
What should you think about when using Facebook? - vkb
http://veekaybee.github.io/facebook-is-collecting-this/
======
afandian
This is an excellent blog post, though it made me sick reading it.

I recently made the switch. I went from trying to limit how much I log in (to
once or twice a week), to actually not logging in. I've been cold-turkey for
two months (except for a couple of times when I had a very specific reason to
check something).

I thought it would be difficult. Turns out it's not so hard, and it's the fear
of reduced social contact (or dopamine withdrawal more likely) that was
stopping me. If you have a plan to replace the social interactions with other
forms, you realise that the rest is just dross. If I really want to know what
my friends had for breakfast I can phone them up and ask. On balance, I'd
rather not.

I'm not at the point of deleting the account yet. Small steps.

Here were my reasons FWIW: [http://blog.afandian.com/2017/01/why-i-am-giving-
up-on-faceb...](http://blog.afandian.com/2017/01/why-i-am-giving-up-on-
facebook/)

If you're reading and considering whether or not you can withdraw from
Facebook, you can do it!

~~~
Kluny
> Turns out it's not so hard, and it's the fear of reduced social contact (or
> dopamine withdrawal more likely) that was stopping me. If you have a plan to
> replace the social interactions with other forms, you realise that the rest
> is just dross.

This is the problem for me right now. I don't have a plan for replacing the
social contact of facebook (and facebook isn't giving me anywhere close to
what I need). I'm also struggling with depression right now and pretty
socially withdrawn. As soon as the current blues pass and I'm able to come up
with a real life third place [1], I hope to start limiting how much time I
spend there and eventually quit altogether.

[1] From the article -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place)

~~~
germinalphrase
I feel lucky in that I have a job that involves social interaction, but moving
to a new city left me without any "third place". I definitely empathize with
the loneliness that can stir up and so many public spaces seem designed around
creating new social interactions between people who aren't already associated.

I read an article not long ago about upscale private clubs. I'm strongly
attracted to the status/networking aspect often involved, but the idea of a
place gather and socialize that doesn't _require_ buying alcohol/coffee/food
is appealing. Place it in a neighborhood. Keep the membership fees accessible
to the people who live in that community and then offer some small perks that
bars/coffee shops don't (e.g. free billiards on a real table). Hopefully,
membership would make people a little more open to socializing with whomever
show up, rather than the typical bar in which most people stick to their own
group.

Does anyone have experience with private clubs (of any kind)? Did they open up
social interaction in this way?

~~~
Kluny
That's a cool idea, yep. My thing used to be volunteering at bike shop. It was
free as long as I was working (which I enjoyed) and there was a lot of
interaction. Having it fee-based instead of work-based would be cool too.

~~~
germinalphrase
Volunteering is definitely a good way to meet people (as is joining a dance
group or sports team) - but just having a space to hang out, play a social
game, and/or talk with people would be nice. I imagine having a small
membership fee could strengthen the "in-group" mentality causing people to
open up a little.

------
iamdave
I experienced first hand the drug like quality of Facebook when I made the
decision to finally quit..I started asking friends if I had an up to date
contact number for them as I was planning to leave the site.

Every single one of them, EVERY one of them made it a mission of sorts to keep
me from leaving the site.

"Just unfollow people, spend less time on the site"

Well by spending NO time on the site I AM spending less time on the site so
hey we both get what we want right?

One friend went armchair psychologist on me about the affair.

It was an interesting week between emails,phone calls and text messages asking
me where I had gone and why. "was it something I posted?"

For my part three months later...I've been reading a lot more and my grades in
pre-law are improving, and that's all the feedback I needed to know I was on
the right track to removing unnecessary cruft from the life.

~~~
sova
Yes, it's really bizarre, even the application/website itself has a whole
guilt-trip gauntlet when you choose to deactivate your account. Not to mention
that you cannot actually ever even _delete_ your data, you can only put your
account into a suspended state of stasis.

The only people I know of who have success in their facebookian encounters
are:

\+ activists \+ artists (who connect under pseudonyms) \+ businesspeople (who
connect under the umbrella of their company)

