
Get your loved ones off Facebook - milly1993
http://www.salimvirani.com//facebook/
======
swsieber
Golden quote:

Don’t confuse privacy with secrecy. I know what you do in the bathroom, but
you still close the door. That’s because you want privacy, not secrecy. (From
I have nothing to hide. Why should I care about my privacy? :
[https://medium.com/@FabioAEsteves/i-have-nothing-to-hide-
why...](https://medium.com/@FabioAEsteves/i-have-nothing-to-hide-why-should-i-
care-about-my-privacy-f488281b8f1d))

~~~
unabst
This. The military has secrets, but should have no privacy. Same with the
government. Privacy is the opposite of transparency. We can have secrets while
we know exactly what we are keeping secret, such as Private Keys and
passwords. Secrets do not hinder transparency.

~~~
jasonkostempski
"We can have secrets while we know exactly what we are keeping secret"

I'm not sure that's true. You might think you know what I'm doing in the
bathroom. I don't think privacy and secrecy are truly separate things.

~~~
coldtea
> _You might think you know what I 'm doing in the bathroom._

Well, even for the times that I know EXACTLY what are you doing (e.g. because
I saw you gulp down 10 big Macs and a box of laxatives before rushing to the
bathroom) you still want privacy.

------
joshstrange
It won't be a popular opinion here but here it goes:

Well if it all goes to hell we will all be in the same handbasket. I'm simply
not willing to cut people out of my life and miss out on things that are
important to me because my data is mined and might be used against me. All
these distributed platforms are a joke, no really they are technically cool
but no one I care about is on them. Maybe if your entire social circle is
technically sophisticated you can leave FB for something like diaspora (I
don't know if this is the "new hotness" or if there is something better but I
really don't care). My social graph is so far from able or willing to switch
to something else it's not even funny. Like it or not there is a social stigma
around NOT having a FB account. In fact I've thought on multiple occasions
that someone is hiding something if they don't have one. You might hate me for
that or hate the fact people think like that but good luck changing that
mindset.

Look I've been on the other side of this, I paid for App.net (I think that's
what that twitter clone was called) and tried multiple distributed platforms
but they all fall short or require too many compromises. I tried to get
friends to use Signal but no one really cares. iMessage/FB Messenger are just
easier and everyone is on them. You want people to leave the "evil facebook"
then make something better and easier to use. The best doesn't win, the
easiest does.

~~~
Fezzik
But what's the advantage of Facebook over email and/or texting? I feel like
for anything other than wasting time Facebook is sluggish compared to either.
If you're a Facebook user you have a cellphone and/or a computer, and can do
everything Facebook does: share pictures, plan events, check-in with friends,
family, and groups of people. And not share data* or be peppered with garbage
advertisements.

* I personally pay for Fastmail and have migrated all my communcations to email and texting (and feel the better for it). Obviously it is a personal decision, but realize everything you do is a vote towards a certain state of things.

~~~
noobhacker
Advantage of Facebook over email / texting:

\- Facebook shows me updates about friends that I wouldn't otherwise know
about. These updates provide an opportunity for a quick connect that is
appropriately shallow, just enough to keep the relationship warm.

\- For many people I have their FB, but not their email, let alone their phone
number. I discover these people through FB's mutual friend suggestion. These
people can be those I met briefly at parties, friends in primary school, etc.

\- A public exchange on FB allows others to jump in and converse. An email is
confined to the intended recipients.

~~~
glenda
These all sound like they could be disadvantages to another person.

~~~
noobhacker
I recognize that while typing out my comments. It seems like there are two
archetypes of people:

1\. Those who have a close circle of friends that don't change much over time.
For these people, phone / email work great because they have a lot more depth.

2\. Those who have a large circle of acquaintances that is dynamic (i.e.
relationship strength changes over time, new acquaintances appear through FB
suggestions). For these people, Facebook is the only way to keep connected,
admittedly with little depth.

Everyone is a mix of these two archetypes. I have friends that I call, and
also acquaintances that I chat up via Facebook.

------
Animats
Useful hints:

\- Put anything on Facebook you're willing to have on a public web page. Stop
there.

\- Don't use Facebook's messaging or email.

\- On desktops and laptops, run Ghostery and Privacy Badger. This keeps
Facebook's "like" buttons from tracking your browsing.

\- Don't run Facebook's phone app. It's way too intrusive; it gives your
contact list to Facebook, just for starters.

\- Remember, sharing is spamming. Don't "share" links from others on Facebook.
That makes you an unpaid employee of Facebook's ad engine.

~~~
milcron
Uninstall Facebook's phone app and check out mbasic.facebook.com. It doesn't
require javascript to run. You can access Messenger and everything.

~~~
squeaky-clean
messenger.com also works well on the desktop to chat and avoid the newsfeed.

Unfortunately it redirects to the app/play store on mobile, and has a terrible
layout if you force desktop mode.

I think a good enough compromise for me is to only use the messenger and
contacts, and avoid the newsfeed/posts/pages.

~~~
Shinkirou
That's exactly what I do. I only use messenger.com and the fb messenger app.
My friends warn me when there's something of interest on one of our college
groups, but apart from that I don't go to the main site at all.

------
bargl
As for me, Facebook creates an emotional connection unlike any other service
out there. I get to see my friends kids grow up, comfort lost friends when
they lose a parent, share with my family when something great has happened.
It's absolutely amazing and there's nothing out there that comes close to its
reach.

