
Elon Musk Deletes Own, SpaceX and Tesla Facebook Pages After #deletefacebook - middle1
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/23/elon-musk-deletes-own-spacex-and-tesla-facebook-pages-after-deletefacebook/
======
submeta
I always felt like doing this (deleting my facebook account), but fear of
missing out always kept me from doing it. Whenever I seriously considered
leaving the platform, I had a vague sense that I would "not belong to the
herd" anymore, that I would lose the option to contact friends / family
members, that I would be left outdoors.

The other day I made the step. I deleted my account. Before I did I exported
all my data.

Two days past and I have a strange sense of freedom. Previously I would check
my FB feed a dozen times a day. Although I deleted the app years ago, never
really used Messenger, always had to use different browsers than Safari on my
iPhone because FB would not let me read/use messages in Safari, instead it
wanted me to install Messagner. So previously I would check my feed many times
a day to kill time. I was a "lurker". Never posted anything since years, just
used it as a news reader. And glanced over the things that my contacts posted.
It gave me an illusionary feeling of connectedness, when in fact I could not
be more disconnected from real contacts, quality contacts, and most of all:
from myself by fleeing into a dull activity, by entering "the matrix", killing
time.

Today I felt like in my childhood, going to appointments, not killing time on
my way to my appointment, having seen my surroundings like back in those days
without so many distractions. A wonderful feeling.

I hope this platform dies, rather quickly. Because it harms society and
individuals more than we are aware of.

Edit: Grammar

~~~
lphnull
In your opinion, what is your criteria for declaring that a platform is "bad
for you" and "an unhealthy habit"?

Personally, I spend ALOT of my free time lurking 4chan's /g/ "technology"
board, 4chan's /ck/ cooking board, and a carefully curated list of my favorite
food and technology related subreddits on Reddit. I personally consider my
addictions to be quite healthy because I learn and absorb a tremendous amount
of information from sites that focus more on "actual content that matters" and
less on worshiping the same small group of narcissistic acquaintances that
congregate on platforms where "disliking" content is frowned upon.

Sure there's a lot of stupid crap on 4chan and reddit is full of corporate and
government shills, but the internet has grown SO MUCH lately that the signal
to noise ratio isn't as bad as it was in the early 2000s. My only problem
nowadays is that I don't have enough time in a day to read/watch/comment on
all the important stuff I find on the net. Compare that to the early 2000's,
when useful information on the internet was so scarce, that I had to use
minesweeper in my highschool computer labs to pass the time.

I for one am happy at how much content there is on the internet now. If you're
smart, you can curate your own nonstop stream of "useful" content without that
much effort. Problem is that you have to reject content that is curated by big
businesses like Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and program your own method
of retrieving things that matter.

People will always complain about the exponential growth of information. Look
at newspapers and the printing press. I'm sure that people reacted the same
way towards pocket watches and newspapers as people nowadays are reacting to
smartphones and social media. Some people just have addictive personalities in
general, and will blame not being productive on whoever's in charge of
"information" at any given moment.

~~~
Thriptic
Not the parent, but I would say that a platform should somehow add value to
your life to be "good for you". HN, Reddit (depending on where you go), other
sites etc can entertain, teach, and connect you with interesting people.
Social networks I've found are value detractors for me because:

A. I don't care what 95% of people I am connected with are doing, and I
regularly talk to the people I care about anyway.

B. I can't have any meaningful discussions on them

C. They are dominated by high volume posters who tend to be very opinionated.
Very opinionated people tend to have extreme opinions which are usually wrong
and aren't particularly interesting to me.

D. The networks present a false sense of reality which lowers happiness.
Everyone always posts their highlight reel which makes you feel like the whole
world is killing it constantly and you aren't.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The networks present a false sense of reality which lowers happiness.
> Everyone always posts their highlight reel which makes you feel like the
> whole world is killing it constantly and you aren't.

If this is what happens in your feed, you have a shallower and less genuine
set of social media connections than I do. I get highlights, sure, but just as
much lowlights, and quotidian events that don't meet either description.

I suspect that the people who connect with networks of people who do exclusive
self-image-burnishing social media posts would also connect with people that
provide the same kind of fronts in other venues (including in-person), though
I'll also grant that _if_ you tend to connect predominantly with such people,
social media magnifies their effect, as it's easier to consistently present an
image online than in person.)

~~~
hrasyid
> you have a shallower and less genuine set of social media connections

I don't think you have to be "shallow" to be biased towards posting
highlights.

You spend a nice vacation in Asia? Your kid managed an important
accomplishment? Found a restaurant that's awesome? Aren't these the kind of
things that you naturally have the tendency to share?

In contrast, you spent your saturday doing nothing at home? Your kid did an
average thing? You ate food that's just "okay"? Am I shallow if I don't like
posting these things? Sure some of the days I might want to post about some
average or bad things, but I think I'm still biased towards the highlights

------
majestik
FYI here’s a link to delete your Facebook account:
[https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account)

Earlier I had “deactivated” my account thinking it would get deleted, but then
I learned I have to visit this page to actually delete it.

~~~
marknadal
Deleting Facebook now, without good alternatives, might cause more problems
than good.

