
Personal Reason for Hating Facebook (2015) - renegadesensei
https://righteousruminations.blogspot.com/2015/06/hating-facebook.html
======
brianfitz
I remember reading this when it was originally posted years ago and have had
time to think about the implications. I am just over 40, so most of my class
reunions were organized through Facebook and was amazed at the turn-out
possible because of these new social networks. For my mother, there were
simply people she no longer knew how to reach — including one of her best
friends from childhood. Years went by until Facebook gained traction and they
were reunited.

The point being, it is just as likely that the writer of this post wasn’t left
out any more than he would have been in the past. What has possibly changed is
that a funeral lightly attended by only a few in the past could now reach the
many. In the past, he would have missed hearing about the death and would have
missed the funeral. In the present, the same thing happened but now feels left
out.

It’s a benefit to the mother who lost her child, but a detriment to the friend
who feels left behind.

~~~
komali2
Agreed. Furthermore, Facebook doesn't require your work history or any of the
other things the author claims is it's blood payment cost of entry. Last I
checked it needs a valid email address, name, and password.

I've stripped most of my personal information off Facebook and now just use it
as a messaging app and a "find me by name" sort of internet yellow pages
thing.

~~~
wyager
> Last I checked it needs a valid email address, name, and password.

I’ve had friends have to submit government ID to prove that they were using
their real name.

~~~
protomyth
Why is wyager getting down voted? This is not uncommon given that people with
certain types of last names (e.g. Yellow Horse) are targeted and then need to
prove who they are. I cannot confidently say they don't keep the id given the
whole phone call revelations of the last week.

------
chrischen
Facebook's primary feature is a newsfeed which uses an algorithm to shape and
influence who you ultimately interact with. If you consign your interpersonal
relationship to Facebook's algorithms then it has become normal for facebook's
algorithm to shape and control the opinions and relationships of people en-
masse.

Whether you consider facebook's algorithms benevolent or not, the danger
actually lies in the fact that people's opinions and friendships are not
forming in a more natural and organic way. If relationships and opinions are
shaped by an algorithm from a single source, it's more prone to failure,
influence, if not by malevolence than by simple incompetence of not knowing
the macro effects of a line of code applied to hundreds of millions of people.

~~~
bigiain
Right. Features are for customers. Facebook's primary feature is ubiquitous
surveillance of 2 billion users. The newsfeed is a use of that feature, where
advertisers and "Facebook partners" can pay to manipulate targeted portions of
those 2 billion users.

To Facebook _users_, the newsfeed is just a gimmick they use to get you to
reveal more about you and your friends/connections than you would otherwise.

------
osoba
A few months ago I won about $200 worth of Amazon gift card codes. Since
nothing from Amazon delivers to my country I decided to give them to an
American friend of mine. I remember it was late for him when I sent him the
codes over Facebook so he only used up one right away and then went to sleep.

The next morning, however, the other coupons were all used up. He claims
nobody else has access to his FB messages and I never bothered to actually
check the validity of the codes on Amazon, so there is enough room for
plausible deniability, but this coincided in time with this reddit post
[https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/79x7u3/facebook_em...](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/79x7u3/facebook_employees_just_opened_a_privately_shared/)
and now there's that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that some
underpaid 3rd world facebook employee read through the messages and decided to
use the codes themselves.