If Facebook were suddenly gone tomorrow, I would feel devastated (so many
memories of my kids, deceased father, mom, all would be gone). The only other
sites that would provoke a similar emotional response from me would probably
be Google and maybe Github.

~~~
vinhboy
Same here. I use facebook because I enjoy the content that my friends share.

I am not using it because I believe “I have nothing to hide”.

I am sensitive to privacy and secrecy. I will fight for it every chance I get.

But I willingly share my life on facebook and enjoy the content shared with
me. I get more value out of facebook than the countless other services that
spy on me.

For example, just a few weeks ago I got a fake hand written letter from a car
dealership telling me exactly how many miles I have on my car and how I should
trade it in.

My ultimate conclusion about privacy is that you should take steps to protect
with you want to remain private. Because even if facebook disappears tomorrow,
something else will take its place, including things created by our own
government.

It's sad to think that, but it keeps me from naively thinking that what I
share online is somehow private... because it's not, and never will be.

That includes places like HN and Reddit. The government has programs to
monitor all our profiles on these sites. I am aware of that, and I live my
life accordingly.

~~~
haggy
You say "I am sensitive to privacy and secrecy. I will fight for it every
chance I get" but then contradict with "I willingly share my life on facebook
and enjoy the content shared with me". That's the problem. The government has
never had a tool like this before and because of the social graph that
facebook created, will likely not have another one like it anytime soon.
Unfortunately for the average user (and even very advanced users) leaving
Facebook altogether is the only option to maintaining secrecy of any kind. FB
updates ToS far too often and nobody bothers to stay up to date with it. Using
the service is admitting that you are willing to give up all secrecy and
privacy (thanks to their chat being completely centralized). IMO, using
Facebook implies you don't care about secrecy or privacy.

~~~
benchaney
> You say "I am sensitive to privacy and secrecy. I will fight for it every
> chance I get" but then contradict with "I willingly share my life on
> facebook and enjoy the content shared with me".

This is not a contradiction. Someone with privacy has the right to decide what
they do and don't want to share publicly. Like you, I am concerned by how
Facebook is used, and some of its societal implications, but this sort of
extremist attitude helps nothing.

> Unfortunately for the average user (and even very advanced users) leaving
> Facebook altogether is the only option to maintaining secrecy of any kind.
> FB updates ToS far too often and nobody bothers to stay up to date with it.

This isn't true at all. While Facebook is somewhat sketchy about changing
their privacy rules, if you don't want certain information made publicly
available, you can just not put that information into Facebook (and yes, that
includes Messenger). Any non-technical person can understand this.

~~~
haggy
> This is not a contradiction. Someone with privacy has the right to decide
> what they do and don't want to share publicly. Like you, I am concerned by
> how Facebook is used, and some of its societal implications, but this sort
> of extremist attitude helps nothing.

What you call an "extremist attitude" I call "info security common sense".
Companies like Facebook are well known to lull their users into a false sense
of being in a "safe, governed social utopia" all while profiting from vast
amounts of data both explicitly provided by users and implicitly provided
through data analysis. Anyone even remotely close to fields like infosec,
cyber security, or data engineering know that Facebook is quickly becoming a
giant spider web for its users. While I agree with you that an extremist
attitude is not helpful, it's come to a point where I just know too much about
the background of companies like Facebook to simply ignore these issues.

~~~
benchaney
Please. Everyone who has their entire life on Facebook put it there
voluntarily. You are completely ignoring the people who put and small amount
of information on Facebook and retain a large amount of privacy. And despite
your not so subtle implication that you are smarter than anyone who disagrees
with you, you have completely failed to defend your premise that using
Facebook is fundamentally incompatible with privacy.

~~~
haggy
So your stance is that as a competent, technically savvy person, you are able
to maintain your secrecy and/or privacy on Facebook? Are you aware of the vast
amount of implicit data they receive just by you logging in and viewing your
friend's posts? The amount of resources FB has dedicated to tech like
fingerprinting (both browser based and behavioral) is enough to harvest vast
amounts of data from even the most technically savvy people such as yourself.

------
newtem0
You could replace this whole article by saying "facebook is a private company
and they have all your data, from posting and messaging as well as their
cookies". Its just a bad idea at its very core. All these examples are
trivial, who cares if they fake endorsements and track your location? Its like
building a house out of sand and then people point out that a chunk fell off
here or there. Its a house of sand, it was a retarded idea to live in there
from the outset, of course chunks are falling off -- the whole thing will be
in peices soon. Because facebook is an anxiety enducing and artificial
experience, users will start leaving. Users who seem to need facebook in order
to stay up to date with their friends, and who seem to have an interest in
watching other peoples kids grow up (?) such as the one poster above me (and
whos post will inevitably remain above mine) will stay -- but they will be the
minority. Kids will stop signing up and at some point there will be a leak and
the death of facebooks public image will finally be complete after starting
years ago.

~~~
crispyambulance
Nope. The article makes pointed and convincing arguments and it doesn't rely
on unsupported assertions like your comment.

------
Bakary
I haven't been on Facebook for years. The result? A weakening of my
friendships and of my social life. I often hear the argument that "if they
were your real friends you wouldn't need that" or some variation but the truth
is that unplanned interactions are a major part of how friendships thrive. If
you are no longer part of a place where a lot of these interactions happen, it
will definitely affect your social life, even if your friends are well
meaning. For reference, I was born in the early nineties, and people my age
and in my region are definitely very much still on Facebook for a large
portion of their day, even extroverted and outdoorsy individuals.

I tried the author's method of using phone and text but did not have the
encouraging results he did.

I'm also really sick of having my absence of a Facebook be commented on by all
sorts of people.

All in all, I'm starting to regret my choice and despite the warnings of the
author (all of which I was already assuming to be going on behind the scenes
as I always judged Facebook to be untrustworthy).