Instead, we should first model what the future of social networking should
look like:

[https://hackernoon.com/a-new-kind-of-social-network-
emotiona...](https://hackernoon.com/a-new-kind-of-social-network-emotional-
intelligence-e45dcddb1bdb)

Then I am curious to hear people's thoughts on:

\- Mastodon

\- Secure Scuttlebutt

\- Steemit

etc.

~~~
reitanqild
Many of us use Telegram.

Others use Signal.

Signal advantages: tptacek thinks the crypto is good.

Signal disadvantage: It wont work with limited permissions on your phone
according to some people on HN.

Telegram advantage: somewhat more userfriendly. Larger userbase. Works even if
you limit its permissions.

Telegram disadvantage: every cryptographer seems to think their crypto is bad.
Uncertainty wrt their relations with Russian government. (I think they are
enemies but some think they are very good friends or blackmailed into
cooperation.)

~~~
chappi42
> Many of us use Telegram.

And some friends and me use Threema. Very old fashioned: you pay some money
and get a product. But I wouldn't want to switch.

~~~
theyinwhy
Imho threema is the best client overall. Very fast, very reliable, great UI,
good crypto. Designed for company usage. Security whise however I guess Signal
has the upper hand.

They both audit their crypto:

Threema audit:
[https://threema.ch/es/faq/code_audit](https://threema.ch/es/faq/code_audit)

Signal audit:
[https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf)

------
iooi
While I don't normally give much weight to Business Insider, they have an
interesting theory [1] that this is related to Zuckerberg's nasty comments
about SpaceX after the rocket carrying Facebook's 85M satellite blew up.

Must feel pretty good for Elon considering how much press this is getting.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-deletes-tesla-
space...](http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-deletes-tesla-spacex-
facebook-pages-2018-3)

~~~
dandelany
Sounds overblown to me. Zuck's statement was: “As I’m here in Africa, I’m
deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our
satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and
everyone else across the continent.”

I don't see anything nasty about that. It _was_ SpaceX's failure.

~~~
kemiller
It's passive-aggressive. A bit like deleting one's facebook profile I guess.

~~~
toomuchtodo
A bit of a different though. Elon did not intentionally destroy the Falcon 9
in question, and SpaceX worked very hard to determine what caused the issue
and rectify it for future flights. Zuckerberg knew for _years_ what was going
on with user data, and gave zero f __*s until they were caught.

Substantially easier to throw shade (passive aggressively even) from the moral
high ground.

~~~
koheripbal
Elon cares tremendously about bad press. He's specifically banned all
reporters from filming launch or recovery attempts in case there are failures.

You'll notice that there are NO social media posts whenever there's a accident
(of which there have been many).

Zuck drawing attention to it must have really pissed Elon off.

~~~
toss1
Um, except when Elon posts video compilations of their failures... (seems to
me they're pretty open)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2PWKdQzuU8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2PWKdQzuU8)

~~~
jccooper
They do that in a carefully controlled way, well after the event is too cold
for the news cycle. And even then, some events that are too dicey-looking are
never seen.

Mark, this is not a criticism. Given the way the media handles such things
(i.e. sensationally and with minimal or just plain wrong context) it's really
for the best.

~~~
marcell
I'm confused--aren't the launches broadcast live via webstream?

~~~
jccooper
Yes, but landings at sea tend to cause the video feed to go away, and it
doesn't come back if anything goes wrong.

------
taytus
I read his tweets and I thought he was just joking. New level of respect for
Elon.

~~~
justicezyx
New level of marketing probably more accurate

~~~
d23
Facebook pages are in and of themselves avenues for marketing. Stop being so
damn cynical about every single thing people do. It is possible, believe it or
not, for people to have personal values and beliefs that extend beyond the
ceaseless desire for money.

~~~
lorenzorhoades
I think the OP above is being practical as opposed to cynical. TBH, most of
the demographic that followed him on FB also have insta and twitter. Most of
the people i know in my age group (college age - 24) don't even use FB
anymore. Theres a little joke that as soon as your parents start to use the
platform its time to jump ship. On top of that, its created articles like this
- which has led to even more publicity. I also wasn't aware that any of these
FB pages existed but i follow them all on insta and twitter.

~~~
antisocial
My thoughts exactly, practicality as opposed to cynicism.

Also, what are his personal values? Who knows? Why does he bore the
underground with abandon even when he acknowledges that the environmental
impacts are not completely know. One study says autonomous vehicles can be as
effective for congestion easing as his underground tunnels.

His transportation is the next level of dependency he is creating and we are
turning a blind eye to. As these corporations' services get too essential
(through lobbying), there won't be any choice to #delete_boring.

I respect him for what he has achieved, but too much celebrity worship is
something we should all be watchful of.

~~~
skellera
I believe that future cities shouldn’t require roads. The amount of space
wasted on roads and parking can be used for better things.

And if anyone hasn’t noticed (this gets brought up all the time), Musk is
commercializing everything needed for colonization of the moon/Mars. Electric
motors, solar energy, underground infrastructure, and space travel.

~~~
zentiggr
Considering his big picture goal is "humans on more than one world", this
makes perfect sense. And isn't 100% obvious.