~~~
emidln
Data created on someone else's computer cannot ever be owned by you. Data
created by someone else's proprietary software on your locked computer is
probably never exclusively yours either.

~~~
sova
Yes! Software "ownership" is a fascinatingly blurry ground.

Still though, just because I upload a picture to [f], it is no longer
information regarding me? Perhaps it is a greater question of associability of
information.

Why is not the great battle of the 21st century the right to privacy? Brand
valuability and Information Collection are becoming synonymous.

------
phatbyte
Last week I permanently deleted my FaceBook account. All my data since 2007
(10 years) and friends gone. Well...apparently my data is still somewhere to
be used as metadata...

Still, I must say, this was a liberating experience. I don't go there anymore
to see another cat/new born/fake news posts. I don't get get angry with dumb
comments. I don't have to see at my friends are eating, selfies, etc..

My closest friends and family are reachable one whatsapp/imessage/phone call
away. The other hundreds "friends" I had on FB, I don't even remember their
names anymore...

~~~
grenoire
To my knowledge, your account is never actually gone but instead deactivated.
Not sure if there is a grace period to that, but as anondon said you can get
an archive of all your data (which is what I did before deleting my account).

~~~
debt
Facebook provides a real delete option. It's hidden but it's there.

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

~~~
yellow_viper
Does this delete your data too? I spent about 2 days the other day running a
script to delete all my data way back to 2010.

~~~
debt
I'm pretty sure it's a genuine delete button.

~~~
goooorhio
No way do they actually delete your information

It's replicated all over the planet many times over and they share it with
other businesses and agencies

Even if they did, your friends and family talk about you and they're not going
to censor all that information too

~~~
koko775
It gets deleted. Facebook Ireland Audit Report.

------
frebord
Permanently Delete it here:
[https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account)

If you are considering getting off of it for any of these reasons then why
haven't you already done it? You feel you might somehow need it, just like a
heroin addict has trouble imagining a life without drugs.

It is horrible for your privacy. They collect EVERYTHING about you!

It is in their best interest to manipulate your attention, which to me is
terrifying.

It is horrible for your relationships, cut the acquaintance you met 5 years
ago that YOU WILL NEVER SPEAK WITH and force yourself to make more intimate
connections with the people that actually matter.

It is horrible for your mind, you have a constant bombardment of instant
gratification and self reinforcing ideas.

~~~
netsharc
Gotta love the fact that when you're not logged in to FB, clicking on that url
shows you the FB login page with a parameter where to redirect you next, which
is normal enough, but it also has the referer URL (this HN comments page) as
another parameter. They want to know who's linking to their delete page!

(OK they probably have that in every login page redirect, and the cleverer way
would be to silently record the HTTP header...)

------
germinalphrase
Not long ago I was sitting with some long time friends I hadn't seen in a few
years. It was one of those really great visits in which you remember exactly
why someone is an important person in your life.

One of the things we ended up talking about was physical photographs and how
our families had developed a natural curation and annotation system. "Keepers"
get sorted and labeled on the back with names, dates, brief notes, etc. and
placed in albums. There were a bore when we were younger, but now we
appreciate having some long-lasting artifacts of our families' lives and
history. This is a nice thing and differs in importance to my every day
interaction with personal media.

If I had the talent, I would make a small journaling tool for myself. All I
would ask it to do is remind me once a week to select a favorite photograph
and make a brief note about who's in it and why it's important. Really, just
30 second a week. Then, one a year a nice, archivally printed photo album
would show up on my doorstep with all of these photographs arranged and
discretely tagged with names, dates, and notes. That's it.

~~~
alanfalcon
I like it. My wife subscribes to a service that will automatically print and
mail her a small printed photo book for every X photos she favorites on her
phone. It doesn't have the nice tagging and dates and notes, but it creates a
chronological hard copy series of photo books that are great to have around,
without requiring much forethought.

~~~
rak00n
What's the service?

~~~
alanfalcon
Chatbooks[1] - they're not glossy or high quality, but then a lot of the time
the photos aren't either beyond the associated memories. And they're cheap so
you don't have to stress over whether to hit the favorite button.

[1] [https://chatbooks.com/favorite-photo-
books/](https://chatbooks.com/favorite-photo-books/)

~~~
germinalphrase
That service is pretty close.

It's also where I feel my otherness. My father was a professional
photographer, I grew up playing around in the darkroom, so I do recognize that
I have a bias toward high quality photo prints. One of those 'ignorance is
bliss' things maybe.

The photos wouldn't need to be large, but the quality would need to be there
or else I won't value them long term as distinct from digital files (which
still command many advantages over physical media).