~~~
chii
you are unlikely to make more than a handful of "true" friends. as long as
those are kept, what remains of the tens or hundreds of "friends" in Facebook
is no more than a passing aquaintance, and they do not add much, if any, your
life by reading their feeds or comments (any more than comments on HN).

~~~
jandrese
One thing you miss if you only interact with "true" friends is a diversity of
opinion. People online often complain about that crazy uncle who posts birther
nonsense, but it is important to keep in mind that those people exist and if
you want to know them you have to understand where they are coming from. If
you don't, they will blindside you when you meet them or people like them in
real life.

It's too easy these days to construct echo chambers to live in and discover
only too late that you have drifted out into the fringes without ever
realizing it.

This is one of the most surprising things about the Internet IMHO. I had
thought for a long time that all of the conversation online would bring people
together in shared understanding. Now I realize that it has more effectively
allowed people to segregate themselves into like minded groups. In the old
days there was only one or two big news stations and maybe a couple of local
papers where people got their news and opinions. Sometimes the newsmen would
say things that conflicted with your worldview and maybe on a rare occasion
make you reconsider. Now you can customize the message to only ever hear what
you want.

Social media can fight this a bit, if only because you don't get to choose
your family and people notice if you selectively ignore them.

~~~
chii
i thought social media is the exact echo chambers you speak - where people
post one liners, fake news, and no diversity of opinion. After all, if you
don't like someone's feed because their views are so different or so contrary
to your own, you'd just stop their posts from appearing!

------
sergiotapia
Delete timeline for me:

\- Delete account

\- 1st week, open facebook tab close facebook tab.

\- 2nd week, visit facebook once a day by accident don't login

\- 3rd week, visit facebook once a week, don't login

\- 4th week, stop visiting altogether

It's been about 6 months now without an account and my wife and I are really
happy about no longer have it. Try it!

~~~
jtraffic
It's been since 2009 since I deleted my Facebook account, and my timeline was
roughly like yours for weeks 1-4. Then:

\- 2nd year, wonder if I should get back on to 'stay in touch.'

\- 3rd-5th year, never think about it

\- 6th year, wonder if I should get on Facebook so my family can see pictures
of my kids. But, my wife does Instagram.

\- 8th year, smug comment on HN to show how long I've been off Facebook :).

~~~
natoliniak
> wonder if I should get on Facebook so my family can see pictures of my kids

I had a realization: those who really want to see photos of my kids will
simply ask me for them so i never posted their photos (pull not push)...so
far, about four people have asked which made me very happy that someone is
_really_ interested in seeing them and also that my kids didn't become a
source of nuisance for many others.

~~~
funkypenguin
Been off FB for years. For kids photos, I setup an "announcement-only" mailman
list on my VPS for family, and routinely email photos to members, with a
footer requesting they not be re-shared without permission.

As a result I share fewer photos, but the ones I do share are precious and
well-received.

------
shurcooL
For me, these are the biggest concerns that motivate me to consider deleting
my account (which I don't use actively, only occasionally):

\- Facebooks creates false endorsements for products from you to your friends
without revealing this to you.

\- Facebook filters out your posts based on whether or not people will use
Facebook more if they don’t see it.

I don't mind/can put up with the rest, but those two things really bug me.

But my concern is that there are some people I would lose the ability to
contact if I delete my fb. Maybe I should ask those people for their email,
etc., then proceed.

~~~
balls187
You can't delete your account. You can disable it, and the moment you log back
it, it's as if you have never left.

~~~
zentiggr
You can delete your account... I had one that I requested deleted back in
2009, and then had "reason" to get back on, and when I created my new account
my prior data from 2009- was not there.

~~~
a2decrow
You can remove it from public view and remove your ability to log into it, but
you can't remove any data. Facebook was never designed to "delete" that data,
hence all you can really do is permanently disable your account, with the
illusion of having it deleted.

------
pmoriarty
Unfortunately, none of my friends and family members who are on Facebook
really care, and the reasons cited in this article aren't going to sway them.
They don't take privacy seriously, and view people who worry about privacy as
paranoid kooks.

They also see Facebook as _the_ way to stay in touch with their own friends
and family, and that's probably the biggest draw to staying on. Until that
changes, I don't see them leaving.

~~~
newscracker
I too find it very difficult to dissuade people away from FB or to convince
people about the value of privacy and why it's important for us as a society
to function better and retain more freedom. Almost everyone I know values what
FB offers them, and don't care much about how we all are paying for it.

------
stevecalifornia
"Addiction: (noun) Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive
engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences."

I would get my family off of Facebook because they cannot stop using it even
though it makes them feel bad after being on it. That's reason enough for me.

~~~
Theodores
I feel like I have been lucky to have not been peer pressured into Facebook
because of the brain chemistry aspect. I also avoided class A drugs which have
had a similar availablity level - there if you insist, seemingly in general
circulation.

Obviously a heroin addiction would not be what you want in life, I am thinking
that constant checking in to Facebook is in a similar league of must avoid.

~~~
lyra_comms
I used to work for a social network. We had meetings every day about how to
"engage the users' dopamine systems." As a psychologist, this was an anathema
to me - we call that process addiction.

Check out Lyra instead (www.hellolyra.com), it's a conversation service that
requests language and attention. We are also a nonprofit and solicit no
investment.

------
nvr219
This is as good a time as any to remind everyone to install EFF's Privacy
Badger [https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

------
exhilaration
I have a question regarding this: "tracking everything you read on the
internet"

I recently disabled third party cookies in Chrome and it's had no negative
effect. Can someone tell me if this will block the Facebook code that's
embedded in nearly every web page from reading my Facebook cookie and
identifying me?