I don't know, this is all probably a stretch, but that moment reached a new
low for Facebook in my mind (not that my opinion of them was high before).

~~~
cconstantin
Did you contacted Amazon to clarify gift-codes usage?

------
glangdale
I will say that if you are organizing an event on Facebook, and you actually
have a list of people you'd like to see there or who should be there, then if
you don't make an effort to contact the non-FB people, you're a bit of a
jackass.

We put together a big list of people for a HS reunion, and used real-life
social networks to (try to) reach the names that weren't on FB. Mostly
successful and with a large nucleus who were on FB, easy to distribute the
workload.

------
osogolo
I empathize a lot with this guy. I wanted to share my recent story:

I unfollowed every single person and page I'm connected to on Facebook a month
and a half ago.

Every time I look at a Facebook there's just about no value. My feed is empty.
Nevertheless, I'll visit it by habit. It's weird to see how that persists.

I am not posting (never really did anyway), and I have no idea what's going on
with the people I didn't really interact with that much anyway.

What put me over the edge was answering the question: "Does anyone that I
deeply care for post anything (at all)?"

Answer for 90% was no. And there rest I still have phone/text to communicate.

This has all made me consider what relationships in my life are important. And
it's made me consider how susceptible I was to a fine-tuned algorithm hungry
for outrage and virality, and how that influenced my relationships and myself.

I feel great opting out. I hope to fully delete the whole thing soon. Weird
that I can't just do that.

I recommend the unfollow thing.

~~~
vmokry
I remember when I tried to do the same thing three years ago (the year before
I deleted my account) – Unfollow every person. AFAIK I had 600+ contacts.

What was funny, after ~300 clicks I got the captcha to fill and 14 clicks
later week block with a message: "This is not a proper using of the function".
Also, FB was hypocritical. It allowed me to click to follow again, just
unfollow was blocked. :-)

------
evrydayhustling
> I hate that, if I somehow don’t want to consign my personal data, beliefs,
> preferences, relationships, work history, daily plans, and private messages
> to a massive advertising corporation, I have to risk missing out on seminal
> life events. Not being on Facebook is sort of like not having a cellphone.
> Sure, me and a small number of weirdos can opt out, but we are increasingly
> disadvantaged by it.

This captures perfectly my reasons for getting on Facebook in ~2007. One of my
best friends had a baby and I was the only one who didn't know because I
wasn't on there. I'd also been one of the last of my friends to get a
cellphone 3 years before, and was starting to worry that I was just a jerk
about keeping in touch.

It's really interesting to compare those two decisions now. The slider phone I
got in 2003 was nothing like what we have today, but buying it let me
participate in a communication ecosystem that's still evolving fast.

Facebook feels really stagnant by comparison. Its core mechanics, at least the
ones I care about, are unchanged. Everyone's usage of it long ago stagnated
into the same patterns. I still check it because I have to for life events,
but it's not something I look forward to.

------
renegadesensei
Updated to reflect that I wrote this in 2015. Still feel raw about it.

------
vanilla_nut
I really sympathize with statements like this:

>I hate that, if I somehow don’t want to consign my personal data, beliefs,
preferences, relationships, work history, daily plans, and private messages to
a massive advertising corporation, I have to risk missing out on seminal life
events.

I feel very much the same way. Social media is a tool that we can use to make
social interaction more convenient, but it should not replace real social
interaction. Writing a letter, an email, calling a friend, or even sending a
text should not be replaced by Facebook because it is ultimately a corporation
that seeks to exploit those very interactions for its own profit _through
means you may not agree with_ \-- that is, selling off your personal data to
advertisers.

That being said, it's fine to use Facebook occasionally to check up on what's
happening with your friends across the globe. But I really think that everyone
should consider removing their "close" friends from Facebook and moving that
communication to in-person talks, phone calls, or even text messages. If
you're logging onto Facebook even once a day, you're playing into their
psychological traps: it's probably best reserved for a lazy Sunday afternoon,
something like how older folks treat email. You certainly don't need it on
your phone.

If you're concerned that you'll lose friends by deleting your Facebook, you
can always keep a Messenger account connected to your phone number and not
miss out on group communications. If you're a mover and shaker in your social
groups, try pulling your groups away from Facebook. Organizing an event? Offer
to send out a mass email to people instead of using Facebook. Or text people
yourself instead. Decoupling yourself from Facebook only gives you more power
when they decide to do misbehave (do you _really_ think this is the last or
worse scandal we'll see from Zuck), and if you're really successful, your
friend group will eventually start to realize that they don't need Facebook
any more either. Everyone isn't going to delete their Facebook overnight, but
if folks start to disconnect bit by bit we'll a) all be better off and have
more future options when it comes to Facebook's manipulation and b) start to
make Facebook less and less valuable, so eventually people won't even want to
join in the first place. "What is an ocean... but a multitude of drops?"

~~~
tim333
I would have thought a simple solution to

>I somehow don’t want to consign my personal data, beliefs, preferences,
relationships, work history, daily plans, and private messages to a massive
advertising corporation, I have to risk missing out on seminal life events

Is just to have a facebook account with you name and picture and limit to
that? Log in in an incognito window if you really don't want them to know what
you are browsing?