------
nnd
Even though Facebook by itself doesn't seem to provide much value anymore,
it's incredible how much of a platform lock-in the have. For example, Facebook
login becoming essentially a universal identity provider. The worst thing is
even when you create a new account under a different name they still manage to
track you down, and start suggesting adding friends from the old account. I
wonder how they do this, by tracking cookies and fingerprinting your browser?

~~~
spraak
I've wondered this too. I have friend suggestions for my work colleagues, even
though my Facebook email is my own private address and I've never emailed them
from that address. It's amazing and bothersome

~~~
sdiepend
Have you used it on mobile and shared your contacts? Might they have had
access to your location(GPS or maybe to which wifi you're connected).

Interesting article: [http://fusion.net/story/339018/facebook-psychiatrist-
privacy...](http://fusion.net/story/339018/facebook-psychiatrist-privacy-
problems/)

~~~
funkyy
Or they just suggest people based on common locations that you and they visit
and where they spend their time.

------
cJ0th
The funny thing is, these are exactly the things I think about while on
facebook. By being online for almost two decades I've developed a 6th sense
for sketchy services and the whole UI of Facebook screams "SCAM!". The
periodically reoccurring messages harassing you into uploading a picture of
yourself, the prompt to denounce people who you believe are using a fake name
or the vaguely described privacy settings don't help either.

I only log in when I get an e-mail notification for a message I've received.
Some time ago you could simply reply to that e-mail but that doesn't work
anymore. Furthermore, you can't say: I just want a notification in case of a
message. You have to accept some other stuff as well. I've told my spam filter
to delete every e-mail from facebook that doesn't include "message" its the
subject.

~~~
pound
I deleted facebook app from phone (android) and occasionally was visiting
facebook website after notifications received. And apparently you cannot
neither read nor reply to messages via browser anymore, you asked to install
messenger app and it's not a "BETTER EXPERIENCE VIA APP (thank you, continue
to site)" type of modal, there is no tiny text option to proceed with web

~~~
dragonwriter
> And apparently you cannot neither read nor reply to messages via browser
> anymore

You can, but they try to make mobile users think you can't; you have to either
use the desktop version of messenger.com (e.g., with "request desktop version"
from a mobile browser) or use mbasic.facebook.com

------
cygned
I left Facebook three years ago or so. It did not offer any value for me - and
I couldn't stand the quality of "information" on that platform. To much crazy
stuff in my stream, things I am not interested in, stupid games, ads, click
bait, and so on.

I also left twitter months ago. The people seem to be better there, but I have
the image of twitter being a bad company. And the time spent there didn't
provide enough value to me. It was too easy to get disrupted at work. And
after keeping apps closed, the service became useless for me.

Most of the people I have contact with are developers, and like 99% don't have
a Facebook account either.

------
daemonk
Can someone make a browser plugin that will send fake data to facebook?
Instead of hiding your own behavior, might as well poison their database.

~~~
0xcafecafe
A few of us were joking about poisoning the location tracking database of site
along a similar vein. Have an app masking your location to some place in the
pacific ocean to any app running in the background asking for location
(without the user's intent of using it).

~~~
netsharc
On Android, Xprivacy uses hooks provided by Xposed to "MitM" a lot of functiom
calls. Don't want an app to know your phone's serial number? That function
call returns a spoofed one. Same with GPS location.

~~~
e40
I love Xposed. I just wish using it didn't mean I couldn't get regular Android
updates (I have a 5x).

------
Kiro
I treat everything I do on Facebook as public and permanent information. With
that mindset the experience is rather pleasant.

~~~
bigbugbag
Not public, privately own by facebook (and partners and clients) and
aggregated with everything that is actually public and every other privately
own data they could gather.

Then used to target you in every possible ways.

~~~
owlninja
I get most of the personal data concerns, but what exactly is the issue with
targeted ads?

~~~
antocv
Changing your behaviour.

Ads are a hostile action.

------
anondon
Genuine question : do you think a privacy oriented social network where users
pay a small annual fee (around $5) would work? Think Whatsapp (use phone
number as an id, no native discovery, only connect through phone contacts,
encrypted user data only to prevent database leaks from causing damage) +
Facebook (feed like feature, share photos, videos, direct messaging, group
messaging). No user tracking, no ads, just a no bullshit social network where
the average Joe would feel right at home and also one which the HN crowd would
use, assuming social networks have a place in their lives.

~~~
renaudg
Not a chance. You want people to pay for that ? Even free alternative social
networks like Diaspora or Ello failed to gain any traction. The network
effects are just too strong.