~~~
stdclass
No it only blocks cookies, but not the javascript code from facebook that gets
loaded on the pages you visit. If you want to get rid of that, install a
browser plugin like Ghostery (0).

0:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdfkolichcflejclcbmpeaniij?hl=de)

~~~
gavinpc
But wait... can they still identify you that way? I'm not on facebook, so
maybe it's moot in my case. But are you saying that blocking third-party
cookies is not enough to keep facebook from tracking your other browsing
activity?

~~~
Freak_NL
Technically Facebook can by using the requests your browser sends for their
ubiquitous sharing widgets on many websites. Your browser very probably has a
unique fingerprint¹, so you might want to block those widgets as well (Privacy
Badger does this).

Because Facebook's profits come from advertising and that understanding our
browser habits is a requirement for their core business, it is not too far-
fetched to believe that they track non-users as well.

1: [https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)

------
dump121
Are people really concerned of privacy, or just witch hunt against some
companies? Bigger privacy threats I see are always tracking, always listening
device we keep in pocket, which sends it all to cloud. Still I see know
serious effort to mitigate that, efforts by like of Firefox/Ubuntu are dissed
as distractions.

Developers on HN regularly proclaim wonders of Chromebook/Google Docs without
any corresponding rhetoric about privacy.

~~~
gavinpc
Regarding this question about a "witch hunt". What would a legitimate
objection to an institutional practice look like?

Would it _not_ be a witch hunt against Google if people here complained about
Google Docs? Would it not be a witch hunt against facebook if people here also
complained about Google Docs?

I'm putting "witch hunt" on my list of stop words. I don't see the phrase
being used in utterances that move a discussion forwards.

------
ciocan42
Back in 2013, I decided to delete my account because was spending more than 8
hours per day on it (mostly on groups and managing pages for fun).

Back then there was no option to remove it - the only option was to convert it
to a page with the mention that all your friends will become page likes. Then
you will lose all your content posted (statuses, pictures, messages, etc). It
was written red on white as a warning prevention. They said it was not
possible to revert back.

Id did that, and the next day I felt so good afterwards. No guilt or fear of
missing stuff. There were other means to stay in contact with people.

Forward two years later I wanted facebook back because I moved to another
country.

I searched if there is an option to recover an old profile, and it was (even
before they explicitly said there is none, and all your data is lost). I got
back all that I've posted, only friends I needed to add back manually.

Now I use news feed eradicator and I don't see anything. Also, I don't have
that urge to scroll feeds anymore. Basically, I wanted only messenger, but
back then there was no such option.

~~~
NickSharp
This browser extension changed my life for the better:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kill-fb-
feed/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kill-fb-feed/)

I like Facebook, it serves a lot of good roles in my life (including my job)
so I can't just quit and/or block Facebook. But I was spending pointless hours
a day reading my news feed, disgusted with my own lack of productivity.

This extension kills the home page feed, but nothing else.

I still have access to messages, profiles, events, invites, etc. I can still
find everything I search for if I seek it out, only difference is it's not
drip-fed into my eyeballs with an endless scroll.

My productivity (and happiness) immediately took a step up.

------
mgorenstein
For those interested in archiving their FB content, note that FB's download
tool supplies only a subset of the content available in the activity log
(namely only the content linked to your timeline). I've been working on a
sustainable way to export all activity log content and will post updates here:
[https://github.com/IonicaBizau/reset-your-facebook-
account/i...](https://github.com/IonicaBizau/reset-your-facebook-
account/issues/17)

~~~
newscracker
Your current script name seems to imply that it only helps delete everything
one has posted/shared. But you mention exporting as well. Is it going to be
anywhere close to the paid/subscription product digi.me [1], except for not
being in a proprietary format? Digi.me allows export of one's content from
groups and pages too.

[1]: [https://www.digi.me/](https://www.digi.me/)

~~~
mgorenstein
I didn't create the original scripts, which are indeed focused on content
deletion. Having fumbled around with various possibilities for the last week
or so, I'd guess that the most robust solution to data export from FB would
require use of a scraper to extract individual items from the activity log.
Ideally that scraper would also visit and clone referent posts (i.e. if I once
commented on a post, also save the post itself).

My best partial solution thus far has involved programmatically expanding the
entirety of the mobile activity log and using Chrome's 'Save Page As.' I've
written Python code to then replace all links to images in the HTML with
locally stored copies that I obtain using FB's Graph API.

I'm not familiar with what digi.me offers specifically. Moving data from one
closed ecosystem to another doesn't seem especially desirable. I would gladly
participate in an open source effort to automate FB data export--scraping,
alas, isn't my forté.

~~~
newscracker
Scraping pages has limitations, and may also be prohibited/banned on the
platform depending on how it's done (there are some Terms of Use and
permission request forms to fill in if scraping is done by programs - I'm not
sure if it applies to all kinds of scrapers, including personal ones).

The way digi.me and other similar solutions work is by getting the user to
authorize the app and use that authorization with the Facebook APIs to
retrieve content. It'd be faster than page scraping, and likely less intrusive
(guessing here) on Facebooks Terms of Use.

~~~
mgorenstein
Yeah, I'd like if there were a straightforward way to access the same content
via the API, and perhaps this is possible. I was unsuccessful. I'd made an
attempt to grab all photos I've ever been tagged in, which I was able to
accomplish using the approach I described in my last comment, solely through
the API, but was only able to access those photos currently on my timeline (a
much smaller set).