~~~
vanilla_nut
A fair point, but I would rather they didn't have knowledge of my social graph
at all. The minute I make an account, events, friend connections, private
messages, and more all start aggregating there. Then you have to log in to
check when you get messages and invites, and they know where you connected
from and when you connected -- even more data.

And since Facebook is tracking the phone calls and text messages of at least
some of my Android-using friends, there goes even more privacy, this time
_completely out of my control_ to keep private. Unfortunately Facebook is
pretty good at being "sticky".

------
tinyhouse
On a related note. A couple of years ago I was really annoyed by all the
notifications FB emailed me. I went to settings trying to change it so that FB
only sends me emails if someone is tagging me or sending me a message. Maybe
I'm stupid, I just couldn't figure it out. They made it so confusing and after
a few attempts I just stopped receiving any notifications, missing out some
important messages from people. I don't think it's just a bad UX (which it
is). It's probably by design, intentionally making it hard for people to
disconnect.

------
lambdasquirrel
And as a counterpoint, I will say that after I _deleted_ my Facebook, I feel a
lot more connected to the people I do see, when I see them, because I cannot
assume I know anything about their life, and, I have to, yknow, be _present_
with them? i’m

------
apo
_Not being on Facebook is sort of like not having a cellphone._

As someone who has never had a cell phone, I can say that living this way in a
first-world country is challenging. I've been in situations where it's assumed
I do have a cell phone, and the result ranges from awkward to maddening for
the other party.

I also don't have a Facebook account. Not having a cell phone is much more
troublesome.

The pull of network effect doesn't just mean that people join for opportunity.
If sufficiently insinuated into daily life, some become compelled to join out
of necessity.

But with Facebook and Cell Phones, joining this club takes a major toll one's
privacy.

That's the dilemma anyone resisting network effect faces.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Not having Facebook and not having a cellphone are two completely different
things. If you don't have Facebook, you might miss out on some social stuff.
Not having a cellphone is a bad idea, even just from a safety standpoint.

What if there is an incident and you need to call emergency services? Maybe
you crash your car? Maybe you come across another crashed car, and can't
contact emergency services because you don't have a cellphone?

I understand why you wouldn't want to carry around a cellphone all the time
for privacy reasons (government tracking etc.), but why not get a $10
dumbphone and keep it turned off and in your backpack, or in your glovebox in
your car? Nobody can track you if it's turned off.

I'm not sure about the USA, but at least in New Zealand, you'd only have to
top up a few dollars every 6 months to keep your SIM active, and you don't
need to register SIM cards in your name (although I know that other countries,
like Australia, require this). Even without a SIM in your phone, you can still
ring emergency services. There's no reason not to buy a $5 phone and keep it
around just in case.

~~~
jjgreen
I've never had a cellphone either; I do it because of the danger, life is so
tame nowerdays that it's one of few thrills that are still legal.

------
rjkennedy98
Its not a matter of trading personal information for access to a social
network, which is a reasonable thing to do.

Its a matter of letting a nefarious actor into your life to feed you addictive
poison, torpedo your well being, and feed you propaganda. Each new revelation
makes this increasingly clear.

------
matz1
I can relate to this since I'm an introvert to and don't like social media in
general but I do realize that this is how the current generation of society
works. If I want to participate in it I have to adapt too.

------
alistairSH
_[Without Facebook], I have to risk missing out on seminal life events_

Is missing a high school reunion or the funeral of a long-list friend really
"seminal"? Socially awkward, perhaps, but seminal? No, not really. Seminal is
getting married, the death of a parent, birth of a child, finishing college.
Not getting drunk with a bunch of people you barely know any more.