The next wave that will eventually unseat Facebook (the product) will have to
be something entirely different. And it might even come from Facebook (the
company).

~~~
macintux
Agreed. app.net was such an attempt to offer a paid alternative to Twitter,
and that went exactly nowhere.

------
nefreat
Many people in the tech industry don't realize the tradeoffs they are making
by participating on FB. This is to say nothing of the nontechnical crowd who
make up the overwhelming majority of the site.

My wish is that mainstream news media would cover these issues. It'd be great
if most of FB's users thought about the troves of personal info that they are
providing not just about themselves but their friends as well.

~~~
xherberta
UK press has been covering this, and the EU has frequently shown itself ready
to push back:
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/whatsapp-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/whatsapp-
facebook-google-privacy-rules-ec-european-directive)

------
francamps
There is a solution that can help you get here, and it worked for me: unfollow
everyone and everything.

By unfollowing everyone except a handful of boring sites that barely ever
publish anything, my newsfeed has become very boring and I rarely feel the
pull towards it or any of its addictive power. The end result is that when I
do log in, I only see notifications for a couple of groups full of my friends
or interests that are truly relevant and I don’t waste any time scrolling.

At this point in my life, Messenger (not from the main site, but from its own
site) and Groups are quite convenient, and both are a bit necessary for me at
the moment, so I can’t quite disable Fb, but I’m very happily giving up on the
feed for good.

I might eventually quit altogether, but this method has worked for me quite
well for the last few months.

~~~
grenoire
This works well for any follow or subscription based network. Taking the
instant gratification and new-content-every-five-minutes aspects out, just
leaves you with something that does not incentivise you to keep returning so
often (and therefore waste your time).

I have several friends who would benefit a lot if they stopped following
hundreds of accounts, keeping their feeds and brains busy with "nothing."

------
OliverJones
Another comment has mentioned poisoning the FB database with fake
clickstreams, etc.

It looks like skillful black hat marketers have already succeeded at poisoning
FB's content. Read this Vice story, then delete your FB account and delete the
cookies from your browser. Friends don't let friends use FB.

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/big-data-
cambridg...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/big-data-cambridge-
analytica-brexit-trump)

~~~
glitchdout
The video referenced in that article is truly amazing/disturbing
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc)

------
vgy7ujm
Start using other apps with better privacy for communication. Get a real
website or blog for your PR needs.

~~~
jasode
_> Get a real website or blog for your PR needs._

Btw if you weren't already aware... a lot of small businesses (e.g. mom & pop
restaurants, handymen contractors, yoga studios, etc) actually _did have a
real website_ but they abandoned them and only maintained their Facebook
pages.

The behavior pattern is the same: the "real website" whether it was a CMS
built on PHP-Drupal or a Wordpress blog was too complicated for owners to mess
with. (e.g. "uh, what's this domain renewal email I just got from Godaddy have
to do with my website?!?") The real website then suffers "digital rot" or they
expire.

Facebook pages are _easier_. Therefore, advising them to maintain real
websites isn't going to convince them. They've already _" been there done
that"_ and saw no value in it. As far as privacy and data collection,
businesses don't care -- it's their public storefront.

~~~
at-fates-hands
>> businesses don't care -- it's their public storefront.

Until they land in the news for something and then people can go back and
start digging up and doxxing people at the company and any other nefarious
information they can get their hands on. ANY information on a business FB page
is like a gold mine for social engineers. Everybody on FB eventually "over
shares" information they think is safe, but its really not.

------
ar15saveslives
Bit unrelated, but there's a working way to get rid of FB addiction. Just
start unfollowing everything that you see in your "news feed". It's not
visible to anyone, and you will gradually (a couple of weeks in my case) phase
out of FB, just because there's nothing to see there.

But the very first step, for sure, is to admit that you have the addiction.

~~~
jacamat
I did this maybe a year or two ago. I un-followed all of my Facebook friends.
No more Facebook updates, no changes to any of my relationships (e.g., nobody
gets "unfriended",) more time to focus on my own stuff.

And you can re-follow people any time if things get quiet.

------
tdaltonc
If you're looking to use Facebook less (but can't bring yourself to quit) I
just launched a tool for that!

[http://youjustneedspace.com](http://youjustneedspace.com)

The iOS version is a web app because Apple rejected our native app. They said
any app that encourages you to use your phone less is not appropriate for the
app store.