My suspicion is that services like digi.me similarly won't have access to
anything beyond the timeline. Have you used digi.me?

~~~
newscracker
I have used it more than a year ago, at which time it was restricted to
timeline and pages. It has since added exporting content from groups (and
probably others). Basically anything allowed by the Facebook APIs is what it
aims to support. The downside is that it stores it in its own proprietary
database and needs a subscription to continue to use it (though it's quite
cheap, and I certainly wouldn't put the price as a factor against it).

------
aantix
Queue the onslaught of "I haven't used Facebook in.... years!" comments.
You're probably already hitting the down-vote button.

I wonder why there's so much anti-fb commentary on HN? Maybe it has to do with
the software engineers tending to be less social and introverted, therefore a
social service appears to have less worth? Just speculating.

As for me, Facebook creates an emotional connection unlike any other service
out there. I get to see my friends kids grow up, comfort lost friends when
they lose a parent, share with my family when something great has happened.
It's absolutely amazing and there's nothing out there that comes close to its
reach.

If Facebook were suddenly gone tomorrow, I would feel devastated (so many
memories of my kids, deceased father, mom, all would be gone). The only other
sites that would provoke a similar emotional response from me would probably
be Google and maybe Github.

~~~
bargl
Do you mind if I word for word quote your above to see if I get downvoted too?
I want to repost with just the last two paragraphs to see what happens. I'm
curious how this post would have been received without the intro.

~~~
aantix
Heh, must be a divisive comment. The points are just oscillating between a
positive [2] and negative [2] range..

~~~
bargl
I think only the first two paragraphs are controversial, I am sitting at 9
points on my post (which is the exact same) but someone else may have upvoted,
or someone who saw this might have upvoted. IDK but it's an interesting
experiment.

~~~
aantix
Agree, great experiment. Thanks for sharing the point total.

~~~
bargl
31 points as of 10 PST. Very interesting. I may do this more in the future and
write something about it, I appreciate your help!

------
stevewillows
A good number of people I know have left facebook for everything but the
events. Its still the one central location where pretty much everybody is.

I would love nothing more than a standalone events app that not only had
future events, but a, 'hey, I'm at %location%, anyone want to meet up?' that
allowed for multiple degrees of social interaction --- e.g. just friends,
anybody.

~~~
Jtsummers
This is the primary reason I use it. It annoys my girlfriend (who posts
regularly) that I don't read what she posts (sometimes I do, but that leads to
a time sink when I see everything else I've "got" to read). 99% of my use is
to post event announcements, and respond to event invites from friends.

If I could trust people to properly respond to emailed invites, I would, but
most people I know have 1k+ unread emails. They'll never notice it. FB
replaced my email+SMS+(various messaging app) approach from before, but caught
almost all my intended audience in one place. There may be other services I
could use, but people would have to create yet another account, which isn't
likely.

~~~
stevewillows
I don't know how people can live with an inbox like that. I'd go crazy.

I first started leaving Facebook when my feed was consumed with children and
lovey-dovey posts. That's cute and all, but I can only handle so much of that
(let's round up to one per month...)

Down the road, if things start going south for Facebook, I wouldn't be
surprised if they broke off the events into a separate app.

------
nvr219
I take a facebook "sabbatical" every couple of years where I delete my account
completely and permanently, and then come back with a brand new account a few
months later. It irritates my friends but I love it.

~~~
hoopism
Why? I've turned my account off before in attempt to walk away... Curious why
you would set out to do that as an policy. Why not just turn notifications off
and share little to avoid cacheing of data?