~~~
astura
Totally agreed.

Seminal literally means "of seed." Seminal moments are the moments in life
that "seed" your future. 99.99% of the time your life continue on exactly the
same if you attend a funeral or you don't and if you attend a class reunion,
or you don't.

------
tzs
> I hate that, if I somehow don’t want to consign my personal data, beliefs,
> preferences, relationships, work history, daily plans, and private messages
> to a massive advertising corporation, I have to risk missing out on seminal
> life events.

Why not have a Facebook account but only use it read-only for the most part?
Nothing _requires_ that you post your beliefs, work history, daily plans and
such.

That's what I do. I do post a couple of times or so a year, just to keep the
account looking used, but those posts are always just something innocuous.
Usually just a link to something funny I saw on Reddit, but sometimes a photo
or video of mine. The latest, for example, was a link to this video of several
Chestnut-backed Chickadees that landed on my hand to eat peanuts out of my
palm [1].

I do the same thing on Twitter.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShPgZhSbxU0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShPgZhSbxU0)
If you watch, I recommend a second viewing going frame by frame as they land
and takeoff.

~~~
etiam
> Nothing requires that you post your beliefs, work history, daily plans and
> such.

Except a lot of information about these things can be inferred simply from
using the network, through metadata and behavioral analysis. Facebook will
also use their software running on your machine to steal just about every
piece of information they can access at rest there.

------
makecheck
Closed platforms recreate all previously-solved problems, too, usually
requiring you to wait for the gatekeeper to get around to offering a solution.

We _have_ ways to track contacts, organize E-mail threads, view restaurant web
sites, etc. and all those tools are uninvented when the data is only visible
through Facebook. Even when Facebook graciously permits you to keep using one
of your tools (like a web browser), it’s still effectively broken until you
log in.

I find a silver lining in this by making it as friction-full as possible for
me to view Facebook content. For example, having to unblock domains and log in
every time (never saving passwords, etc.). It works: it makes me consider
whether or not I really want to spend time viewing whatever silly
video/rant/whatever I initially thought was interesting. And of course then I
am not sucked into an hour of grazing the rest of the feed.

------
xapata
Note that carrying a smartphone and using a credit card is entrusting a great
deal of information to advertising companies. All major phone and credit
companies are selling your data (anonymized, to the degree they feel is
optimal). I'm not sure that Facebook is any worse.

To be more clear: They know where you go, who you call and text, and what you
buy.

~~~
graeme
Even on iphone with content blockers running and location services disabled
for most apps except while using?

Referring to ad companies here, not NSA etc

~~~
jacquesm
Yep. Unless you disable your WiFi and only use a VPN while you are connecting
to the web via your phone.

~~~
bigiain
Even that doesn't solve the problem...

[https://www.tomsguide.com/us/FCC-Mobile-Devices-iPhone-
Andro...](https://www.tomsguide.com/us/FCC-Mobile-Devices-iPhone-
Android,news-12775.html)

"Devices that are not GPS-enabled must be tracked via triangulation with local
cellular towers, a time consuming process that can only give an approximate
location and can dangerously delay critical assistance. The new regulation
will allow almost universal pinpoint location of 911 callers by emergency
responders. No date was given for when non-GPS enabled devices must be
discontinued, but given FCC estimates that by 2018, 75 percent of all mobile
devices will be GPS capable, it is likely that the assumption is the
sunsetting of obsolete devices will occur naturally as consumers chuck
outdated gadgets for shiny new ones."

I'm really curious to know whether this means my iPhone will give up my GPS
location against my preference setting if I call 911, or if it means the
carriers are going to be required to improve non-gps derived location data
from cell towers to "allow almost universal pinpoint location of 911 callers
by emergency responders"...

~~~
jacquesm
True, but that's something your cell provider (and the providers of other base
stations your phone has pinged) has access to, not your typical website.

But you are 100% correct that the cell network knows to within a rough
approximation where you are and how fast you travel. This information is also
used to predict where and when the next cell-hand-off will happen.