~~~
TeMPOraL
He's been talking about Mars since day one. It's just some people refuse to
listen / believe that he really means it.

------
deviationblue
I don't think #deletefacebook is a backlash against the results of the 2016
elections. To me it seems that it's more about it now being socially
acceptable to dislike Facebook and social media in general. Some may have
always innately disliked it, but never had the follow through with any desire
to get rid of it, or had to keep it for business/appearances.

~~~
oneweekwonder
> socially acceptable to dislike Facebook and social media in general.

I then find it ironic that it is using #hashtag in the movements name then.

~~~
reitanqild
Hashtags has been popular before Facebook and in a number of other media.

~~~
frostwhale
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it dates back to C? And # is used as includes /
other first compiler steps? And the hashtag on twitter is a reference to this.

~~~
corrigible
I was under the impression that it was popularized by IRC #channels

~~~
kardos
I thought it was to make keyword searches work on twitter

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Sure but that notation looks obviously inspired by IRC to me.

~~~
fernandotakai
when i started using twitter back in 2008, that's how it felt to me -- that #
tags were basically irc rooms and twitter itself was just a big async irc

------
nsx147
I always had respect for the fact that Apple just never used Facebook...except
for claiming the profile it seems.

[https://www.facebook.com/apple](https://www.facebook.com/apple)

~~~
slig
They do use it
[https://www.facebook.com/applemusic/](https://www.facebook.com/applemusic/)

~~~
totalZero

      > Typically replies within an hour
    

Damn.

~~~
chrisper
Most companies have that... it's often just a bot.

------
nextstep
Boycotts are one of the most effective methods consumers have to enact change.

~~~
shaki-dora
I can't think of a successful boycott. I believe the largest attempt I
witnessed was against BP when they just sank an old oil platform, including
all sorts of toxins and petrochemicals.

I think that made a single-digit dent in their revenue.

Politics and law enforcement are far better tools to get corporations to
behave. They solve the coordination problem, they can far easier track
changing and long chains of ownership, and they allow you to delegate the
research work to someone you trust.

~~~
bonaldi
What do you mean by successful? Usually the point is not to dent revenue, it's
to cause behaviour change. And there is a long list of boycotts that have
achieved that.
[http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.a...](http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/successfulboycotts.aspx)

~~~
Bartweiss
Looking at that list, I see two main categories.

One are outcomes dubiously tied to boycotts - did Sea World change their orca
problem to protect revenues, or because they feared legal intervention?

The second is indirect outcomes, where the bad actor and the boycott-ee are
different. If you threaten a purchaser over a supplier, or a supplier over a
purchaser, they can hope to change behavior with no major loss of revenue.
It's a very different situation than changing the actual bad behavior. (And in
many of these cases the bad behavior was unchanged, some external company just
dissociated from it.)

There do seem to be some solid successes there, for instance with product
safety, food source sustainability, or sweatshop labor. But even there, I'm
curious whether the threat of boycott was a primary influence compared to the
other activist campaigns around it.

~~~
dragonwriter
> One are outcomes dubiously tied to boycotts - did Sea World change their
> orca problem to protect revenues, or because they feared legal intervention?

They feared legal intervention due to the public attention drawn by the
boycott.

Affecting revenue of a targeted actor directly is not the only mechanism by
which boycotts are intended to have an effect.

~~~
Bartweiss
I agree that revenue hits are not the only (and usually not the primary)
effect of boycotts.

But what I'm questioning is " _due to the public attention drawn by the
boycott._ " Was the consumer boycott actually a major reason SeaWorld feared
legal action?

When _Blackfish_ came out, a lot of musicians cancelled planned SeaWorld
concerts, which had a visible and immediate revenue impact. Share prices
dropped 33%, even though revenue only dropped ~1%; presumably shareholders
feared the possibility of legal action. And a range of state and federal
Congressmen introduced bills on regarding orca captivity, explicitly citing
_Blackfish_ as a motivator.

Boycotts are certainly correlated with major corporate and legal changes, but
I'm skeptical that they're a significant cause. Examples like SeaWorld make me
think that boycotts and policy changes have common causes (e.g. Blackfish),
but the boycotts aren't themselves very impactful.

The Chicago Tribune had a clever bit about the gun-seller boycotts, arguing
that boycotts only matter as a way to keep the topic in the news, and it
basically doesn't matter whether people actually participate. That's basically
my guess, also.

[http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/opinion/zorn/ct-
persp...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/opinion/zorn/ct-perspec-zorn-
nra-boycott-fedex-apple-amazon-0228-20180227-story.html)

------
grinsekatze
I abandoned Facebook instead of deleting my account.

I treat Facebook like a big phone book now and left a public status on my
profile with an email address that forwards mail to my real email address for
people that want to get in touch with me.

The main reason I did not delete my account is that there is one other person
with exactly my name and very questionable values, judging the public content
of his profile. This really sucks. My name is not common and unfortunately he
married a distant cousin of mine and now has my name.

Now I don’t like the idea of people looking for me accidentally getting in
touch with him thinking they are contacting me. Unlikely with his current
profile picture in place, but still a possibility in the future.

