks, I needed that!” Made it clear I needed to put my money where my mouth was. This and the following post should be the last on the subject, at least until jihadist hackers delete 400 million Facebookers’ bank accounts.
2 brief notes about the M. Zerman quote above:
“Do Facebook Whingers dream of electric sheep?” always gotta love a Philip K. Dick/Blade Runner reference!
HOWEVER…..
“Get off the bus if you don’t like the route.” all well and good and snarky smartass know-it-all, but from what you and other have pointed out, facebook makes it *extremely* difficult to actually GET OFF the bus once you’re on! it’s like something out of The Twilight Zone or The Prisoner; the room you can never leave, the bus you can never get off. you walk out the door and find yourself back where you started. No Exit. “Why Mr. Valentine, this IS ‘the other place’! HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!!”
or the taxis in The Village: “Oh, we are only the LOCAL service…”
(and watch out for Rover!)
[John - what happened to that 60min window to edit your own posts? or is it just me that's not working for anymore?]
something you REALLY need to see – go to southparkstudios.com and watch the recent episode “You Have 0 Friends” (episode 1404, from the current (14th) season). their episode viewer is a little kludgey, and in fact the episode won’t be available for streaming for another day or two, but it’s a brilliant rip on the whole facebook pseudo-friends thing (it even goes into a whole “TRON” sequence towards the end when Stan literally gets sucked into facebook and has to battle his own account avatar – in a yahtzee game!). definitely check it out!!!
4th comment in a row (you really need to re-implement comment editing)…
here’s the direct link:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/267112
Number 6, the WP Ajax Edit Comments plugin I was using recently moved to a paid subscription model @$25/year! That’s why it doesn’t work any more, they broke the free version.
I don’t want to pay a yearly fee forever to get comment editing. Searching for a free solution, will report!
those mercenary fuckers! fuck that bullschtein!!
no big deal. i just have to compose my comments more carefully instead of firing off things the moment they occur to me… though that’s the fun of a comments section, isn’t it?
Oh man, not again. You were using facebook, a casual blogging tool for the masses, to promote your real blog.
Imagine if you’d used it to actually communicate with people. The trick is to treat facebook like you’re at a party. If you enjoy talking to someone, keep doing so. If however you find yourself talking t0 someone you’d rather not, you are permitted to become distracted and find better company. Just remember, you were largely responsible for the invitations, so bitching about the snacks and the lousy beer just makes you look like a party pooper.
One more thing, I just realized that the facebook app on my new android phone has conveniently compiled a contact list of all my facebook friends and their mobile phone numbers and I can access it just as easily as my own laboriously compiled phone contact list that took me two days to fill in. Sweet stuff.
That’s all true, Robbo, and I understand your point about keeping it strictly social. However, five years ago we all had friends and there was no Facebook. ‘Nuff said.
GOD am I glad to be out of there, too!