~~~
bigiain
Yep - as always in security, it's important to know who your adversary is.

If your adversary is the NSA(/GRU/Mossad/etc) - you're fucked. Throw away all
your electronic devices, torch your house, and hope you make it to Belize
before they shut the borders to you.

If your adversary is Law Enforcement, they'll get cell tower data (quite
likely without a warrant by just asking), and they'll then mislead a court and
jury about how accurate that data is: [https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-
desk/what-your-cell-phon...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-
your-cell-phone-cant-tell-the-police)

This link: [http://urgentcomm.com/psap/different-
strokes](http://urgentcomm.com/psap/different-strokes) says that since '05
wireless carriers in The US have been required to do better than just "which
cell tower you're connected to", but for some percentage of connections
they're required to provide 50 or 150m location accuracy - which they can
apparently do using three cell towers and triangulation. Since they're happy
to hand over cell tower data to law enforcement when asked (or possibly when
asked with a warrant) - I wouldn't bet against then handing this E911 Phase 2
level of location accuracy over.

Somewhat more worryingly... The cell providers seem to be happily monetising
that data too: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/15/mobile-phone-companies-
app...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/15/mobile-phone-companies-appear-to-be-
providing-your-number-and-location-to-anyone-who-pays/)
[https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/9/4187654/how-carriers-
sell-...](https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/9/4187654/how-carriers-sell-your-
location-and-get-away-with-it)

Now out of the four big technology companies - two of them own a mobile OS and
so can do whatever-the-fuck they want with your phone if you're "in their
camp" and of the remaining two, one of them actually sells you stuff to make a
living, the other makes their money by surveilling you.

With Facebook's warchest - what do you reckon the chances are of them _not_
buying cellphone location data on the open market to add to their advertising-
marketing machine?

I'm not saying I know they are - but I do know that the data about location
down to perhaps 50m accuracy or less is legally required to be available to
the cell operators - and they've been caught in the past selling that data -
and Facebook have _very_ deep pockets to pay for data to match against theirs.
(And there is almost _zero_ chance that whatever the cell companies might to
to "anonymise" that cell location data, Facebook wouldn't be able to de-
anonymise it by correlating to to other data they collect.)

But yeah, having your phone use a VPN no doubt helps...

~~~
jacquesm
> With Facebook's warchest - what do you reckon the chances are of them _not_
> buying cellphone location data on the open market to add to their
> advertising-marketing machine?

I don't think they would have to pay for it. They're just going to give the
phone company a nice fat discount on their advertising campaign. That way they
don't have to own up to selling your data either, win/win. /s

Mobile phone location data is so valuable that there are whole companies
dedicated to 'enriching' mobile phone OpenRTB requests with location data.

[https://www.iab.com/guidelines/real-time-bidding-rtb-
project...](https://www.iab.com/guidelines/real-time-bidding-rtb-project/)

------
tunesmith
Honestly, this is true even if you're on facebook, if the algorithms don't
feel like putting the event in your feed.

~~~
FargoPelz
When someone invites you to an event, you receive a notification. You will be
directly informed, you don't have to see it in your feed.

~~~
deadbunny
You can even setup an ical feed for events, they'll get added when people
invite you. Don't even have to login.

------
robbrown451
The major complaint here is that not being on Facebook leaves him out of
things that are now on Facebook. And I get that, for a good while I was off
facebook entirely and felt quite left out. But still... it doesn't really make
sense to me for that to be your primary complaint. You could make the same
complaint about email, or the internet in general.

That said, I think it is a terrible shame more efforts haven't gone into
making an alternative -- and at this point, it would need to be a compatible
alternative -- that is not controlled by a single for-profit organization.

------
femto
Communicating in a way that is mutually agreeable is a more powerful enabler
of friendship than the existence of an entry in Facebook's database.

I put it to you that Facebook is about group communication, whereas friendship
is about one-on-one communication. As such Facebook has nothing to do with
friendship, and it is a delusion to think otherwise. Those Facebook "friends"
are actually acquaintances, and your friends are those smaller number of
people whom you talk to outside Facebook.

------
joshjdr
How fast can I kill all my karma by pointing out that the 3 of the top 4
articles on HN are some realization that Facebook does not give an ef about
anybody's privacy?