------
em3rgent0rdr
Facebook can be an essential promotional tool for many. If you're rich or an
already successful company, then you can handle the loss by not being on
Facebook. But if you're poor or just starting up a new venture, then it is
harder to afford not being on Facebook.

~~~
taytus
I'm poor and starting a new venture. I don't have FB. If my success depends on
me/my company having FB presence, then my business sucks. How this idea of FB
being the "place to be" got so much traction is beyond me.

~~~
toufka
Yep. LinkedIn as well. Still without one, and starting strong. Very much
realize I must put my data where my mouth is.

Similarly, I'll be far less likely to hire one who has Facebook on their
resume.

~~~
dgellow
> Similarly, I'll be far less likely to hire one who has Facebook on their
> resume.

Could you explain why? I don’t see an obvious reason to avoid ex-Facebook
employees

~~~
toufka
From my personal interactions, and with my personal perspective of how
Facebook has publicly conducted itself over the years, having worked at
Facebook would immediately raise red flags in my mind about the philosophical
perspective of the potential employee for having worked 'at will' at the
company. Context certainly matters, but it would be become a point of
conversation. Not all that different from a health-professional being wary of
hiring someone who used to work for a tobacco company.

To me it would indicate the possibility that the person might not want to
understand the wider implications of their work, might understand those
implications but not care about them so long as they are personally or
socially enriched, or might just agree with the duplicitous nature of the
company. There are of course circumstances to account for, and everyone's
reasons are different - but the above rationalizations would raise red flags
for me - especially in my industry where thinking about wider implications of
our work is absolutely critical.

------
jayess
Does anyone know if it works if you change your location to Europe and then
delete your account to take advantage of the better privacy protections?

~~~
ovulator
I've lived in America all my life, but since I signed up for Facebook 10 years
ago my hometown/current city has always been listed as a place in Portugal.
For a long time all my adds were served in Portuguese, but that changed years
ago to English. My guess is they know where you really are.

~~~
Symbiote
Knowing it enough to serve ads is one thing.

Knowing it enough to be sure under European privacy rules, especially the new
GDPR ones, is another. I doubt one person's data is worth the risk Facebook
would take by keeping it.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
And if you said you were a a European Citizen (or even just neglecting to
mention that you aren't), would Facebook really check?

------
jliptzin
For Facebook to truly die someone needs to come up with a bare bones social
network that has all the basics - friends lists, photos, address book,
messaging, groups. Charge $1 a month. No sleazy tracking you everywhere on the
internet, no ads, no newsfeed filled with garbage clickbait ads and conspiracy
theories. This would be insanely profitable assuming it reaches some critical
mass.

~~~
d4l3k
Except it probably won't ever happen. Charging anything turns off the vast
majority of users.

~~~
steaknsteak
Definitely. People are reluctant to buy $1 or $2 mobile apps that would be
really useful, even though they would never notice the money was gone. Just
because most apps are free. Also, most people lose more than they gain by
deleting their facebook or anything else. Tech people tend to care about
privacy because of all of the terrible implications and possibilities that
come with all your personal info being freely bought and sold, but the vast
majority of people will never (at least consciously) suffer any ill effects of
government tracking or targeted ads.

~~~
seanwilson
WhatsApp is free for the first year then a small amount each year to continue.
Maybe that works.

~~~
narsil
I believe this is no longer the case and WhatsApp is free to use now.

Regardless, the free trial -> paid version is a popular model, even if 1 year
is a long "trial"

~~~
seanwilson
I'm curious how the "first year for free" business model works out. I'm
guessing smaller companies couldn't survive on that as it's too long to wait
until you start getting revenue?

I paid a few dollars for WhatsApp once or twice to keep it working after the
first year. It was such a small amount I didn't care. I remember some of my
friends freaking out about it though, like they were being tricked.

------
wonder_bread
Can anybody who lives in the valley speak to whether people really hate
Zuckerberg enough over there to the point where this seems like a rational
thing to do? I live out in Mass and while the 'scandal' has definitely been
front page news, for a company to do this (especially with a well-known
entrepreneur) would be decidedly odd.

~~~
jf
I live in the valley, have several friends at Facebook, etc. I don't know
anybody who hates Zuckerberg. I don't hate him. But I am very upset with
Facebook-the-company and Facebook-the-system. What bothers me most is that, to
the best that I can tell, Facebook-the-company and especially Facebook-the-
system just _do not care_ about me or you as individuals.

I have a thread on Twitter that goes into more detail here:
[https://twitter.com/jf/status/976250584213803008](https://twitter.com/jf/status/976250584213803008)

~~~
netsharc
Talking about Facebook on Twitter seems to be the height of irony...

(I hate Twitter, although if you ask me to substantiate why, I would probably
come up with the oft-repeated talking points of echo chamber, Russian bots,
rage mobs, etc, etc.)

~~~
jf
Irony bordering on hypocrisy!

