A lot of people are deleting their facebook account, outraged by what some see as Facebook ruining civilization in cooperation with Cambridge Analytica.
I am currently involved in a number of efforts to sustain civilization that, for better or worse, are organized via Facebook. If I were to delete my facebook account now, it would stop my daily efforts, which are not inconsiderable, to move forward towards a fossil fuel free world, and to push the Republican Party off the edge of the planet. So I will not be doing this. Also, if you are an activist working in the areas I’m working, and you delete your account, I doubt I’ll be able to spend the effort compensating for your decision, nor will others, so keep that in mind.
But, with that disclaimer, I can see why people would want to do it. And, I will likely do it myself once I’ve migrated over to the alternative system.
Meanwhile, if you want to delete your Facebook account, read this over, and also read over the material in the link at the bottom, and plan it out.
First, back it up, downloading the contents, if you want. Facebook provides instructions here. Essentially, you go to the upside down pyramid triangle thingie in the upper right part of your page, go to Settings, then click “Download a copy of your Facebook data” and then “Start my Archive”
No, you cant decide to download a subset. All or nothing.
Then, to delete your Facebook account:
Go to the down arrow thingie again (upper right) and Settings.
Go to General Account Settings then to the category Apps.
On the App Settings page, “show all” the apps. There will be a lot of them.
Move your mouse over each app and use the X to remove them. Now, all those third party apps will not get messed up when they try to interact with you, or you with them, via Facebook.
Then, go to THIS LINK.
Then hit the kill switch, Delete My Account
You will be asked to supply your password, and possibly pass a capcha challenge.
There are some alternative routes you can take do to this. A good summary can be found here.
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Greg when you say “the alternative system” which do you mean please?
Just different ways of getting to the same result as per that post. Noting major.
You are implying that you have a Facebook replacement.
I think we should just let Putin take over. He is doing such a great ? job.
Probably MySpace…
😉
The best alternative is the one I use: no FB account. I saw this shite coming years ago and avoided ‘social media’ like the pox.
Very little sympathy for tech literates who did not do likewise.
BBD I don’t use faceboook, I got chucked off for using a pseudonym and false name email address, which was my way of limiting the info directy connected with my name although I knew it wasn’t ideal. There are people who I share interests with who I have lost contact with as a result that I would like to reconnect with, as well as friends and family who I am still in touch with, but don’t hear from a tenth as often becasue I am no longer on facebook. I only joined fb in the first place for these people who were migrating away from the specialist forums where I ‘met’ them.
I hear what you say, Jazzlet, but it’s a Faustian bargain and a price I was not prepared to pay. There’s still email, which is a good writing discipline (remember not so long ago when people could *only* write letters?) and the phone. Nobody needs a rolling update on my life nor I on theirs. Dispatches suffice. Friendships endured without this stuff until very recently. People have been fooled into believing they need the superfluous, which is the dark art of ‘good’ marketing.
You left out a key detail. It is just a request to delete your account.
If you log in again within the next x number of days, the request will be ignored.
No doubt Facebook will keep this info even after you request deletion.
They also have a large amount of data on you that you do not see.
Possibly even if you never sign up for them in the first place.
For example, if your friends store a phone number that you don’t give to FB, FB will keep this info in your shadow profile.
I think we should just let Putin take over. He is doing such a great ? job.
He would do Facebook counseling on how to delete your account.
Much of the motivation for FB to allow a complete removal of your profile comes from actions the European Union is taking against them. They are going to get hit hard on data security over there, and this is one way they’ve put out to try and minimize the penalty.
Don’t worry about the conspiracy mongers who say they won’t delete the data even if you tell them too — pulling a stunt like that would hurt them more financially than what they’d make by having the data. If you see “No doubt FB will keep this…” it is essentially a certainly that statement is a complete line of bullshit
Right, bulllshit
Yes’m, I think they could close Facebook and open another one named how to delete your Facebook account
Apparently US law provides for something like a $40,000 fine per specific instance of data breech.
It is said the number of data sets hacked is something like 50,000.
That’s about $2,000,000,000,000.
The US Government can just take all of the money from Facebook, liquidate all the assets. Then, they can use the money to build high energy solar plants and vast windmill farms, and upgrade the grid,and give everybody a heat pump and an electric car.
Yay!
I’ll believe they take it seriously when they penalize Equifax.
Boo! Sort of.
What about using heaps less.
So much is used by industry fabricating crap.
What about making energy valuable, psychologically, and with policy.