~~~
joshjdr
Response/discussing is preferred to down votes!

------
quasimodem
I fantasize about Facebook just one day utterly disappearing. No warning, just
quietly taken offline without explanation, all data deleted without a whisper.

The world would absolutely freak out like never before and I would sit back
and chortle with delight as I watched my fellow people throw tantrums like
little babies for months on end. Think of the lawsuits and blubbering that
would ensue!

I think it would be an excellent lesson to society that they shouldn't ever,
ever, ever entrust their personal data to a profit-driven corporation again.

Out of the ashes would arise a better, decentralized system and control would
be given back to the individuals and we would stop hating each other and being
glued to our fucking phones all the time and, well ok this fantasy has gone
off the rails, but you get the idea!

~~~
wilsonnb
How would that be a lesson to society about entrusting personal data to
corporations?

~~~
quasimodem
I mean, insofar as society can learn anything, I think if your entire last 10+
years of photos and love letters and baby pictures and the other trillion gigs
of intimate shit people have eagerly given to FB suddenly disappeared, you
might be a little less willing to so unconditionally trust the next FB that
comes along. IDK man! By that point, there's a new generation chompin' at the
bit to give away their gigs of content and the cycle repeats. Guess we're
stuck w/ FB forever. And war. War will never go away either.

------
harel
Social networks and Facebook in general are a certain aspect of "progress" in
society. Yes, it's not perfect, but it's ubiquitous enough that it's
considered a primary contact channel that reaches many people at once. Not
liking it/hating it/etc. is fine. It's one's own prerogative. But don't
complain other people find it useful and you will be left behind because you
don't. An exaggerated analogy is like saying "I don't like
computers/cars/aeroplanes/internet. I hate that. It's not right I am left
behind for not wanting to use it".

~~~
ethics_gradient
It's not that the author didn't get to chat about people's lunch on Facebook
every morning. It's that the author wasn't invited to things he should have
been invited to because to many people, "I invited everyone from my FB list"
sounds like they invited everyone they reasonably could. Which is not true.
The author explicitly says that he is easy to find. And his school friends
should take the extra several minutes to searchengine each person they didn't
have on facebook if the event is relatively big and organized. It should be
the default response. And the author is rightly frustrated that it isn't,
because people are lazy and can unintentionally be careless.

That isn't comparable to not being invited to a spontaneous dinner in 2 hours
at 9PM by someone clicking invite all of their contacts list tagged as
_classmates_ because you're living in the mountaints a one-hour flight and a
two hour hike away without any communication tools around you and you don't
even believe in flights.

I don't mean these examples to sound flippant, they're here because I'm trying
to underline how there's reasonable compromises between convenience and being
a good friend / event organizer, and not being on facebook doesn't make you
hard to contact. It definitely didn't in the case of the author.

~~~
harel
All fair points and an indication to the quality of 'friends' sometimes who
might or might not make the effort. One point I'll make is that being on
LinkedIn, to me, as what being on Facebook is for him. I don't like LinkedIn,
but I'm on it, reluctantly. I am only there for potential business and
'presence'. My "contacts" are mostly former colleagues, and recruiters. Every
button click on LinkedIn requires a second thought as it might be a contact
harvesting trap or worst. I really don't like it, yet I'm there because I
realise that sometimes this is a viable channel for this or that purpose.

------
etiam
Well said.

A talk by Moxie Marlinspike called "Changing threats to privacy" also
addressed some of these network effect aspects in a thoughtful way.
[https://archive.org/details/youtube-
dBtmzY5gcO8](https://archive.org/details/youtube-dBtmzY5gcO8)

------
dberg
I do sympathize with this but I have friends not on FB and as a friend of them
, if I see something on FB (like an event invite) one of us know to relay via
text to them. Maybe my situation is unique ?

