I'm finally free of the shackles of Facebook's enslavement upon me!!

Discussion in 'privacy problems' started by DesuMaiden, Jul 18, 2013.

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  1. DesuMaiden

    DesuMaiden Registered Member

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    I was a compulsive facebook user from Feb 2008 to about 1 month ago. I've created two accounts with my real name and email.

    And I used Facebook several hours a day, everyday. I pretty much spent all of my time on facebook (Perhaps 10 hours or more every day?), so god knows how big of a profile Facebook has already built on me. Facebook has been a huge waste of time. It made it very difficult for me to get work done. Also I always felt jealous all the time because of all of the wonderful photos my friends uploaded onto facebook. Glamorizing their lives and making my life look like crap. But in actuality, those photos are an extremely biased glimpse of their lives, because they only show their lives greatest moments. I've had very glamorous and epic moments in my life. But I choose to not post them on Facebook, because my family members told me that for privacy reasons you should refrain from publicly posting any personal info on Facebook and never post pictures of yourself on it. Not that it really matters because everything you do on Facebook is being used to data mine and build a profile of everything you do.

    I'm finally free of the shackles of Facebook's enslavement upon me!!

    But during the past month, I've been gradually using facebook less and less. I was on facebook earlier today, but I quickly left.

    The main reasons I'm no longer using Facebook is because:

    1) Facebook wants to destroy any form of anonymity/privacy on the internet. Without privacy and anonymity, you are very unsafe on the internet because anyone can easily search you up and possibly do harm to you.

    2) Facebook makes me jealous of other people. Since I now realize that Facebook users tend to be narcisstic show-offs who post every ~Phrase removed~ moment of their lives to appear glamorous, I don't feel jealous of them anymore, because I'm an introverted and secluded guy who happens to love expressing myself just as much as them. Except I like doing it anonymously which is why I am posting on this site with Tor. :)

    3) Facebook is a waste of time and you cannot develop intellectually on that intellectual waste land. All you do is waste your time browsing your friends pictures and profile status. All the while Big Brother is stalking you.


    When I'm anonymously reading and posting, I tend to learn alot more. During the past 8 months of posting on Wilderssecurity Forum, I learned so much about the ever-growing police state we live under. That's probably the main reason I tried to slowly leave Facebook.

    I would like to maintain my privacy and I don't like it when the government is trying to snoop in every minute aspect of my life. I'm still trying to remove the conditioning facebook has inflicted upon me. Facebook has convinced me that you should reveal every minute detail of your life for everyone to see. This nonchant attitude towards privacy is unethical as it can make people extremely narcissistic, shallow and superficial. I think all Facebook does is breed superficiality. All people on facebook care about is showing off their girl friends, vacation photos and whatnot. I am a deep and intellectual person. I like to express myself but in an anonymous and intellectually savory manner. Like what I'm doing right now.

    Anyways I hope this makes sense to everyone on Wilderssecurity. I don't use Facebook anymore because it is (in summary):

    a) a waste of time

    b) too privacy invasive and destroys my anonymity on the internet. Both of which I cherish. I think this is the main reason I don't use it anymore. I still waste plenty of time posting on 4chan and other anonymous sites anonymously, but I would rather be wastin my time posting anonymously than under the disgusting privacy invasion of Facebook.

    c) i don't want to become a superficial and narcisstic individual like all of my former "friends" on facebook.

    In summary, from now on, I'm going to spend all of my time on the internet anonymously posting my thoughts. Trying my best to avoid the evil police state survellience of the Utah Data Center.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 18, 2013
  2. dogbite

    dogbite Registered Member

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    Point #2 is the key of their success, I believe.
     
  3. TairikuOkami

    TairikuOkami Registered Member

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    You need some serious help and blaming FB is not really helping to solve your real problem. It is nothing to be ashamed of, even I have some addiction problems.
     
  4. Techwiz

    Techwiz Registered Member

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    I haven't deactivated my account, but I haven't signed in now for several months. Facebook has been one of the few connections I have to distance family and friends, but I needed to give it up. Hiding content spamming my news feed, denying and accept request, etc. was becoming a full-time job. Not to mention all the political nonsense being recirculated had me mildly depressed, frustrated, and quite frankly it was making me very cynical. Since then, I've cut out social media and news for the most part. The only articles I follow now are technology and science related. This has been a liberating experience, considering I have no idea half the time what any of my friends are blabbing on about. Hopefully your experience away from social media proves equally beneficial. On a side note, I'm not advocating people to quite social media. If that is something you wish to do, then by all means continue.
     