If we were to compare reasons why we dislike Twitter, I expect that we'd have
a lot to agree on. I tried to leave Twitter too, but found that I couldn't
because I still get too much value from Twitter. I still hope that someday the
winds will shift to a system that brings me the joy I got from Twitter between
2008 and 2016.

~~~
vinhboy
Hi jf, I missed you facebook. :)

~~~
jf
Me too! Not having Facebook prevented me from asking you what you think of
this claim:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7s36ub/what_cons...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7s36ub/what_conspiracy_theory_do_you_100_buy_into_and_why/dt1vg6j/)

~~~
vinhboy
LOL... that comment is hilarious because it touches one key truth about
Vietnamese culture...

When you ask a Vietnamese person if they can do something, they ALWAYS say
they can, even if they have no clue what it is. Especially Vietnamese men. We
have this weird need to always pretend like we know everything.

It's similar to the TV sitcom stereotype of how all men think they can fix a
leaking pipe, even if they have no clue how to do it.

Good stuff... I'll see you around jf.

------
guiambros
If you're considering doing the same but is still on the fence, here's an
alternative: News Feed Eradicator [1].

It still gives you access to messages, but eliminates the news feed, so it
breaks your habit of going there to "check what's new".

Go ahead and give it a try. If after 30 days you still miss the news feed, you
can just disable the extension. But I bet you won't even notice...

ps: but don't forget to delete the mobile app. Conveniently FB offers you a
separate app just for messages, if desired.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-
eradicat...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator-
for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg)

~~~
igornadj
You can accomplish the same thing by unfollowing everyone in your friends
list. My news feed is always empty, it's great.

------
tambourine_man
And yet, still a heavy Instagram user.

As long we keep guessing which companies are “bad” and which aren't, we are
not solving the problem. We need open, decentralized standards and protocols.
We can then choose the fashionable front end client du jour.

------
Raphmedia
Context:

Elon Musk: "What’s Facebook?"
-[https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/976231995846963201](https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/976231995846963201)

~~~
jessaustin
ISTM Acton's statement is more surprising than Musk's. They gave that dude a
pile of money, not very long ago.

~~~
urmish
Who would turn down that amount of money. Also, I think he didn't join
facebook after the acquisition.

~~~
jessaustin
He remained there for three years. A founder that _didn 't_ agree to stay on
for a respectful period would get dinged on the price. He probably didn't want
to do that to co-founders.

------
sidyapa
Like apple, facebook has very successfully created an ecosystem which makes it
very very hard for you to escape and remain sane. I used 4 products from
facebook - the website(deleted), instagram, messenger(deleted), whatsapp
because all of my contacts are on either of them. I do not have an alternative
currently where I can be assured of finding any of my contact to connect and
share stuff with.

~~~
slantyyz
>> facebook has very successfully created an ecosystem which makes it very
very hard for you to escape and remain sane.

Really? Ok granted, I'm probably "old" for an HN user, but to me Facebook is a
system that creates an artificial sense of connectedness. I don't consider
that an essential service.

Do we all need to be connected to everyone and know what they're doing at all
times? I've drifted away from friends I had 20, 30, 40 years ago, and that's
perfectly OK. If people are important to you, you will find a way to stay
connected. It's not the end of the world if you lose touch. It was a perfectly
normal phenomena before social media, and it will be after social media as
well.

As I've gotten older, I've noticed that I prefer fewer, deeper relationships
than having a large number of shallow relationships. That's why I tend to use
email/instant messaging with only my close friends/family. I have a Facebook
presence, but it's only there to maintain weaker connections to people outside
of my core social circle.

~~~
sidyapa
There is something greater than a social circle, the economic circle. It might
not be for you but lot my contacts have transactional relationships with me,
i.e., they have my details because they know I can offer something they have
availed in the past and might someday need in the future, they trust me. And
same goes for me, if someday I need my friend Tushaar's video and audio skills
for some project I should be able to look him up instantly and message him
rather than asking around helplessly within my social circle for his contact.

------
gnicholas
While it might seem a big deal to give up a platform with millions of
followers (2.6M, apparently), it's much less of a sacrifice for a company that
has a large presence on Instagram (which the article notes Musk has said is
"borderline", and he's not deleting) and Twitter. Also, they're in the news
all the time, both for their victories and failures.

So this is a great way for Musk to brand Tesla, SpaceX, and himself, without
actually giving up much in terms of his social media reach.

------
shady-lady
An unbelievable amount of bots on that twitter thread responding to a fake
Ethereum giveaway by not 1, but 2 * fake Brian Action a/c's:

[https://imgur.com/a/yv1Hm](https://imgur.com/a/yv1Hm)

very nearly believed it was legit too..

*fake twitter handle of brianhacton (h) & brianpacton (p)

~~~
shady-lady
not surprising that there are even more of these fake look-a-like a/cs:

brianlacton (l) brianmacton (m) brianzacton (z)

Is it really that hard for Twitter to detect a fake look-a-like a/c given
that:

a) the display name is the same for all fakes

b) they all have limited posts, all posting the same link

c) the bad actors do seem to be making ever so slight changes to (full square)
profile pics in an avoidance attempt- ref
[https://imgur.com/a/QruDm](https://imgur.com/a/QruDm) ??

I've personally clicked report scam on the initial a/cs I listed along with
all the fake a/c's that liked/replied duplicitously.

