

Ask HN: Is anyone else being forced to move to Facebook timeline? - grecy

I've been resisting timeline since it's introduction, and have never agreed to it being on my profile.<p>Today I logged in and saw a message "You now have timeline. Preview it before others see it beginning August 14".<p>Does anyone know if Facebook can move me to timeline without my explicit consent?
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lylemckeany
I switched nearly a year ago. I'm shocked that they have waited this long to
force-switch everyone over to it.

Out of curiosity, why are you opposed to timeline?

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grecy
The layout is painful to use (I've seen friend's accounts)

And I really hate the "inline" ads.

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lylemckeany
Agreed on the ads, for sure. But ads are to be expected with FB no matter what
and they're annoying in general anyways.

One thing I like about timeline is the discovery when looking at someone
else's. It makes it a little easier to grasp what that person is all about in
a relatively short amount of time. It's also pretty cool that you can add in
significant life events that occurred well before FB (or even the web)
existed.

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grecy
> It's also pretty cool that you can add in significant life events that
> occurred well before FB (or even the web) existed.

It's amazing we're so willingly giving the details of our 'significant life
events' to an advertising company, without any thought to what it means in the
long run.

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creativeone
Why do so many people care about the layout of their Facebook profile?

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grecy
Because my use case of Facebook is get in, check stuff and get out as fast as
I can.

The Timeline seems to be designed in such a way to make it really hard to
quickly scan for information, therefore sucking you in for more and more time.
It's not surprising, Facebook want everyone to spend more time on the site,
it's just a pain.

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caw
Yes, my friends and I have been getting forced over since August 4th. I was
August 5th, so it seems like a gradual forced rollout.

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jamesjguthrie
I changed as soon as I could. Ads don't bother me as I have Adblock Plus
installed, and I hate missing out on new features.

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esolyt
It happened to me too. And yes, I guess it can move you to anything without
your explicit consent.

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grecy
I figured there was a change in the terms of service that required explicit
consent.... damn, I guess not.

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esolyt
Probably. I don't even care about Facebook anymore. It is just an XMPP server
for me.

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graue
I love the idea of Facebook being "just an XMPP server". Even though I knew
they use XMPP for Facebook chat, I never thought about it that way.

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esolyt
I needed a way to use Facebook Chat without seeing the news feed. Because, I
would always impulsively and uncontrollably click on some link and then start
going through people's profiles as a chain reaction. I now just use Pidgin to
connect their XMPP server (group chat doesn't work though, they use their own
proprietary implementation for that).

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koopajah
The messenger application should do it no? It is available for desktop and
smartphones

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esolyt
If I'm not mistaken, the desktop app was Windows-only. I'm using Linux on my
desktop.

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trueneverland
Just verified, not happening with every account (at least not yet over here).

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andrejewski
I haven't been hit yet.

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mihirs
Yup, I got hit too.