  5. 0strodamus

    0strodamus Registered Member

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    Congratulations on taking steps towards removing yourself from an unhealthy situation. :thumb:

    I don't think that FB causes people to become extremely narcissistic, shallow and superficial. They already are that way and this is what has caused FB to attain such immense popularity.
     
  6. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

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    It's not only all that. The majority of fb user's who aren't constantly typing like mad to get the jump on the next news feed load order, resort to what amounts to SPAMMING. That is grabbing on to those myriad newsfeeds that serve up all sorts of one paragraph sayings with a cartoon photo or two, and they click SHARE filling their own fb page with endless columns of pure junk.

    Talk about wasting bandwidth.
     
  7. HAN

    HAN Registered Member

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    Congrats on walking away from FB!!

    I am so grateful I was able to see it for the mess that I firmly believe it was (and is.)

    I never joined. And I never will...
     
  8. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Me too! I never joined the Borg. Hoping they don't hunt me down. And one day maybe the populous will rip out their implants. :D
     
  9. DesuMaiden

    DesuMaiden Registered Member

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    You are lucky. The only reason I joined was because all of my peers, acquaintances and friends were joining. I never talk with any of them anymore, since I don't want to be influenced by their nonchalant attitude towards anonymity/privacy.

    They've been brainwashed into believing that it is perfectly ok for the government to know about every minute detail of their life. All under the false premise of "if you got nothing to hide, then you shouldn't require privacy"". The problem is EVERYONE has something to hide and the government has no right to strip its citizens of their rights to privacy and monitor and surveillance every thing they do.

    The government is probably using the Utah Data Center's panopticon surveillance to monitor and gather data on anyone's political dissenting political views. If you have any political views that slightly deviate from the state's, then they will monitor you and put you on a read list. Once they see you as a big enough treat the establishment, they'll arrest you. Bring you to a prison in the middle-of-nowhere. And detain you definitely for your thought crimes.

    When **** hits the fan, Big Brother will start doing that! Anyone on their red-list for having dissenting political views will eventually get rounded up and thrown in jail, when the parasitic elites' interests are endanger.
     
  10. pajenn

    pajenn Registered Member

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    facebook has it's uses imo. either (1) use a non-real name/info to stream events on facebooks, take advantage of facebook giveaways, and other things like that, and/or (2) use your real name/info to strategically stay connected with friends, hook up with people, etc. but just do it with no assumption of privacy and keep it professional enough that if a potential employer checked you out on FB it wouldn't hurt you.
     
  11. dantz

    dantz Registered Member

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    Congratulations on escaping from Facebook! However, I would like to suggest that maybe there is farther to go and you haven't actually escaped all the way yet. I'm referring, of course, to the entire online world which has captured so many of us. Spending less time online and more time out there "doing things" without the use of a computer, tablet, smartphone or other online device is a pretty neat way to go. I recommend it.
     
  12. DesuMaiden

    DesuMaiden Registered Member

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    Good point. I only have one facebook account. I use to use my real name and email on it. But I changed it a fake last name (my first name is still real) and a sock email account. Facebook does have its uses. I just wouldn't be posting any personal info publicly on it (like the schools i've attended, my city of residence, where I was born, my birthday and etc).
     
  13. guest

    guest Guest

    Don't have a facebook account or even been on facebook or what's that other one tweeter or twister, whatever, never been on it either and don't care to be on it either, have filters and blockers set up to stop any invasion into my web browsing that works 99% of the time and just ignore the rest, still working on getting rid of the last 1%:cautious:
     
  14. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Facebook, Twitter & MySpace are merging!

    The new company will be named MyTwitFace. :argh:
     
  15. Nebulus

    Nebulus Registered Member

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    When you are using Facebook, you must be aware of two things: 1) what Facebook itself finds out about you and 2) what your friends are finding about you.
    In the first case, if you used your real name and email (or if you posted other details about you), it doesn't matter if you change them or delete them now. Facebook already knows the old one, and they can still be included in your profile.
    In the second case, changing your details might work, especially for the newly added friends, who won't know the old details.

    So, to sum it up: changing your details after you gave the real one will not protect you from Facebook profiling, but it might limit your exposure among your Facebook friends. Because of this, IMO, the change has very limited advantages.
     
