The final straw

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I finally deleted my Facebook account. Not that I really used it ever, except as a glorified address book and source of birthday reminders. I have been increasingly annoyed at their encroachments on privacy, and the last straw was today when I logged in (to deny a couple friend requests from people I don't know) and was confronted with another change to profile settings. Apparently, you are now required to link any information on your profile (particularly education, work, and interests) to their Facebook pages. If you don't, then you can't fill in anything and you have a blank profile. Which is bullshit, because I don't mind telling people that The Princess Bride is my favorite movie, but I don't think I should be OBLIGATED to link to its Facebook page on my profile. So, goodbye, Facebook. I probably won't miss you.

Also, unsettling news. Our president lost his election this week, which means that we're getting a new overlord. Who may want to clear out the old staff and replace them with his people. No one really knows what's happening or when, but I'm updating my resume. The most likely scenario seems to be that I'll keep my job, but my boss will be replaced, which is still somewhat worrisome.

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

UGH. Facebook. :-/

And I read "our president" and my first thought was "Obama?"

[next_to_normal]

Yes, Obama. Breaking news, guys. You heard it here first. :)

No, actually, I work for a union, and it's the union prez I meant.

[lostboy-lj.livejournal.com]

I got confused by the whole president thing, too. I was, like, "Obama isn't due to lose an election for another two years."

Of course, the repubs would still have to put up a candidate who isn't a 500-year old cyborg to beat him.

[brunettepet.livejournal.com]

Facebook is becoming more and more worrisome. I barely post there, but when I do it's ever more annoying.

Sorry the job front is worrisome. That's always a drag.

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Yeah, I'm actually a little surprised it took this long for me to give up on Facebook. I haven't used it since college, really.

I probably don't need to be too worried about the job, but just the spectre of potentially not having health care is scary.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I have such a complicated relationship with facebook. I barely log in, but it really is important for me to be on there because my friends use it as a way to say, "Hey, we want all 20 of us to get together; when can everyone do that?" And then we have long conversations about when/where to meet up. But that doesn't keep me from hating it more all the time and the profile links make me STABBY.

I thought "Obama," too! But I'm sorry about the job situation, and I hope you do get to keep your job.

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Haha, do you list your relationship with Facebook as "it's complicated" on Facebook? I don't have friends in groups of 20, lol, so email works just fine for me.

And thanks, I hope so, too!

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I should!

Well, I'm definitely not close to all twenty of those people, but it's a friends-of-friends thing. The groups sometimes end up being that large.

[lostboy-lj.livejournal.com]

I saw the Facebook trainwreck coming from ten thousand miles away. Happily, I am one of approximately five humanoids on the planet Earth who have never had a Facebook page, and never will. The Final Five, they call us. The ones of whom The Prophecy foretold.

I turned down invite after invite, some of them even of the face-to-face variety, and never once wavered. It was just too horror-movie-like: "Oh but you must join the Facebook collective! Everything is so awesome and perfect and beautiful there." The next thing you know you are being pursued by bloodthirsty zombies down a dark alleyway, a harsh, staccato piano soundtrack roaring in your ears. You can't fool me Facebook. I know the score.

[silverusagi]

*waves* I am also a member of the Final Five! I wonder who the other three are...

[lostboy-lj.livejournal.com]

The Five Lights will o­nly be revealed to those who enter the Temple. Or to those who ignore the "spoilers" warnings.

[harsens-rob.livejournal.com]

Just to so you know, "Me, Me - I'm one of the five!" *wave*

Alas, my significant other (for the moment, but this isn't the time to get into THAT) has fallen prey (though I think it's just for the free games).

Sorry, Facebook, but you want to know too damned much about me - and then to share it with everyone else who's only purpose in existing is to bother me with their ads that I will NEVER EVER click. If I want to be assimilated, I'll join the Borg - at least they don't send out bills or SPAM and I'd get a really cool, personal forcefield.

[next_to_normal]

That's... yeah. Pretty accurate, actually.

Facebook started up when I was in college, and it was ONLY for college students, so they lured me in with rumors of privacy (no one outside your school can see your profile!) and the ability to cyber-stalk the cute boy in my French class - which, in retrospect, seem like rather contradictory features.

[lostboy-lj.livejournal.com]

Those Facebook bastards got my wife last October. There wasn't anything I could do it stop it. It was so horrible. The memory still haunts me to this day.

