Thursday, May 13, 2010

Why I no longer have a Facebook account

I deleted my Facebook account Sunday afternoon...which means I've been without FB for about 4 days and I have to say I don't miss it. It was great to stay in touch with family (since all of mine live on the other side of the country) and friends (since they are scattered all around the world) but there are other forms of communication. Remember e-mail? Yeah it's great because I don't have to limit my message to 140 characters and I know that it's not being intercepted and censored by a bunch of FB staff before it gets to my intended recipient. I also have this blog and a Twitter account. I love Twitter. It has its own pitfalls but I don't have to get constant updates about people's imaginary farms and mafia associations. It's concise and to the point and it is also a great way to promote my etsy shop. FB did next to nothing for my shop.

My main reason for leaving FB is their ridiculous privacy policy which is convoluted and ever changing. I have nothing to hide and I didn't have any info on FB that would be considered worthy of stealing or using but it's the principle of it that bothered me. I want my privacy options to be clear and I don't want some cloak and dagger policies that don't really tell me where my info is going. For instance, I know that my twitter posts are viewable by everyone. That's ok with me. I was informed of this up front and I chose to be ok with it. I realize that just by using the internet I am making my privacy vulnerable but I just don't like how FB was doing it and I'm super glad I'm no longer a part of it.

Anyway, if you want to inform yourself here are some great articles about the recent FB privacy issues

Facebook Privacy Policies - Longer than Constitution
Well, These New Zuckerberg IM's Won't Help Facebook's Privacy Problems
The Devolution of Facebook Privacy
Facebook Calls All-hands Meeting on Privacy for Thursday

No comments: