Why I'm quitting Facebook

Posted by Roy Hooper Wed, 12 May 2010 03:05:57 GMT

Quitting Facebook is all the rage right now. I appear to have hopped on a bandwagon unintentionally by initiating the deletion of my Facebook account.

I joined Facebook late, in March 2008, primarily because I needed to understand the basics of Facebook app development for work. I did spend a little bit of time exploring the social graph component and other aspects relevant to my employer, but beyond that I rarely used it other than to accept or reject friends.

I was a little curious to explore a bit as it was the first time/place online I'd run into so many non-technical people from my past in an online situation.

So why should I shut down my account given I use it so little?

Here's my reasons:

  • I've always been wary about Facebook, and have been on the verge of deleting my account since mid 2009 when Facebook was found to violate canadian privacy law.
  • Given facebook's increasing privacy problems, I just don't feel comfortable allowing them to continue to share any of my data (including my social graph).
  • Their ever expanding public sphere bothers me. A lot.
  • Very few people use Facebook to do anything but add me as a friend.
  • I'm becoming more and more concerned about maintaining my privacy in an online environment where privacy is seemingly scarce.
  • I work with the Facebook API regularly at work, and have a very good idea what information you can easily access.  It bothers me.

I was having doubts about whether or not I should let my deletion proceed, given it seems to have become trendy to delete (I don't like to be trendy)… Then something happened that helped me be sure I'd done the right thing:

Today at work, Facebook prompted a colleague to add a second email address. The popup correctly identified five possible past or present email addresses of his.  No incorrect addresses were suggested.  Some of the email addresses suggested were over 5 years old.

This kind of thing makes me nervous in the hands of any company.

Farewell, Facebook.

Anyone who wishes to contact me may do so by email, SMS, telephone, IM, selected private IRC channels, or one MOO.