Wanna use heaps for useless shit? Pay through the nose.
If you got a factory making hang gliders or pop corn makers or elvis memorabilia or new radios that look 50
years old, get taxed to buggery.
If ya factory makes shovels, or fire rescue equipment, or bread, get taxed normal.
Wanna have some stupid gas heater outside? Pay through the fucking nose.
Just an idea.
Theres that much waste its not funny.
My jaw dropped when i first became aware of outdoor gas heaters.
Most fucking insane thing….
Uh, I think we should delete Facebook! Liquidate!
I think that is the best idea about . We could build great buildings.
Put windmills everywhere. They would be so purty blowing in the wind.
Or “The Tin Mushrooms of Nong” as they are known in this house. Agreed. Either put on a coat or go inside.
BBD:
Yeah, I don’t know about this sympathy stuff, but it feeds the generalized anger I’m already trying to quell which makes my life more difficult and then *that* pisses me off .
Textbook example of how feedback loops get started.
Free market fundamentalists were in such a rush to fling open the Internet doors to unregulated, mindless commercialization… “Who could have known?” So FB deletes your data. But once it’s out there, it’s out there, and there’s precious little you can do about it.
Like triumphal, free market fundies when the wall fell…”Who knew the rush to overfeed greedy, criminal oligarchs would have consequences?”
Like electing Trump, ohgawdhalpus…”Who knew healthcare (and everything else) was so complicated?”
Bunch of damned denialist premature ejaculaters…
I think FB is testing out bots to comment on posts about FB.
I’ve used Facebook for about five years. Like Greg, I value the contacts I maintain through it, and some of the causes I sustain thereby.
That said, I find it annoying to use, for several reasons. So far, the pluses outweigh the minuses. I don’t know whether my personal data have “leaked.” I don’t think so; but if they have, much good may they do whoever has them.
I refuse to enter the FB Matrix because I can, however I do have a relative who teaches who was ordered onto FB by admin. The idea being availability to students.
Personally, anything I want to do, I find I can do without “social media” (not including things like blogs, of course). Among other things, I see FB as a cheesy and unnecessary front end to the Internet, not to mention that it grows like a soul sucking version of kudzu.
Wow — I am stunned at that. All of the K-12 teachers I know (and I live near many, cycle with more) are explicitly told to NOT use FB or any social media to be in touch with students, and the same sort of message is given to faculty at my university.
I thought it a little odd myself. I’ll check and see if the policy still holds and if it was college-wide, departmental, or if there was some misunderstanding.
It is a little more understandable at a college/university, but it certainly isn’t something I’d be comfortable with.
So, while waiting for my relative to get back to me, I took a look at their Internet presence. It is a community college, and from what I saw, there is an emphasis on Community with a capital ‘C’.
Web design, and content is better curated than a lot I’ve seen. IT seems to be on top of things. And all in all, it was instructive given my somewhat outdated view of things.
First off, the transition between public FB and external web pages was seamless. I also noticed fairly heavy use of ColdFusion markup — which got me to speculating that they may somehow be using FB as part of a familiar interface for staff and faculty to a content management system.
In any case, among the things they curate are a series of FB groups related to (set up by?) the college. I also noticed that my relative’s phone and e-mail were already listed in an easily accessible directory. Being in a generous mood, I tend to think that the whole enterprise is carefully thought out, managed and monitored on activity relating to the forward facing parts.
The thing that makes me wonder is the machinations of FB. I think what Matt Taibbi said about Goldman Sachs applies to FaceBook as well. It is everywhere, “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
LiD: Re: Outdoor gas heaters. Well, there is one variation on that idea that is even more stupid and obnoxious…. the so called “fire pit”. Here in suburban/rural North America, idiots purchase a sheet metal saucer on legs called a “fire pit”, into which they put scraps of yard wood , start a fire, and then do their damnedest to heat up and pollute the North American air mass. When they are done intoxicating themselves and basking in the infrared glow of their stinking and inefficient blaze, they leave its poorly constructed fire to smolder into the wee hours of the morning, at which point those down wind are treated to awakening by wood smoke. My stupid Republican neighbor has one and uses it frequently on summer nights when the rest of us have our windows open enjoying the cool night air.
Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper way to tell your idiot neighbor that he is a fucking idiot? Thanks.
Hosepipe. But here in the UK, you are unlikely to get shot in reprisal for such a protest against selfish idiocy.
Yea, some Iranians hacked some library logins and downloaded lots of academic journals.