------
mixmastamyk
Interesting considering I've not been happy about the lack of privacy
regarding driving/location metrics by Tesla automobiles. Has that improved
any?

~~~
cryptoz
There is a very big difference in the privacy problems posed by Facebook
compared to Tesla. Equating the two is a clear false equivalence.

Edit: I'm no longer allowed to post on HN. I guess my posts are considered
low-quality and not welcome here. Here is my response to the comment below,
regardless. Thanks for continually banning me, downvoters.

\--

> Why does that bother you?

Because you exclusively use logical fallacies in these posts to make points
that make no logical sense.

> whether Tesla will start caring about privacy as well

This implies Tesla does not care about privacy. That simply is not true. If
you have a concern, voice it in some logical manner, not in some accusatory
already-made-up-your-mind tone about how so-and-so doesn't care about your
privacy.

\--

Edit 2: Does Elon really babble on Twitter about people's speeds and driving
locations? I don't think so. And surely if you drive a car then you know that
the people in the city/state/federal government offices and other tracking
corporations also know where you go at all times anyway. Having a Tesla and
driving it does not meaningfully invade your privacy in any fashion more than
driving any other car does.

~~~
fancyfacebook
I think it's worth bringing up, one of the reasons I didn't buy a Tesla was
because I didn't want the CEO immediately blabbing all over twitter about
exactly how fast I was driving or how many times I left my lane if there
happened to be some sort of accident.

They seem to take the same attitude as Facebook, mainly: we own all your data
and you have zero rights to anything in the car.

------
alcover
This will deeply count in facebook's demise I think.

Tech people act as prescribers to the rest. When they use something new, it
then propagates to the population. Abandoning is the same.

Now Elon Musk is mystically revered by tech people. Then transitively, his
example will accelerate tech peoples' condamnation of facebook, then everyone
listening to techies advice.

~~~
seanwilson
> Tech people act as prescribers to the rest

Any good examples of this? I don't find this at all. Hackernews for example is
always very against Facebook, ads and tracking user behaviour. As far as I can
see, none of my less technical friends want to know more details about any of
this or care in the slightest.

Most of the time if my non-technical friends are asking for technology advice,
it's advice to help them follow the crowd e.g. my friends wouldn't ask me what
social network to use, they'd ask me how to install Facebook on their phone.
If I started ranting about privacy stuff for something all their friends used,
they'd just dismiss it as me being overly concerned.

~~~
alcover

      Any good examples of this?
    

Not really I must admit. It's more that when the tide turns, people ask
techies why and what to do.

In FB case they'll ask you what is so bad about it and you'll come up with a
solid answer. They'll repeat your word around and the tide will gain momentum
?

Linux. My parents got a laptop with Windows 8. We couldn't make sense of it. I
pitched Ubuntu, installed it and they never turned back.

When their friends evoke problems with their computers, they will hear about
Ubuntu from my folks.

------
BadassFractal
Things I like about Facebook:

* seeing what events in the area my friends are going to, helps me know what's happening around me and going there

* facebook groups for some friends / professional organizations

* following bands / band tours so I can get updates about them

Don't really care about anything else on there. Can I keep just the good parts
somehow?

~~~
notananthem
The problem here is just adding anonymized (so international traveling bands
aren't stopped at customs) tour schedules to something like bandcamp won't do.
Music is generally served on some type of forum, that's how it grows and
permeates. For me, the ever-aging metal/punk/hardcore scenes are fairly
present on facebook- the older crowd stays because they have jobs to worry
about and are technophobic/terrible at computers (mostly). The younger crowd
is the innovative one, and tries new things. Currently a bunch of friends are
all leaving facebook and I'm a crotchity old 30-something being like "well
ralph where the fuck am I going to find your tour schedule?"

There's been every sort of private forum for these things city by city and the
problem is basically the drama that comes with it, that's why people like
facebook because the architecture of conversations is so spread out you can
avoid something that would otherwise get someone trolling.

I guess its something to really respect about the service is its ability to
have so many people with such public opinions online and friends with each
other. That's what you need for stuff like music related tours/bands/etc,
professional circles where all sorts of people come together, school programs
(me.. night school MBA), etc.

------
soundpuppy
Facebook won't die by a movement like this, it'll die when users adopt
alternatives.

------
beaconstudios
would it not be better for the #deletefacebook movement to delete all data and
post a single protest message instead? Future users clicking through to the
SpaceX or Tesla pages from links on the net won't know why they did this.

------
pleasecalllater
Deletes the profile, Facebook keeps the data :)

~~~
nothis
They’re forced to delete the data as well aren’t they? Or is that just in the
EU?

~~~
dglass
I just downloaded all the data that FB has on me. It's quite surprising to see
every single message and wall post I have made and others have made to me.

One thing I realized is that even if I delete my account, facebook will still
store my communication with other people in case they request to download
their information too. So I'm not sure if it would ever get deleted unless
both parties delete their accounts? For my info to truly get deleted, all of
my contacts would have to delete their accounts too.

~~~
iamdave
>I just downloaded all the data that FB has on me.

Where can one do this?

~~~
dglass
[https://www.facebook.com/settings](https://www.facebook.com/settings) at the
bottom where it says "Download a copy of your Facebook data."