~~~
quest88
Why did you go back?

~~~
hoopism
I go back because I derive enjoyment from sharing with my family who I don't
see as often as I'd like. I have kids and they do amazing things (amazing
meaning boring average things every kid does) and I want to show someone. FB
is best way I know how to do that.

------
dgzl
Recently I had bought my mother her first smartphone to help being her into
the twentieth century (she never had the mental or financial capacity to do it
herself). I decided to sign her up for Facebook, and as I was going through
some of the TOS, I started feeling dirty; I felt like I was giving away my own
mother's privacy to Facebook for their profit. Not that I fully grasp the
impact either, but she will never even begin to understand the damage I've
done by simply putting that app on her phone. Quite frankly, I have disgusted
myself.

------
mozey
Thing is, my social life isn't restricted to "loved ones". I just want a way
to connect online with anyone I might bump into in the real world. I hate the
fb ux and how it breaks the web in so many ways, but currently there isn't
anything else that comes close. Taking my ball and going home is not an
option. I wish there was some way to force them to make a decent API that
allows you to do everything that can be done via the web or the app.

------
intended
Shadow Profiles: shouldn't they be disallowed/illegal?

The fact that I am not on facebook, means that I am not even covered by the
privacy of their ToS.

Anyone who knows me, ends up exposing my information and privacy, which I have
not consented to.

How does that make sense? The only way I can deal with this intrusion, is to
open myself up further and get on Facebook?

I'm unsure how to parse the rights and restrictions here

------
skellum
Good read, and missed out the shenanigans of Cambridge Analytica. This is a
company owned by Robert Mercer, and claims to have influenced the Brexit
referendum and Trump election. It did this (or claims to) through personality
profiling using facebook likes (see Michal Kosinski for further reading). With
personality profiling you can be microtargeted with fake news that matches you
confirmation bias. Accurate microtargeting a known confirmation bias is
effective for many reasons. It bypasses the person's critical faculties.
That's the nature of a confirmation bias. It also bypasses social critical
scrutiny. It's aimed at you, no-one else, so the chance of someone else
calling is lowered. And yes, you may redistribute the fake news thereby
opening debate, but that will be into your social group, a like minded echo
chamber that will ruminate and magnify the effect.

Did this happen? Who knows. The evidence is ephemeral, no paper trail to prove
or disprove. Which is another scary thing about facebook.
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-
hel...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-
win)

------
not_that_noob
One of the more worrisome aspects of the FB is how it was used by the Russian
trolls to influence the presidential election.

[http://mashable.com/2017/03/30/russian-trolls-fake-
news/#LDb...](http://mashable.com/2017/03/30/russian-trolls-fake-
news/#LDbNXtOBvPqL)

It's not exactly Facebook that is doing it, it's that a set of smart external
actors can use the data from fb advertising services to spread propaganda with
unprecedented granularity. And to make it even scarier, there's no public
record of what was shown to whom, and it can be run by smart actors in a
completely anonymous fashion.

I feel we have gotten to a point where there's a direct threat to the
fundamental concept of a free democracy from the fb platform.

------
teilo
A while back I purged my Facebook account of all content. This was a long and
tedious process, deleting things one-at-a-time, as there appears to be no way
to do this in bulk. My account is now a blank page, no photos, tags, profile
information, likes, etc. All they have is my name and birthdate (and that is
set to hidden). I imagine Facebook hasn't actually deleted anything, but no
one else, at least, can see anything.

I wish I could entirely close my account, but unfortunately there are too many
people who _only_ use Facebook to contact me, and there are a few groups that
I need to participate in.

As for the apps: On iOS, at least, you can turn off location services and
access to your contacts. Everything still works just fine.

------
linkregister
I'm surprised to be the only one to point out that many of the examples the
author uses are misleading.

 _" Facebook is impersonating you to post things!"_ -> Facebook clumsily
attaches an advertisement to a post with a prominent Related Post header.

 _" Facebook selling your data to Mastercard!"_ -> anonymized data is being
sold to Mastercard to understand browsing habits and interests.

 _" Facebook buries posts that it doesn't like so your friends don't see
them"_ -> The News Feed is a compilation of the most popular items of your
friends postings; all shared items are available by looking at a friend's
page.

 _" Facebook influenced the 2016 election because it only showed news that was
in each users' bubble"_ -> The little-used Trending Topics section showed news
that a given user was likely to want to click. Most users just click on what
their friends post. If they're in a bubble, it's because they don't have
friends outside of it.

 _" Facebook gives direct access to the NSA via Prism"_ -> Facebook receives a
National Security Letter and then is forced to give the information to the
government.

At least 2 of the most outrageous claims (insurance companies getting Facebook
data, Facebook teaming up with data brokers) lead to broken links. Other
evidence is on forbes.com/sites, which is not far off from Medium in terms of
oversight.

There are some good points. The issue of Facebook's adding the @facebook.com
email address as the default (and in some cases deleting the contact's
existing email) was a hugely unethical and unpopular thing to do. Many of the
future risks the author mentions are realistic and damaging to privacy and
personal liberty. Also, looking at idealized pictures of friends' lives can
cause feelings of envy and inadequacy. Not to mention the near-constant
outrage effect of sensational news being shared.

The author has some good points about the potential future risks of being on
Facebook. And some excellent suggestions on how to mitigate it, especially the
anti-web tracking tips. Why water it down with deception? It serves only to
weaken the argument.

~~~
ricardobeat
To offer a counterpoint, I don't find those deceptive at all - your depiction
is the one that sounds too forgiving and downplays the real impact.

Also, "anonymised" data just doesn't have your name attached to it, but can
still be a very detailed personal profile. All it takes is one link between
your identity and that data to de-anonymise it.

~~~
linkregister
In that case, is it properly anonymized? It's just lip service then. Lip
service is enough to be in breach of contract with the end users.

Also: you don't feel deceived by having at least two claims to be completely
unsubstantiated (the broken links)? You don't feel deceived when someone tells
you a truth that implies a completely different conclusion because they
omitted a crucial detail?

------
lyra_comms
Get your loved ones on Lyra instead. Lyra is an open conversation service
which respects language, puts the user in control, and is designed with
harrassment protection in mind.

We're a nonprofit and don't accept investment.

~~~
williamle8300
What's Lyra? I just see a website that looks like a social media marketing
agency.

~~~
lyra_comms
Please see www.hellolyra.com

~~~
williamle8300
It looks beautiful! It reminds me of Gingko
([https://gingkoapp.com](https://gingkoapp.com)) and Pinboard.

How are you guys going to make money? I understand it's a non-profit but
you're gonna still need money for servers and man-hours.

~~~
lyra_comms
Thank you! We charge £2.99 per year ($3.80) to users in developed countries.
We aim to keep access free for users in developing countries.

~~~
williamle8300
Awesome. Do you do photo-hosting? I could see that easily sapping away all of
your money. Or is it just text?

~~~
lyra_comms
We just do text - but we do it well. Text is both very cheap, and very
expressive.

~~~
newscracker
As I mentioned in a reply to a comment about another text-only platform, not
allowing photos and videos will not attract many users. There will be a small
niche of users, but it won't become massive without those. It'd be quite
similar to web based forums and discussion platforms. I hope you can figure
out how to keep the platform running while allowing non-text content.

~~~
lyra_comms
Thanks! We're committed to only text, I'm afraid, and the platform is already
sustainable :)

------
pfarnsworth
The greatest gift Facebook gives to governments and police is tagging for the
purposes of facial recognition. Basically everyone's identity and facial
information is available now. And even worse, childrens' identities are on
there already. Children who don't know that they want their privacies
preserved are having their privacies squandered for the purpose of a few
Likes. Those children who eventually grow up and become spies, police
officers, etc, will have no chance of escaping identification at this point.

------
luord
I read the article and every other article explaining these very valid points
and I just can't find it in myself to care. Maybe one day I'll regret it,
hopefully I won't.

For now, Facebook is a convenient way to be aware of people I care about. I
don't use it much, but then again, I'm not connected to many people; only
people I actually know and have interacted with IRL, and a few I interacted
with extensively through other online means.

------
gavinpc
I loathe Facebook, and I appreciate the author putting as much effort into
warning about it as he once put into endorsing it.

But Facebook has Ne10 users. I suspect this kind of blowing in the wind has
the perverse effect of ( _edit_ normalizing this by) raising awareness of a
problem that people are going to continue not changing (but knowingly). It's a
kind of cognitive dissonance that seems (IMHO) to be one of America's main
manufactures these days.

------
davnicwil
For anyone looking for an alternative right now, there's
[https://postbelt.com](https://postbelt.com) \- a text-only social network
that's built around privacy, and has no ads.

It charges a (small) monthly subscription over a certain number of
connections, making you the customer rather than the product.

If it sounds interesting, please check it out (it's a side project of mine).

~~~
newscracker
I like the idea of privacy focused sharing platforms, but yours will be a
niche one for several reasons (I'm sure you already knew that). Not allowing
images or video, which comprise the majority of the content types shared on
social media (including memes, GIFs and videos), is a huge drawback when it
comes to attracting users. The ones who do prefer privacy focused services and
would pay for it may not like that it's still yet another centralized
platform.

It's not clear to me how your text-only platform is different from web based
forums that have been around for a long time and continue to thrive.

That said, we do need more experiments like these to see what could work on a
larger scale and learn.

~~~
davnicwil
You summed it up perfectly - it's an experiment based on my own curiosity into
whether a niche noise-free discussion focused social network would be
something people would pay for.

I'd been saying for a few years that if something like it existed, I'd pay for
it and use it. I got various responses to this ranging all the way from
agreement to mocking :-) so I built it to actually test it in the wild.

------
throwaway32131
[offtopic]

This struck me as being very similar in goals to Aadhar and projects like GSTN
and NCIL (all private entities) being pushed by its promoters in India:
"mining every aspect of human life, for serving 'customers' better".

This is offtopic and political, but it's perhaps also a reification of the
fears that many have for when a state entity merges with such corporates from
SV.

US definitely has a better constitution when it comes to fundamental rights,
but with the likes of NSA slowly chipping at it, backed by a lack of
understanding of the tech in Congress, "legality" is not exactly a bulwark it
was hoped to be.

Anywho, in India's case, we've a Quasi-Governmental entity (backed by private
promoters) which came into being without a legal charter. Has ramrodded
("charmed") its way through two administrations. Illegally pushed for making
it mandatory for access to state services, and has now made the case (via the
state) that "Indians have no right to privacy or their bodies" as an argument
in the Apex court (!).

Usha Ramanathan speaks in length about the play in play.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJe986ADPE4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJe986ADPE4)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6cPIkn48M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6cPIkn48M)

The tech (in contrast to SV) however is terrible, but it hasn't stopped them
from getting the state to make it "mandatorily voluntary" for every _single_
aspect of life.

The technocrats have even gone to the extent of requiring "aadhar-fingerprint"
authentication so that little kids get their free meals at schools, and the
poor (and I mean Indian poor) have access to food (aka "subsidies are not
wasted").

These biometric identifiers are known to barely ever work, since many are
involved in manual labor. A lack of authentication means lack of subsidies
dispatched - these being counted in typical corporate-speak as "savings".

How Orwellian is that ? Some democracy.

Perhaps other countries can learn from India's case, and succeed in realizing
how dangerous it is for corporations to be running a country, or be in charge
(without adequate checks) of critical infrastructure, or indeed to have a
corporate sponsored legislature.

~~~
newscracker
It's really sad to see how privacy is being knocked off everywhere (around the
world). When most people don't even care or don't bother to understand, I
don't see how things can ever improve without getting a lot worse and causing
some irreparable damage first.

------
sevensor
I never got into Facebook. I made an account about ten years back, and I used
to check it every year. But lately I can't be bothered. I agree with the
article that it doesn't seem to make people happy. Mostly it seems to make
them sad and angry.

------
jacksnipe
Is there an alternative way for me to stay this connected to the people that I
care about?

~~~
Skunkleton
Depends on who you care about. Facebook is really good at making you feel
close to people who aren't really part of your life anymore.

------
bitmapbrother
>Facebook gives your data to “third-parties” through your use of apps, and
then say that’s you doing it, not them. Every time you use an app connected to
Facebook, you’re allowing Facebook to escape its own privacy policy with you
and with your friends.

Has anyone checked what data is given to these third party apps that connect
to Facebook?

Tangentially, I'm reminded of an Austrian that asked for all of the data
Facebook had on him. Facebook then sent him a _1,200 page PDF_ containing the
messages of every person he talked to, all of his IP addresses as well as
messages that he had deleted.

------
BadassFractal
I want to be listed on their site so people can find me (and don't think I'm a
serial killer because I don't have an account), be able to SSO log in through
Facebook when unavoidable, and be able to add people to my friends list if
want to have them in my address book and reach out to them through Messenger.

Outside of that I actually never want to log into facebook or use any of its
other functionality. How do I accomplish that?

~~~
juhohei
Just don't login there. I use the Messenger and Events apps on my phone and
log in to Facebook on desktop once a month to accept/decline friend requests.

For me the reasons to stay in Facebook are

1) I can contact pretty much anyone via the Messenger - only a handful of the
people I usually talk to use (for example) Signal.

2) I get event invitations. For that the Events app is perfect.

------
hellofunk
> Facebooks creates false endorsements for products from you to your friends -
> and they never reveal this to you.