------
sandov
You don't hate facebook. You hate people who think facebook = life.

~~~
antoineMoPa
Of course, there is also snapchat, tumblr and instagram.</OnlyHalfSarcasm>

------
FargoPelz
If you're concerned about "consign[ing] my personal data, beliefs,
preferences, relationships, work history, daily plans, and private messages to
a massive advertising corporation" but don't want to miss out on seminal life
events, why not just maintain a Facebook account without ever posting to it?

As long as you remain friends with people you need to keep in touch with, but
never post anything or fill out your personal details, you will not be giving
up any privacy or missing out.

~~~
wsxcde
They'll still know where you live, where you work, what devices you use, what
places you travel to, what hotels you stay in, what times you're usually
awake, who your friends are, which friends you're more interested in, what
invitations you respond to, what invitations you ignore, which of your friends
are interested in you, what your hobbies and interests are, what texts you
send on messenger, what other websites you visit on the internet, ...

Should I go on?

~~~
dexterdog
Don't use the app and they won't know most of that.

~~~
ExcelSaga
Also don’t let your friends and family use it, block their Pixel, don’t let
them buy brokered info on you, don’t let anyone else with Facebook on your
WiFi... and do this all perfectly 100% of the time.

~~~
dexterdog
They can't track you if you're not using their app on your phone. Use a
sandboxed version (there are many) and it's not running and tracking you other
than when you're actually using it. You can also sandbox it on your computer
if you like, but there are many privacy blockers that will keep them from
tracking you all over the web if you want to just use it in your regular
browser.

------
kelnos
> _I feel that my only real choices are to either A. Get with the program and
> embrace the dominant protocols of society..._

Um, yes? That's literally what bring a part of a society is about. I'm not
thrilled that Facebook has woven itself so deeply into our society, but if
you're not on it, it's likely you'll be missing out on some things. Many of
those things you may not care about, but unfortunately for some, like the
death of a dear friend, you will care.

------
MobiusHorizons
I haven't used Facebook for years (deleted my account as much as is possible).
I'm lucky though because I have a wife on Facebook who lets me knom when
family events occur.

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jakequade
Sorry, but for the most part this sounds stupid. You're hating a widespread
method of communication because it doesn't work for you _when you're not using
it_. That's like complaining that no one text messages you if you never opted
in to owning a phone.

~~~
astura
Yeah, and it's really baffling that someone who is a self described
"introvert," who goes years without speaking to people they consider close
friends, is upset they didn't get an invite to a _high school reunion_!?!? Why
would someone like that want to attend a high school reunion in the first
place?

They didn't get an invite because they don't stay in communication with
people, not because they don't have a Facebook!!!

I'm not really sure why they'd expect to hear directly from the mom. When a
person dies, the information is spread like a web, the next-of-kin very rarely
informs everyone directly. Usually they inform their close circle and the
close circle of the deceased. Then those people spread the word. 100% of the
time I've been informed of a death it was by someone in my close circle, not
the next-of-kin. Since the author doesn't keep communication with their
"friends," they got overlooked. That's very sad and shitty, but it doesn't
have to do with Facebook.

~~~
mondoshawan
Maybe because without an event to go to, it's difficult to force themselves
out into the world?

Maybe because they wanted to see their friend at said event?

Or maybe, just maybe, they didn't have the current contact info for their
friends and would like so still see them but otherwise can't setup a meeting
with them?

The article doesn't make all of the facts plain, so it's pointless to
speculate the full details.

------
drosan
So that person calls himself/herself an "introvert" (I hate when ppl justify
their lifestyle with that word btw) then complains than he never got to class
reunion. Then throws some stronger motives about his friend suicide yet griefs
more about inability to "say goodbye" or "i feel responsible and hurt".

And overall says about facebook hate but, like, it is just a platform, a
technology; it all starts and ends up with people, so he'd better say "I hate
people but want their attention but don't want to tell 'em that by owning a
facebook profile".

