On the decline of the internet

[coldlikedeath]

hannelore_k waxes thus:

Facebook has destroyed the internet as we knew it.

Context says “that’s all I wrote, and it’s bloody true.”

Comments

[greenlily]

I don't know. I'd argue that Facebook makes it easier for people who would like to use the Internet for purely social purposes, to do that while leaving a better signal-to-noise ratio for the rest of us in the informational zones.

[littlebluedog]

Eyup.

[ordinaryfool]

Plus, I don't think anyone is forced to have a Facebook account if he or she doesn't want one....

[erunion]

I wish that were true. My friends were so troubled about my lack of a facebook that they went and made one for me. Why? Because I was apparently a social recluse - just because I didn't have one.

I would be surprised if my experience here were common, but it really didn't help my opinion of facebook.

[arseaboutface]

Sounds like your friends are the problem in this instance, not Facebook.

[erunion]

I believe the point is that it is not the case that if one doesn't want a Facebook, one need not have one. One has one by virtue of public events and pictures.

[arseaboutface]

But that's not what you said. You said your friends created a Facebook profile for you, which I'm sure is against the TOS, even though you didn't want one. I will certainly agree that Facebook has questionable practices and is changing and has changed the internet quite a bit, and I'll agree that it's nigh impossible to keep one's life off of the internet even if one doesn't post anything oneself, but in this particular example, I would lay the blame firmly at the feet of your friends.

[erunion]

I said that it is not the case that one who doesn't want a Facebook account, one need not have one, which is counter to the comment above that not anyone is forced to have an account. This idea cannot be the case.

But, along the lines of what you're thinking, and as a way of explaining how this went down, there's problems even within the bounds of the TOS. A while back, (and I don't know if this is the case. I hope they have fixed it.) If you were to tag someone in a photo who, you thought, does not have a facebook account, you would be asked to link it to am email account. If you chose to do so, the person would be sent an email asking them to join, etc., etc. But the minute you link a name and an email... you'd created an account for someone. Unless you were to join facebook, you could not untag those photos. The damage was done.

And that's how I ended up with a facebook account. It took forever to delete too.

Now, I believe you don't have to link tags to emails. But then, a person is now unaware if she or he is being tagged.

[arseaboutface]

That is super bizarre. I don't remember being asked to provide an email address when I was tagging people or objects ("my stupid car," for instance). Creepy.

[subluxate]

So my email was hacked recently (IP for the hack traces back to Russia). I got it back, as the hacker did not change my password, and then checked it.

And the first thing I saw is that I had, apparently, created a Facebook account.

Now, as I hate Facebook with a burning passion, I went to see what I could do about getting it removed as a false account. It technically is; I did not create it, and I did not have the password, and fuck Facebook anyway.

They want government ID scanned in and sent to confirm things.

So. You know. FUCK Facebook.

(I'm going to reset the password, since, again, tied to my email and delete it then, but it should not be that difficult.)

[lissa_quon]

There is a way to delete it without all the faffing about. Let me see if I can find it again, it was a link thing.

[lissa_quon]

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account -- not sure how this works, hell this may be the way you already tried. I've never deleted my account but hope this helps you.

[kenderbard]

I've heard of this happening before. I've talked to people and mentioned my friends don't have facebook and folks act like I'm speaking insanity. "Everyone has a facebook," they'll say. "My friends don't," I protest. "Yes they do," they say.

[siriusly_lupin]

I had a former friend threaten multiple times to make a Facebook for me if I didn't get one already. I basically had to tell her in no uncertain terms that I would be furious with her if she ever took it upon herself to do such thing, and she dropped it. (We're not friends anymore for unrelated reasons, but her trying to force me to do something I didn't want to do is pretty indicative of the kind of person she was.)

I just don't get why people think making (or threatening to make) an account for you that you don't want is an okay thing to do. I know the problem was with my friend and not Facebook, but I agree with you - it didn't help my opinion of Facebook. At all.

[rimspace]

Technically true, yes. But take the example of my wife: she has a facebook account, even though she utterly hates the system, simply because it's the only way she can keep in touch with friends who are half way around the world. They don't reply to email (and several of them admit to only looking at their email in time frames measured in months anyway,) trying to organise phone or skype calls is an organisational nightmare, and while some know about things like IRC and various chat networks, very few are actively on them: they just use facebook as their primary, if not sole, means of electronic communication.

[karihan]

I only really RAAARRR about Faceschnook when formerly beloved sites look at how big FB has gotten and say, "WE should be more like THAT!"

PLEASE GOD NO.