Wow, really? That sounds to me just downright illegal.

~~~
cryptoz
Their legal defence would be that the word 'related' between the 'like'
endorsement and the new 'content' creates a separation such that one wouldn't
confuse the two. Hopefully a judge would then make it clear that the practice
is intended to deceive, and is in fact illegal. That would be nice.

Any time you have ever 'liked' anything on Facebook is a time that Facebook
interprets that you like the entire organization behind the piece. So if you
like The Washington Post, a day later, or 8 years later, Facebook will put
your name and photo by an article that you've never seen and say that you like
The Washington Post with a big news article, picture, author, etc, that you've
never seen.

It is certainly intended to make the user's friends think that this content is
endorsed by you, to get your clicks and attention and ad dollars. It certainly
should be illegal. They've been doing it for years though, so it seems that
this kind of thing is the new normal.

------
gh1
Is there a way to enjoy all the advantages of the fb stack while preventing
this breach of privacy? Would love to know how if someone has ideas.

~~~
newscracker
One can only minimize the privacy related ill effects, not eliminate them
completely. To start with, see my recommendations on using Facebook from a
browser (and never an app) in another comment on this post. [1]

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14395789](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14395789)

~~~
SaintSal
The issue with technical interventions is that you're still allowing FB to
collect information on you via other means via their TOS. I haven't read the
latest TOS but at the time I did, they could trade your data with your bank
because you've allowed that.

------
aesthetics1
I'm off of it and I could not be happier about the decision. Concerns about
privacy aside, I realized how much time I was wasting scrolling through ads
and news stories instead of photos and thoughts from friends and relatives. I
didn't mind the Facebook of old where the content was mostly interesting to
me, but today it is mostly full of ads, memes, fake news, and clickbait.

~~~
Kequc
Facebook started to get worse after the first 3 or 4 major privacy calamities.
When nobody left Facebook must have figured, well, great to heck with it then.
Because beyond that point they just started straight up selling data.

People stayed on.

I needed an account again after nearly 8 years, just for one (very) important
group I needed to take part in temporarily. Not only did Facebook somehow know
who I used to know (and had absolutely no interest in speaking to) but every
time someone visited my page it would tell me. That wasn't a feature that was
there a long time ago.

Doesn't it bother anybody there, when they visit someone's page the fact you
did that shows up for them? Isn't that exceedingly creepy? I think it is.
Terribly creepy. It also one day knew I met someone the day before on the
street, as their face showed up as a recommendation.

That is way too much info.

------
chrischen
Facebook's business model counts on erosion of privacy. This means their whole
purpose of being is to constantly erode privacy as this means higher revenue
for them.

This puts us at a dangerous trajectory as long as Facebook is allowed to grow
its business unchecked.

------
Xoros
I mainly use FB as an RSS reader for the bands I like (because they obviously
not having feeds). It saves me time for not having to go on each websites to
check the news section.

And not in my main web browser. For obvious privacy reasons.

Despite that, no need.

------
amadeusw
If I delete my Facebook account but keep using WhatsApp, do I limit amount of
collected data? Is this a viable strategy or do I need to remove WhatsApp as
well?

~~~
slowmovintarget
As a related article mentions, if you use any Facebook-connected application
in the 14-day working-really-hard-on-that-deleting-thing period, then Facebook
cancels the account deletion process.

Given that Facebook owns WhatsApp, you're likely to face the same problems
down the road, if they aren't already doing those things the article has a
problem with.

...

Yeah, so here's a blurb from the WhatsApp ToS:

 _Third-Party Services. When you use third-party services that are integrated
with our Services, they may receive information about what you share with
them. For example, if you use a data backup service integrated with our
Services (such as iCloud or Google Drive), they will receive information about
what you share with them. If you interact with a third-party service linked
through our Services, you may be providing information directly to such third
party. Please note that when you use third-party services, their own terms and
privacy policies will govern your use of those services._

There's language similar to Facebook's that says if other people share
information about you to them... oh well.

~~~
amadeusw
The ToS is a good find, thanks! Perhaps I'll need to stop using WhatsApp for
the 14 days, plus a few more days for a good measure.

------
trojanh
I just wish I could convince more people to stop using Facebook , I have
started disliking it from last few years.

------
MikeVanBike
Facebook is bad platform to layout your social life... I hope people
understand to get out of it asap.

------
jwhitlark
If you think it, don't say it.

If you say it, don't write it down.

If you write it, don't sign it.

If you sign it, don't be surprised.

------
NotUsingLinux
Ethereum and Dapps build on top, like uport will fix many of the FB problems.

------
hammock
@dang Why remove the (2017 Update) from submitted title, yet not add (2015)?

------
samirillian
How is this post not higher on HN? It's got 500 points at 14 hours.

~~~
SaintSal
I'm the guy who wrote that post - My guess is the front page might block urls
that have been posted before. This post finds its way to HN every 6-12 months
as a fresh post.

Still, it's really nice that it still gets attention from the HN community,
and even nicer that each time, the discussion is more productive and
inquisitive.

------
known
Use FB anonymously

~~~
newscracker
It's possible to be pseudo-anonymous to a good extent, but full anonymity from
FB while having a network of close friends, relatives and colleagues and
interacting with them is not possible. Many people who use FB share their
entire contacts/address book with it (this includes names, phone numbers,
email addresses, etc.). FB can use that information easily to figure out who
you may be, collect and correlate information and target ads for you.

------
bioreactor
Will try for sure

------
wrycoder
What's Facebook?

------
wchurchill
I'm having a ridiculously hard time finding archived versions of FB's previous
ToS, privacy, and data policies. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Disclaimer: I'm trying to avoid going to facebook[.]com directly because I'm a
paranoid ninny.