Similar to the guy at MIT who did it by accessing the router directly.
MikeN, do you lie about the Iranian hacking thing as a gut reflex or because you hate people who work hard on research and don’t care if their work is stolen or tampered with?
Also — since you clearly don’t have a clue what Swartz did your opinion that the two actions are the same is worthless.
You’re right, I misunderstood what the Iranians did, targeted professors directly and stole from their files.
I could probably get from the police car dome to the closet Schwartz used blindfolded.
Along with all of the concern about FB’s weak data protection policies it should be remembered that cell phone carriers (Verizon, ATT, etc) are far more irresponsible with your data than FB. If you look hard enough you can see how FB allows data to be shared: nothing like that with carriers — they often sell it. (Same for your local stores — the places you have the little keychain tags that get scanned when you check out.)
Also: the GDPR, the European Unions new data privacy policies, will go into place this spring (May 3 comes to mind), with huge penalties (well, until one is enacted, threat of huge penalties) on companies that do not adhere. The bill is broad, and applies to any company, based anywhere, that collects data on EU citizens while they are in the EU. But — even if the data is used in violation outside the EU, the company can be found responsible.
Comments coming from FB, Twitter, etc., are that they will use the same guidelines for their operations outside the EU, as that’s the easier approach. It will be interesting to see whether that happens.
No, given how clueless you have shown yourself to be about these issues, you could not.
I’m curious dean. Do you understand the difference between a “lie” and something you simply disagree with? You often accuse people of lying–not in this particular post but it was an easier place to respond–but mostly, if not always, they are simply giving their opinion as they see it. If they believe it to be true, it’s not a “lie” by definition. You use this tactic often. I just wonder if you see the failure in the use.
Quick interjection for Patrick W to consider on the subject of lieing.
Climate deniers have an opinion.
They also lie to others . And themselves.
Grotesque dishonesty overwhelming anything that might be termed opinion or perspective.
Bit like poms actually.
Lie about the contents of books they wrote or at least translated, to themselves and others.
Thou shall not steal.
Biggest mob of theiving pricks ever invented, the poms.
Patrick, you are missing lots of history. There are two things here.
a) The person has a long history of repeating things that aren’t true. That’s known because the false comments are made about issues in science, and are in direct contradiction to results that are well estsblished. The first time that might be a mistakez but continuing to make the same.statements, or denying that the results are actually known, constitutes dishonesty. The same is true about repeating claims about items in the news – denying the Nazi from the large rally tried to run his car into someone when then police, witnesses, and video show and say the opposite.
b) Continuing the behavior in every topic eventually means there is no reason to give the person the benefit of the doubt (the same way no reasonable person would trust Trump, or bannon, or pence, or any of the other Republican leadership)
There is a simple way to avoid being known as a liar, Nazi, white supremacists, …, or tone troll. Don’t be one.
@ Patrick
What dean said re lies. If you want to line up with MikeN, fine, but expect no sympathy from me either.
Love you too.
Patrick sounds like a RickA sock puppet.
dean,
Not missing much history. Read plenty to know you use that word when I don’t think it applies. And it’s not about tone so if your “tone troll” comment was aimed at me, consider it dismissed. Not to mention I find that label to be a stupid one anyway.
OA, I have commented before and I am no sock puppet.
BBD, as usual you make an assumption. I do not align with Mike or Rick or any other person you think is”wrong.” I just happen to think they actually believe in most occasions what they write, thus making them not “liars” by definition. You may disagree. They may be wrong. That doesn’t make what they write a lie.
Steady on old chap, I’ll be imagining you chewing corks if you go only like that.
BBD, Lionel A, anyone else.
Yeah, sorry about my bad use of present tense.
I just thought of it as an illistration of my point, and then i get a bit shitty whilst writing,
and then it reads really bad.
Im damn certain yous aint of the same lieing mentality as UK mob many decades ago.
Again, apologies.
Li D
Australia.
No worries 🙂
So, to be clear, after the falsehoods in someone’s comments have been pointed out, with reams of supporting evidence, and the person continues to repeat those falsehoods in dismissal of evidence, that isn’t dishonesty?
Good god, if stupidity that strong is remotely widespread it’s no wonder we still have people who think the moon landing was faked, that President Obama was not a citizen, vaccines are dangerous, and so on.
No, dean, to be clear, that’s not the case all the time. Or even most of the time you use that word.
And now I’m stupid?
Let me ask you dean, are you ever wrong? About anything? Or more to the point, is everyone who disagrees with you wrong by default? Because it seems that way.