~~~
H4CK3RM4N
Did you bring up the number of apps which either block a tone of sites with a
simulated con or notify you until you reopen the app to keep you off you're
phone?

~~~
tdaltonc
We're going through the appeal process right now. We've gathered lists of web
content block apps, workflow style apps, and icon skinning apps. I'm not
familiar with that last category of apps (notify you until you reopen the app
to keep you off you're phone). Can you give me an example?

------
cygned
The linked "Blue Feed, Red Feed" from WSJ is impressive and scary.

[http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/](http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-
feed-red-feed/)

------
toothbrush
A long while back (2012?) i deleted my Facebook account without really
thinking it through, and i lost contact with a bunch of people i'd met during
an overseas period. I still find that a bit of a pity, but ultimately (as
cynical as it sounds) life goes on, and i've found more compatible people whom
i care more about in the meantime.

However, a few years ago i recreated a Facebook profile (this time a pseudonym
with initially 0 friends) because some of the events i'm interested in (local
music/art galleries for example) _only_ publish their events on Facebook, it
seems. No mailing list available, invariably. This is a pity, because i don't
have friends to rely on to drag me to the good gigs (i like to keep up-to-date
with local experimental music, for example, which my friends don't care for).

And, the problem too, is that inevitably, i've made one or two friends with
that account, partly with my previous FB experience in mind, and partly
because they seemed belligerently anti-email (and texting isn't practical when
you're in another country). So now i'm far from being back to square one, and
i only look at Facebook about once every month, but i still would love to just
get rid of it, except i don't really know how to handle musicians and artists
who only publish their upcoming events on Facebook. But aside from that, the
comments are spot on. If people can't be arsed to email me if i prefer email
(and i, too, believe that i am easily google'able), they're probably not
really worth chasing.

Does that exist? Like-on-Facebook-and-relay-via-email-as-a-Service?

------
jgrahamc
A related question is "Should you sign up for Facebook today?". Five years ago
I killed my Facebook account (and LinkedIn and G+) and it hasn't bothered me,
but... am I missing out on something?

~~~
bluGill
Facebook it the only way I see my second cousin's kid's piano recital. It is a
valuable way for me to know something like that happened (they live more than
a thousand miles away). It lets me keep up some of the people who I went to
high school with - we were not really friends but we had a connection.
Facebook is the easiest way to ensure my parents (300 miles away) see pictures
of their grandkids doing cute things.

Unfortunately it sucks me into political fake news and lots of other bad
things. Blocking all games helped greatly.

On balance the real purpose of Facebook: keeping up with distance family and
friends; is a very useful part of life. Thus it is worth it.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
This is me - only I'm on the other side of the Atlantic from family. In fact,
this was the only reason I signed up for facebook 3 or so years ago. It is
also the reason I have some loyalty: The main drawback of other social
networks is the lack of cross communication between chats and some people's
pages.

------
3rdkind
Zuck: "Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US
or any other government direct access to our servers." Oh, well, but they seem
to be hooked in there anyway:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20150826205104/https://bosnadev.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20150826205104/https://bosnadev.com/2015/04/14/facebook-
chats-are-being-scanned-by-a-cia-funded-company/)

~~~
brokenmachine
The US government definitely has at least "indirect" access to Facebook
servers.

What does "direct access" mean exactly? Does having to enter a password
constitute indirect access?

------
Wajid_Ali
I think facebook is the most dangerous spy of the world. let me tell you a
story, once I was setting with my friend and he was using his facebook app in
android phone, and suddenly I saw, "Invite your friends to facebook" and the
number and name down this statement was personal contact, and she don't even
know what facebook is? you would wonder how I came to know about that number
so quickly, becuase my nameing convention for contacts is very different i.e.
like I write "C" before every classmate contact and "F" before every friend
things like that. and then I stopped using facebook in my phone.

------
throwxwy
I keep my social media accounts locked down and off search engines, so I was
surprised to see my name, photo and a link to my profile appearing in a
Facebook list of people with my name when I self-Googled. The problem seems to
apply to localized versions of FB (it-it, en-gb) so it is probably a bug.

Google Plus had a similar problem, but for much longer. Even though my account
was locked down, the people who had me in their circles were showing up in
Google search results for my name, so I deleted my Google Plus profile, and
advised my friends and family to do the same.

I nuked my Pinterest profile after it was scraped despite being locked down.

FB also did something rather disturbing the other day that reminded me why
vigilance is critical. It generated a (private) music video about my friends,
but freakily, the person who it started up with was a secret crush -the
attraction was mutual but never went anywhere-from 15 years ago (we became FB
friends a few years later). The two of us don't interact much on FB, so it
must have inferred this based on her ongoing views of my profile, or vice-
versa. My wife has no idea about this crush, and is friends with the other
person. Our circle of mutual friends does know about it, but has kept it
secret for years. Having it appear on my FB timeline would have been awkward,
to say the least.

------
saycheese
Never used Facebook, though I'm postive they have a lot of data on me, for
which I never agreed to share with them, cannot see, have no way to opt-out
of, etc.