But I want you to know I did save her. Not when it counted, of course, but after that. Dozens of times, lots of different ways. Every night I save her.

[next_to_normal]

I'm so sorry for your loss.

[silverusagi]

Gah! What is with the linking thing? It's like everything is becoming a giant Wikipedia, where everything must connect in an endless web.

[next_to_normal]

OMG I don't even know! It's absurd, and I want it to stop.

[silverusagi]

I suppose it's to make things "easier." Like if someone has no idea what The Princess Bride is, they can just click and go right to that page!

[next_to_normal]

I'm fine with Google, thanks. I'm willing to make the extra effort.

[silverusagi]

But then you have to take the extra steps of *copying and pasting* and *opening a new tab*!

[next_to_normal]

Heh, I think I'll survive...

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Ugh. It pissed me off so much when Facebook did that! I had a total crack profile with nonsense stuff put in (Favorite movie? Joe Dirt and anything with Paris Hilton). But damned if I'm gonna link to Facebook's pages for that stuff. I had to clear it all out except for my quote (something from the lolcat bible).

I still have my Facebook, but I very rarely use it. It annoys me.

[next_to_normal]

Heh, how long ago did they change it? I only log in once a month or so, so this profile thing could be old news to everyone else.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

I don't remember. It was maybe a couple weeks ago? My memory sucks.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Good riddance. I loathe the thing. Like you, I use it as address book, but I use a fake name picture and birthday. It's just icky to be online without the anonymity.

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I had slowly been whittling down my profile anyway. In college, I didn't care, because only other college students could see it, so I used my real name and had lots of info on there. Once I graduated and potential employers could look up my Facebook profile, I deleted anything that could be inappropriate, lol, and it became more of a professional profile. But hey, that's what LinkedIn is for.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Oops! I hope the work stuff isn't too dire...

I thought FB backed off from that "automatically linked to.."? I took my schools and work off for awhile, but then checked the privacy options and made them the same as my other stuff - friends only. There's also a place you can get to through your account to tell them not to automatically link you anywhere, but it's been awhile so I can't remember exactly how it works.

[next_to_normal]

I don't know. I didn't bother to investigate it too much. I logged in, and it asked me if I wanted to link all the stuff in my profile. I said no, and it warned me that anything left not linked would be deleted from my profile. It didn't give me any option to tell it NOT to do that, so I said fuck it.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Apparently the guy who started/owns? whatever FB thinks the whole world should be linked together so as to encourage world peace or some such nonsense. The idea that we may want to be selective about what and who we're connected to just hasn't seemed to register. The more the merrier seems to be the feeling. I think Google or some other biggie is thinking along those same lines now. It's a concept - the more connected everyone is, the happier they'll be. Even if they don't think so....

[next_to_normal]

Haha, so Mark Zuckerberg is a techno-hippie? AWESOME. (And yeah, Google has done some egregious things, too - namely Buzz - but at least I've always been able to avoid it if I wanted to.)

I admit, I am very curious to see The Social Network when it comes out.

[deird1]

Good for you!


I keep my facebook purely for a couple of friends who have no other way to contact me.




(Funny thing: I had changed my status from "single" to nothing because I was sick of facebook shoving ads for dating websites at me.
Last week, changed it from nothing to "in a relationship" - and five minutes later, facebook was enthusiastically showing me ads for engagement rings.)

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Last week, changed it from nothing to "in a relationship" - and five minutes later, facebook was enthusiastically showing me ads for engagement rings.

This simultaneously amuses and horrifies me.

[ayinhara.livejournal.com]

We are on facebook because our daughter and her husband post pictures of the grandson there. I find it an annoying site. I post an occasional picture there but otherwise I avoid it.

[next_to_normal]

It is rather annoying. I spend more time worrying about my privacy and what idiot feature they've introduced that will violate it than I do actually using the site, so good riddance.

[dragonflylady77.livejournal.com]

I've made everything I have on FB friends only. And after reading an article (on FB!) about how they can follow you around on the internet I now log out every single time after I do something on there. I use it to keep in contact with a million people (ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit) and play Scrabble online with people in Europe.

You scared me with your president thing. Hope you find out what's what soon!!

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Yeah, I mean, if it were just a matter of adjusting the settings for my profile, that'd be one thing, but when Facebook actually prohibits me from doing things unless I allow links? That's where I draw the line.

[dragonflylady77.livejournal.com]

*agrees*