Patrick W:
dean likes to call people liars.
He finds this easy to do, because all he has to do is say that he told them they were wrong and voila – if they don’t change their opinion, than they must be a liar (dishonest).
Of course, on a matter of opinion, telling someone their opinion is wrong doesn’t make their opinion wrong. But that is how dean rolls.
dean and BBD will call you stupid and a liar because that is what they do.
I don’t believe I have ever called anybody on this site a liar, because I cannot read minds.
dean and BBD think they can read minds.
So if you stay around and engage you just have to get use to the name calling.
I still enjoy the site and just ignore the name calling.
“Let me ask you dean, are you ever wrong?”
Yes I am, often, and I’ve admitted it here many times.
The thing about mikeN (and rickA, I see he’s nosed in) is that they will repeat “A” (about science, something in the news, whatever), have it pointed out by several people, multiple times, that it is factually false, and still continue asserting that their idea, A, is correct, while the scientists, or observations from film, camera, experience, statistics, etc., is wrong. That is why they are liars.
dean and BBD can read words, RickA.
Patrick, dean is projecting his own dishonesty onto others. He was calling me a liar and ignoring evidence about Charlottesville. He eventually agreed with my position, and dishonestly called me a liar for taking a different position.
I had two points about Charlottesville. One was that the killer did not drive his car into a crowd of protesters. The other is that he is innocent. Based on evidence provided by dean, I’ve moved somewhat towards his position on the latter, and would do so completely if the video evidence ends up matching the description provided in the media.
However, on the first point, my argument was that he did not drive his car into the crowd, but into another car that went into a van that went into the crowd. There was a crowd between his car and the back car, so the description is technically accurate, but that wasn’t my point. Dean kept calling me a liar and I provided video evidence that showed I was right. When I eventually got him to respond on this specific point is that his car hitting the crowd, he said no it isn’t and you are a liar for claiming otherwise.
So you can’t even relate honestly why you’ve been called a liar so many times. Astounding.
Actually, “called a liar” isn’t correct. “Shown to be a liar” is correct.
I never agreed with you. I specifically stated, with a link that your claim the nazi did not drive into the crowd was wrong.
MikeN still lying about the nazi murderer supposedly not driving into the crowd? Pretending that because he hit another car it somehow makes a difference? Unbelievable.
IIRC, MikeN tried to peddle the pernicious rightwing lie that the murderer was innocent and didn’t commit vehicular homicide. This particularly vile bit of rightwing mendacity got nailed yet here he is again trying to act as though he had a point? FFS.
Yup — his initial comment was that the guy was scared and being attacked by the people in the crowd and was simply trying to get away to safety.
As I said at the time, MikeN’s behaviour on that thread was irrevocably bad. It actually changed my view of him permanently.
Yes, I still see that as a possibility, but if the video is as described in the media, then he is guilty.
What people are not recognizing, even though I have posted it, is that there is video of his car being attacked, and it certainly looks like on that video that the car speeds up after the attack. It is somewhat contradictory to the evidence described in the media, but not conclusively so. It is possible the car was attacked because it was already in attack mode.
Vehicular homicide or some lesser charge is of course on the table. If he is guilty of first degree murder, then it doesn’t matter that his driving into a car into a van that drove into a crowd is described as driving into a crowd of protesters.
The point of my argument was not that he is innocent because he drove into the car into the van, but that describing him as driving into the crowd provides the wrong impression and would make people outraged if he were to be found innocent(on murder charge).
What a load of self-serving bollocks. You tried to peddle an egregious rightwing lie and got nailed for it. Now you’re trying to pretend that what you did wasn’t as appallingly shit-awful as it actually was.
No, you can check my original statements. I gave this reasoning from the beginning. I think you asked what difference does it make. I was more confident of his ‘innocence’ then than I am now, so I am not as bothered by the claim now.
It is worth noting that this is not supported by witnesses or the police.
Do you think the video is faked? I wouldn’t rule it out, but it should be noted the source posted the video in response to claims by conspiracy theorists that the attack was faked, so I doubt he would be editing things, especially in a way that helps the killer. Not some random guy either, but the former chief of staff to Tom Perriello. Not surprising the witnesses wouldn’t see it, since almost all the witnesses would have seen the attack and not been paying attention to a random car driving up hundreds of feet away. It’s not clear that the police were ever asked this question about the video. The lawyer was asking about things post arrest, killer’s attitude at that time.