Today is May 31st, and not only does that mean that it’s Memorial day, but it also means that it’s Facebook quitting day. Because of Facebook’s recent attack on privacy, many today have opted to exodus from Facebook onto other social networks, or maybe just back to real life.
Sure there are many alternatives to Facebook, but is all this really necessary? In no way am I siding with Facebook on this as their practices have been seemingly unethical in the past, but I think I have a better solution: STOP POSTING SHIT ONLINE THAT YOU WOULDN’T WANT THE WORLD TO SEE!
I have seen some really messed up things on Facebook, and some of these things I wish that I could un-see. Anything you post online potentially could be seen by anyone at all, but some people don’t realize that. Sure, you could set everything to private, but that’s not going to cut it in many cases. Next time you post something, think before you do so. Oh, and you might also want to stay offline while you’re intoxicated.
Yes, Facebook can see everything you post, and all of its partner sites can see this too, (like Pandora, and Yelp) but this shouldn’t bother you at all if you aren’t posting things that you wouldn’t want the world to see. I keep everything on my Facebook account private just out of principal, and I don’t post anything that I think could jeopardize me. It’s really that simple people.
Everything Facebook is doing is just an experiment, and you can opt out of any of this at any time. Here are a few tips for you to look at before you decide to leave.
1. Check your privacy settings. There you can set most aspects of your profile to friends only, or whatever you choose. Here you can also opt out of third party sites using your information.
2. Look over your friends list, and remove anyone you wouldn’t want to give out any private information to.
3. If you’re a total privacy freak then remove all of your interests from your profile. This way Facebook, and third party sites can’t target ads, and content to you.
That’s it. If that didn’t cut it for you then go ahead and “delete” your account (you can’t actually delete your account. Everything you had on your profile is stored by facebook and you can come back at any time).
In my opinion, social sharing is what Web 3.0 will be based on, and Facebook is leading us toward that. They might not be going about it in the best ways, but this is just a test and things could change for the better, or maybe even get worse.
So, are you still considering deleting your Facebook? Do you think that this whole privacy fiasco will blow over? Let me know in the comments.