~~~
iamdave
Aha cheers!

------
stunt
I don’t have FB account for more than 5 years (for both privacy reasons and
also cos it felt wasting my time for a platform that doesn’t add any value to
my life) and today I’m very happy about that.

It is kinda funny how people are reacting just now because I am pretty sure
people already knew what was happening to their data anyway. It was obvious,
there was so many discussions around it. So it’s a lie if you say you didn’t
know they are using your data.

But everybody chose to stay just because everyone else was there. (most)People
don’t dare to move alone and that’s very sad and stupid.

------
exodust
Perhaps this will result in a re-booted demand for custom websites that
replace Facebook business pages, or at least take on more responsibilities and
tasks that would otherwise be left to FB.

Over the years I've seen many businesses including those I've worked for (as
frontend developer) putting effort into Facebook and diminishing effort into
their own websites (the kind that I make for a living).

It surprised and disappointed me over the years as I saw organisations move in
and start paying Facebook to promote posts. The misguided assumption that user
behaviour was better quality because of the real name policy (not true); and
that "everyone was on it". There's also a mistaken perception that Facebook is
good for long form or archived topics, such as factual content, but this is
not correct. It's awful for anything other than recent buzz.

We seem to have lots of nice new web technology standards, but there's an
absence of something approaching a "social profile" or system whereby users
and businesses can create, manage, share, follow, and control 100% the data in
some social context web mechanism, decoupled from a closed platform with CEO
at the top. I don't pretend to have the solution on how that might be
possible.

------
fancyfacebook
I deleted Facebook after the Beacon fiasco, but I think I'm gonna go ahead and
move off google today. Mainly just gmail.

I wonder if there will be a backlash against cloud services more generally?
Could we see people return to buying their own servers and hiring network
engineers again? Everyone I talk to is so concerned about where their data
lives now, I could see it happening.

~~~
apotatopot
What email service are you switching to?

~~~
Fezzik
For email I highly recommend FastMail. It is $30 a year and their spam filters
are better than Gmail's. They also have a sleek web interface. The annual fee
also includes good looking calendar and document storage features, but I have
only dabbled with using those so I do not know how good they are.

Notes from a happy user with no relationship to the company.

~~~
maxxxxx
How is Fastmail on Android?

~~~
gkya
My experience is from a couple years ago, but the app was not all that good.
No trouble though, as K-9 mail is a quite nice OSS mail client for Android,
it's probably the only mobile app that I've used and am nearly satisfied with
the experience.

------
kakarot
That's my boy! We need more tech leaders to take this stance.

------
cobbzilla
This is excellent. We need more high-profile people to do this. It's not so
hard!

After years off all personal/social media, I recently joined the mastodon
fediverse; it's really a breath of fresh air, I'm enjoying it.

------
terraforming
I never had the impression that Musk cared much about privacy but I seem to be
wrong. Or perhaps it has more to do with the current POTUS and his impact in
the environment. Either way, I am happy for his decision.

------
foobaw
Considering that Elon and Mark constantly disagreed on subjects like AI, this
isn't surprising.

Also notable is that typical Tesla customers probably don't rely on Facebook
anyway so this should not have consequences.

------
booleandilemma
One of the best things to come out of all this controversy surrounding FB will
be that people will no longer look at me like I have two heads when I tell
them I don’t have a FB account.

------
nunez
I don't think that this matters nearly as much as a major advertiser like
Johnson and Johnson or pseudo celebrity Instagram followers pulling out.

------
ejanus
I don't work at FB and I don't have their shares either . But to me this is
looking like punishment beating because it is linked to Trump victory at the
polls. We all know that FB is in the business of selling data in one form or
other. And we also know that FB is human and is subjected errors and mistakes.
But deleting FB , leaving FB , pulling adverts from FB may not change the
fundamental.

------
codebook
I will not use any service that requires to specify my personal info such as
real name, address, phones anymore unless it is tightly coupled to my offline
life (financial, hiring). Even email can link many scattered info into one and
guess who I am, but at least it gives a lot more complexity than one single
source has my info.

------
mxschumacher
Interesting, especially considering that Facebook is/was a customer of SpaceX:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-rocket-test-hit-by-
explo...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-rocket-test-hit-by-
explosion-1472738051)

~~~
greglindahl
No, Facebook was planning on being a customer of Spacecom, the satellite
owner. Spacecom is SpaceX's customer.

------
malloreon
hopefully people deleting facebook don't flee to instagram and think their
somehow safe from facebook.

~~~
malloreon
I am ashamed that I missed seeing my obvious error in 'their/they're' usage
long enough that I cannot edit the parent of this post.

