Facebook’s data mining may be able to predict whether you’re going to break up. And it may be giving your names to advertisers in violation of its own privacy policy. And it may have let any of your friends spy on your chats. But estimates that some 60 percent of you are “considering” (what a weak term) leaving the site over privacy concerns is a stupid indicator of how many of you will actually ditch the site. And my guess is: About 1 percent of you. Maybe.
Am I wrong? Are you so up in arms over your privacy that you’re going to leave a social networking service that you’ve voluntarily provided with all your personal details and secrets? Were you think upset when major cities started setting up video cameras on street corners?
Prove me wrong. If you’re actually quitting Facebook on Quit Facebook Day (May 31)– that means deleting your account, not just refusing to sign in again — then post a link to your profile below, and I’ll check back on June 1 to see if it still exists. If it does, you’re buying me a steak, faker.
Jeff R
Even if it’s true that 12,444 people are going to quit (that’s what the counter shows right now), that is a tiny fraction of the number of new users that join Facebook every day. They are gaining more than 10 million new users per month.
drums
I never got a facebook, even though my friends badgered me for five years, because I could see all kinds of security/privacy issues like this coming from a mile away. What are you gonna buy me?
manny
i have a facebook acct… so what… don’t put pertinent information on there… you can also use this safe app that screens your privacy settings… of which i use but have absolutely no affiliation … http://www.reclaimprivavy.org
so if 10 million people quit facebook that leaves 490 million that don’t give a squat… i say keep up with friends… stir the memories and have fun… don’t put your address, phone, employer, etc… not cool… how about people start taking back a thing we used to call personal responsibility!
Jake the libertarian
I have to say, if you are in the closet or cheating on your partner and you say so on Facebook but set your privacy settings so your partner/friends can’t see your steamy cheating letters or “interested in” status… you are a fucking moron who is dying to get caught.
If you don’t want people to know who you are interested in… check “no answer”. Hell that’s what I check and I am not even closeted… I just don’t need to be defined by my gayness.
If you know me well, you already know everything on my Facebook page. If I am not public about something, the last place I put that information is on my Facebook page. Privacy starts and ends with me… i.e. don’t publicize private shit.
Brandon H
Its a moral issue, not really a practical one. Of course you shouldn’t put anything compromising on the internet, but can you stop your friend from tagging you in pictures THEY post? Not so much. Add to that just the general shaddyness of Mark Zukerberg’s attitude toward privacy, and I just don’t see any point in patronizing this company anymore.
Analogy: I could go to the bakery that kicks out homo’s holding hands just so long as i keep quiet and never touch my boyfriend when i’m in there, but I shouldn’t have to. Same idea.
My life doesn’t revolve around farmville, mafia wars, and “i was so drunk last night” status updates so I just deleted (not deactivate) my account. If anyone needs me I have an email addy and a google profile, they don’t need to know what i am up to. But it’s ya’lls privacy to do with what you want.
I can see if you use facebook for business it might be good to keep it though.
Sam
I can see if people had to pay, but it’s free. Don’t like it, go someplace else.
10042010
It’s bullshit. 90% of them won’t quit Facebook.
onCloud9
what´s a facebook?
Ryan
I wonder if the Ethiopians are concerned about Facebook’s irrelevant policies…
Hmmmm….Good thing we’ve all got so much time on our hands to create and join digital protest groups to b**ch about sh*t we won’t remember in 5 years…
Don’t worry starving marvins of the world! We’ve got this catastrophe under control! Go Team U.S.A.!
manny
@manny: obviously by the thumbs down indications you pansies don’t wanna be responsible for yourselves… wah… grow up and get over it… pull up your big girl panties and take care of yourself…
Mr.Jones
Wouldn’t it be nice if people, and especially gay men, connected in real life like man has done for thousands of years, rather than try to do everything online? I mean, for a change, make friends, and not virtually.