~~~
__jal
You can "opt out" of a lot of the data collection by editing your hosts file.

127.0.0.1 facebook.com 127.0.0.1 fbcdn.com etc.

Multiple people maintain lists of Facebook and other surveillancecorp domains.

------
yeukhon
My take. I have been using FB since 2007 I was a sophomore in high school. A
couple years ago I didn't use FB as often as I did, but just this past year I
started to use FB more frequently.

The change has to do with the people I actually network with on FB. I always
have friends, real life friends on my FB, but most of them aren't very active
on Facebook. This past year I met a bunch of new friends and they are the
social bunch. I started to post more of my social life on Facebook. It's been
fun to actually see what's happening in everyone's life. With the recent
political shit storm in America, FB is becoming more active.

I also started to follow a bunch of pages ranging from food to inspiration
quotes to news page. They have been helpful to get me through my day, learning
new perspectives and finding more interesting things.

I've used other products such as quora, flipboard, etc but they don't provide
the same conveniences as FB does. I have family members actively on FB (my
father and my sister in particular), and I enjoy sharing my moments with them.

I know there's a lot of privacy concerns with using FB but I simply try to
accommodate it. I believe in controlling my privacy but I also enjoy using the
product. As far as I am concerned, if I am not leaking my social security
number or talking shit about my work on FB, I am not too concerned.

But in the future when I become a parent, I would certainly be concerned of
the safety and the privacy more and more, specifically how it is easy for
someone to look at another person's profile for as long as the profile is
shared with friends and friends. Fake news and the left/right war on Facebook
are also quite problematic.

------
mydpy
I think it's interesting that despite deep and widely-publicized privacy
concerns, Facebook's users have mostly been loyal to the platform. Myself
included.

Data collections seems necessary to monetize the platform. Are there any
alternatives, or do we just need smaller more close-knit social networks?

------
andy_ppp
I think about it as a simple Message and Event's calendar that my friends have
access to me once per week when I look at it.

Also occasionally use it as a login systems for sites I don't want to sign up
to.

What else does it do? I unfollowed everyone/thing from my wall ... which seems
to improve it somewhat!

~~~
neogodless
I still use Messenger, but my Facebook account is deactivated. I finally gave
up after clicking "Hide all from..." for the 10,000th time. It seemed like an
increasingly losing battle. The more I unfollowed, the more it showed me
things I didn't want to see, and more ads! My entire interaction had devolved
into scrolling slowing and clicking "Hide all..."

So tell me how you got your feed to stop being full of bad things? :)

~~~
andy_ppp
I just did about 25 per day for what seemed like forever but I wasn't about to
let it win!

------
james_niro
Going on two years without Facebook. At first I thought it will be hard to
stay in touch with friend but it is the opposite, I get to hangout more often
with my friends, our conversations are more intimate, we genuinely want to
know what happened since we last saw each other. As far as news goes I
subscribed to news paper, have dozen email subscriptions which delivers it to
my inbox every morning.

I started making photo albums again and putting my pictures in there whenever
friends come over I get to show it to them.

As far as cat videos goes I get to watch them on YouTube

To be honest it has been the most productive time of my life since I
deactivated Facebook and my friendship has become stronger

Moral of the story yes you an live without Facebook

------
TIMALAUS
Nice Post! Learned a lot. Thank you!

I've removed my Facebook account 3 years ago and never looked back. Everyone
who should be in touch with me have my e-mail address and mobile phone number,
other's who actually want to take a sniff into my life try to trick me
creating one, but hey - I've been there, f*ck off. Nonetheless I relocated to
the US, Boston, 7 months ago and haven't acquired any meaningful friendship
with anyone, I still don't care. I better off read Literature and Philosophy
rather than infinite stream of non-sense.

GJ

------
neltnerb
I wonder if the edge case has been tested wherein someone turning 18
retroactively withdraws consent their parents gave when uploading information
about them while they were minors. Taking photos of other people and data
mining them, especially minors, seems like something that is very probably
illegal in at least a few states. Would be very curious if on someone's 18th
birthday they can actually force Facebook to delete everything they have about
them.

------
bjourne
I've always had the wrong birth date on Facebook because I'm not comfortable
with sharing too much personal information with that company. So people have
been congratulating me on the wrong date. Which doesn't bother me at all
because keeping track of peoples birthday is impossible. But I've gotten the
impression from some that I've broken a taboo and that they think it is
deceptive of me to have the wrong birth date displayed.

------
malz
>As you are crafting your message, Facebook collects your keystrokes.

Does anyone have evidence of this? Not surprising or difficult, of course, but
while watching ajax traffic and typing into a status box I don't see obvious
posts with either the text I'm typing or obscured blobs. On the other hand,
there's plenty of ajax traffic polling for updates and sending other
analytics.

~~~
netsharc
I recently got the option to save post drafts, so I could type something, it
would save it automatically, and I could continue that post in another browser
if I wanted (similar to Gmail's compose window). But the option was very
visible. I can't recall if I dismissed it forever or it disappeared by itself.

If they're malicious they could wait a few minutes before reporting what you
were thinking of posting.. or they're using websockets, which you may have
missed.

------
astanway
"A similarly-sized company of 15,000 might have 5 data scientists" \- this is
so far off the mark I don't even have a response.

~~~
robattila128
The definition of data scientist is really skewed. It's a buzz word every hot
shot identifies themselves with.

------
owly
Deleted FB years ago and haven't missed it one bit. Get out while you can and
block all FB domains via hosts or on your router.

------
siegecraft
Does anyone have suggestions or best practices for using facebook securely (ie
to maintain an account but not let it be linked w/ all of your other browsing
activities)? I was thinking something like hosting a hardened/non-
fingerprintable browser from a VPS/cloud provider somewhere and only using
that to interact with the site.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Noscript can block js from Facebook, except when you're on Facebook.com.

~~~
kedean
How do we know facebook doesn't serve up tracking scripts from other domains?

------
omilu
With respect to tracking you throughout the interwebs, Amazon is as bad. It
pisses me off when I look at a pair of shoes then start seeing amazon ads on
every site I go to for months, hey remember the shoes you looked at?

------
Swenrekcah
Related: Now Facebook has been pushing the Moments app to share photos. I
don't want to use it but a lot of people around me do. Can anyone recommend an
alternative photo sharing app?

~~~
bgrohman
Google Photos works well.

~~~
Swenrekcah
That's true, I'm currently using them. But of course Google comes with their
own set of privacy concerns as well.

~~~
bgrohman
That's true. I've been considering the idea of building my own personal
replacement for several Google services - Keep, Drive, and Photos mainly.
Haven't decided it's worth the effort yet.

~~~
brokenmachine
I would _love_ a self-hosted Google docs clone, that I can access from an
Android App and the web. That would also replace Evernote.

~~~
bgrohman
I've been tempted to look into things like ownCloud
([https://owncloud.org/features/](https://owncloud.org/features/)), but I just
haven't been excited by what I've seen so far. What I'm thinking of is more of
a single user web app that I build myself so that a) it does exactly what I
want and nothing more, b) I know exactly how it works and what it does with my
data, and c) there are no other users to support.

------
Wazzymandias
What I think about when I use Facebook: don't use Facebook.

------
xj9
I usually think, why am I on Facebook? I just want messenger to open already.

------
okidwiyulianto
I think it is very simple. We should think positive update status. If we won't
tracked as a 'blacklist' we should have decorum or ethical.

------
okidwiyulianto
I should think, can I beat Facebook? If no. So give up. If yes, make something
interesting than Facebook.

------
PunchTornado
Facebook is good for one thing only: organizing political protests.

------
ben_jones
Damn you, Tinder.

------
jeffrey-sean
Whether you realize it or not, your posts are being analyzed by everyone.

Use a free service like Rep'nUp to identify all unprofessional posts, images,
and tags. You can then link back to each post and curate if needed.

[https://www.repnup.com/](https://www.repnup.com/)

~~~
mmagin
Please clearly disclose if you have an affiliation with this service.