------
overcast
#deletefacebook really isn't going to go anywhere, outside of a vocal minority
that don't rely on it. The train stops once the general population realizes
they can no longer login to their favorite sites without it. Social Auth is a
thing, and it's MASSIVE.

~~~
anonytrary
I am seriously considering disallowing OAuth in my apps for a few reasons:

    
    
      1. It would be impossible for the user to voluntarily give up rights to information they may not understand.
    
      2. It would be impossible for the app to act on behalf of a user.
    
      3. True early adopters are not deterred by the lack of quick sign-in if they truly love the product.
    
      4. Signing up with email is easy today, and browsers make logging in an automatic and smooth process.
    
      5. Emails already act as zero-permission identities.
    

For me, emails are the root of my internet activity. Everything I do is
tethered to email, not Facebook or Twitter. Going to my email to click a
verification link is trivial and takes a few seconds; well designed email-
verification can be seamless. It might even take me _more_ time to read and
grok all of the permissions the app is asking for.

Furthermore, I don't have to worry about having a user account system that has
to be ready to deal with N different OAuth tokens. Personally, I have found
OAuth to be a very inelegant technology.

Next time I build a website that has accounts, I will try and market the
_lack_ of "signing in with Facebook" as a boon to the user. OAuth is a
slippery tool for collusion, something I never want my customers to be victims
of. I cannot advocate for technology that is primarily used to extract
information from passive people.

Making the rules so hard to read that the average person just says "yes" was
unethical in 1492, and it's unethical now.

------
wwarner
Screen shot from my twitter feed
[https://twitter.com/warnerw/status/976431809889210368](https://twitter.com/warnerw/status/976431809889210368)

------
kolbe
That is cool. I wonder if he can kick his Instagram addiction, though.

------
mindfulplay
This is great but... This is deleting FB pages not actually deleting FB ads.
Facebook doesn't care about FB pages anymore now that they can track people
closely for ad targetting.

------
thelittleone
I want to delete my FB profile but I'm reluctant because it opens the door for
someone to start a new profile with my name and pictures. Perfect for social
engineering.

------
downandout
My guess is that they just made the pages private and will quietly bring them
back after realizing how much traffic they lose as a result, and/or after a
shareholder lawsuit is filed alleging that Musk is squandering a valuable
company asset on a whim, based on his own political views. Tesla is especially
vulnerable to such shareholder lawsuits, given that it had millions of “fans”
on the platform. Arguably Musk just took an asset worth tens of millions of
dollars, that technically belongs to his shareholders, and set it on fire.
That won’t fly, even amongst the most liberal investors.

~~~
dannyw
If you think that the FB page is worth that much to Tesla and SpaceX, I’d like
to sell you some Facebook pages...

~~~
downandout
You don’t think a fan page liked by nearly 3 million people, many of whom are
customers or potential customers for a $100,000+ car, is worth at least $10M
in sales to them? That’s only ~100 sales. I’d bet just about anything that the
Tesla FB Page has helped drive at least that many sales. People look at
comments to see what other customers feel about the car etc.

------
shmerl
Good! Time for Facebook refugees to switch to decentralized social networks,
that respect their privacy and don't treat their profiles as a product.

------
Jerry64545
Elon and Mark were not getting along well as far as i can tell from reading
past news. My guess is Mark and Bezos might be getting along well.

------
sergiotapia
Out of the loop here, are people mad at Facebook for third-party apps that use
their oauth data sharing API?

~~~
Ajedi32
As far as I can tell, yes that's exactly what's happening.

The HN crowd has, of course, hated Facebook for a long time now for a variety
of reasons completely unrelated to that, but that was the incident that seems
to have triggered all this.

~~~
sergiotapia
In that case, people are just looking for anything to rabble about. Facebook
did nothing wrong here.

------
joelrunyon
Is there a way to bulk-download photos?

That's about the only FB related item I care about.

~~~
Karunamon
Photos you uploaded are included in the "download your Facebook data" archive.

[https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/](https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/)

------
middle1
Just checked myself in google. It looks he really did. No Facebook page opened

------
abalone
<gif of SpaceX rocket blowing up Facebook satellite>

------
sweetp
this pushed me over the edge to delete my account too.

facebook is toxic

------
alexnewman
And I just bought some more tesla stock

------
ada1981
SpaceXBook?

Elon ought to boot up a social media company.

~~~
Communitivity
Elon Musk is already using #Mastodon. I suspect he has possibly supported it
in other ways as well, through public praise and/or contributions.

[https://mastodon.social/users/elonmusk/followers](https://mastodon.social/users/elonmusk/followers)

~~~
terraforming
Can you check when he created the account? He hasn't made any "toot" yet, so
he might've just created the account so no one would pretend to be him?

~~~
Communitivity
Unfortunately, AFAIK there is no way to check that if he hasn't tooted. Also,
bear in mind it might not be him..might be a fake account, but then I'd
suspect it would have been used more.

------
asdsa5325
Why is this news?

------
908087
Is he still on Instagram? If he is, he's still supporting Facebook.

~~~
danso
People quitting FB but staying on Instagram is still going to hurt FB. Part of
FB’s strength is the massive network effects.

------
nugi
Elon, whatever your reasons, I applaud this.

Now delete insragram.

------
MikusR
Probably Tesla workers were using it to talk about unionization.

~~~
slig
He deleted his company's Fan Pages, which are basically used to do marketing
("Check out our new car", "Coming soon on 2019", etc). It's not a discussion
group or a forum.

------
akerro
Hey, Elon, why don't you build a better Facebook? Call it, "the better
interplanetary Facebook".

~~~
cvaidya1986
Actually Elon might do that. He really launches stuff he believes in rather
quickly.