Aaron
@Mr.Jones: With rare exceptions, today’s kiddies are almosy complletely unable to communicate face to face. They are helpless without their cell phones and cannot go more than a few minutes without texting. I worked recently in a high school and I know this to be fact. These kids rate very poorly as far as face to face communication is concerned. They simply never learned how! And they don’t care to learn.
Fitz
I closed my account two weeks ago– but I never used FB for cruising, more of for staying in touch with college roommates and 2nd cousins. It’s not a big loss from my life. The people whom I cared about, and who care about me, have my #.
Z.L.
I had a Facebook account once upon a time. I couldn’t understand why people love FB so damned much. The GUI is awkward and clunky, the content is mostly boring and why the fuck does anybody want to put up with a service that changes site policy every time they change their underwear?
I wasn’t impressed with FB, so I deleted my account after about two months and haven’t been back.
Greg
LOLZ… quit facebook day… that’s a joke.
Ryan
Just the idea that there’s a “day” to quit is hilarious. If you’re mad, just quit already! Why wait?
fbloss
As many have already indicated, the assumption of this article is that EVERYONE on the planet has a Facebook account, which they do NOT. My partner and I have Facebook accounts much associated with peer pressure, again as some other posters here have indicated. Once this latest news broke, i tried to investigate the privacy settings in my Facebook account and did, indeed, find them totally voluminous and confusing. Purposefully on the part of Facebook? Or do the Facebook people themselves really not know what they are doing? In any case, we have NOT deleted our accounts but HAVE deactivated them. Like so many other attitudes of all-or-nothing, the author of this article doesn’t acknowledge the possibility of any middle ground. Bah.
Rob
Like Drums and other users, I don’t even have a Facebook account. Never had a MySpace either. I only just started using Twitter, and rather infrequently. Social networking isn’t my thing; if someone wants to talk, they can call or email me. They want to show me pictures from their latest family trip, I don’t really care. Even if she was joking, Betty White said it perfectly: Facebook is a huge waste of time.
DillonS
And the point of this article was?
Does Queerty even know why it is even online anymore?
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Once upon a time I did the MySpace thing….. A crazed ex-lover who I left 3,000 miles away found me, moved to my town and began a maniacal campaign to “get us back together”. Once you put your shit on the internets its out there for everyone to see. A well qualified friend I know couldn’t land a job and couldn’t figure out why. He asked the HR person at one the jobs he did n’t get and was told they subscribe to a site that has archived every profile on virtually every social networking site since Friendster. So if you think by no one will ever see the picture of you and Mr.Bong bonding by deleting it you are sadly mistaken……..Be ascared. be very ascared of the social networking sites……
Nyc08
@PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS: I doubt that such site exists. It would violate all sorts of laws.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
@Nyc08: I have no knowledge of the actual service of what it entials only what he was told. He did have lots of compromising pictures on one of his pages, which he deleted prior to engaging in his job search. I am 100% certain there are ways to mirror info from any site and store it. Either thru nefarious methods or who is to say these sites don’t have undisclosed business arrangments to offer data blocks that are actually legal? How often do you read every word of the T&Cs before clicking “I accept”???
jeffree
Betty White was right: Facebook is a waste of time–well at least for me. i had a page early on related 2 my business but found a better place 2 connect specific to that field. Deleted the FB page mostly because of other people trying to “network” w / me who didnt have much to offer in return — like would I donate services for free to organization ABC in exchange for nothing?
No -+sorry+- i wont –and didnt.
BTW, any survey that asks people to predict what theyre going to do is faulty : people say they will do X but more often end up doing NADA or Y!
if Facebook works for you & is worth the risks, great. that is a choice only u can make!
Jason
I have made everything except my name only visible by me. I currently am looking for work and after doing my in depth research on my name, email etc; started doing everything I could to make myself invisible on the net. I don’t want anything out there that I don’t completely control. I love political discourse but regardless if your liberal or conservative you might find a hiring manager on the opposite side of your views that could take issue. Secondly, your personal life should never be on display in a forum as public as the internet.
ossurworld
They won’t let me quit.