  16. pajenn

    pajenn Registered Member

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    I'd keep your real last name, if for no other reason just so no one can create a fake account with your actual name to troll you (happens a lot to famous people, but there's also a story here on Wilders where it happened to member). Just keep the real account clean and professional.

    For example, I have my real account with real info I rarely use, and then a fake account I use to watch UFC prelims and sign-up for software giveaways. I use a fake account for those simply because I don't like the idea of Facebook or anyone else tallying all my likes and habits in a database - just seems kind of creepy and voyeuristic.
     
  17. chrisretusn

    chrisretusn Registered Member

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    Good for you ComputersRock! That said, I agree with pajenn, at least keep the account. Of course that is your call and keeping the account my temp you back. ;)

    I have an account, on my real name too. I use it only occasionally and then only to see what my friends are up to with an occasion comment or three. When I say friends it means people I know who happen to also be on Facebook, my kids (Main reason I got the account in the first place.), relatives and a few classmates I stay in touch with. All in all, 42 of them. i do not accept or send Friend Request from/to people I do not know. I don't play games, in fact I have Apps turned off.
     
  18. DesuMaiden

    DesuMaiden Registered Member

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    Then I'll limit my facebook usage by as as much as possible. That way facebook can build as little of a profile on me as possible.
     
  19. DesuMaiden

    DesuMaiden Registered Member

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    I like your suggestion. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll follow it.
     
  20. sdmod

    sdmod Shadow Defender Expert

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    Congratulations on getting rid of Facebook.
    It can be quite a task getting rid of an addiction to this invasive data farm.

    Although it can be quite an emotional experience removing photos of relatives and loved ones, you are really giving those people the respect that they deserve by unhooking them from (your part of) this insideous, persisistant, onslaught which could severely damage their privacy and security permanently and have a detrimental effect on their lives in a real way.

    If you choose to leave you should

    Take some time to carefully think about how you are going to extricate yourself from this mess without leaving usable data behind which could expose you, your family and friends to further intrusion into privacy and security.

    Untag all photos (quite a task), change your email address to a throwaway one, delete the old one.

    Remove all photos (Don't forget the one on your profile)

    Change your profile to nonsense

    Manually delete all posts (Takes ages)

    When you've cleaned up and untagged remove all "friends".

    Ask all friends who have tagged you on their pages to untag you

    Important Do some research on how to leave Facebook and close the account completely


    Very Important Facebook will keep your data unless you explicitly close and delete the account. If you just close it they will keep your data in case you might change your mind and want to come back. Do not go to any Facebook link for some time after in case you are re-hooked.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2013
  21. Tarnak

    Tarnak Registered Member

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    I have registered with Facebook, but I never login. ;)
     
  22. Mman79

    Mman79 Registered Member

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    Good news: You discovered what more are finding out, that Facebook has very little benefit in the long run even for corporations.

    Bad news: Your data was sold to 3rd parties a long time ago, so Facebook still having it doesn't mean squat.

    I had a family member (against my advice) recently begin the sign up process but never finished it. No big deal right? Came to her senses, no issue from there on out.....wrong. Without doing anything else, she daily gets emails from them not only asking her to confirm and set up her account, but she's also getting emails from them suggesting she "friend" her old high school classmates and others. Everyone she knows now and used to know, if they are on Facebook, Facebook is asking her to friend and "poke" them. I'm not entirely sure how they pull that off, but it's insanity. What's worse is I've watched her "unsubscribe" and the emails keep coming.
     
  23. FreddyFreeloader

    FreddyFreeloader Registered Member

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    Best use of Facebook is for extended families to keep in touch and up to date, by sharing news, photos, gossip, etc.
    I use it for the news feed, which can be set up to your particular political interests.
    I never use accurate personal details in the set up application, or in the profile.
     
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2013
  24. noone_particular

    noone_particular Registered Member

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    After seeing how all this has evolved over the last few years, I am glad that I never bothered with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or any of the other social networks. When it comes to data mining people, I'm not sure which is worse, Google or these social networks. I've blocked my PC from connecting to the IP ranges of all of them.

    IMO, Facebook perverts the meaning of the word "friend". I wish I could convince a family member to stop accepting "friend" invitations from people they don't know and will most likely never meet. For a lot of people, the number of "friends" they have is like a game score, or a perverted way of convincing themselves that they're popular. Judging by what I've seen posted on friends accounts, I prefer the company of my cat.
     
  25. SweX

    SweX Registered Member

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    One can do that by E-mail too :)
     
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