I’ve written before about the problems I have with Facebook, especially after I read through their privacy and terms of use. Well, as you might have read lately, there have been more changes to their privacy statement, and there has been a lot of backlash. And now, to top it all off, there is a group organizing a Quit Facebook Day to try to make the message loud and clear about the issues surrounding privacy on Facebook.
It has occurred to me, however, that the effort to quit Facebook should be a little more organized, and a little more thought out. Read on after the break for my suggestions for things we should do as we disable our Facebook accounts to make the point louder to other Facebook members, and to the owners of Facebook.
Right, so the steps that follow are the ones that I intend to follow. A few of these things may be a bit extreme for some people, so feel free to pick and choose from these suggestions. (And, yes, they are definitely suggestions).
- Goto the Quit Facebook Day fan page and “Like” it. Then write something on the wall. Nothing speaks louder than the irony of Facebook having a “Quit Facebook Day” page.
- Post a message on your wall that states that you are quitting Facebook on May 31st, and list the reasons why. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or long. You just want to communicate clearly that you are quitting Facebook and why you are doing it. If nothing else, you want to make certain that your “friends” know that you are leaving. In the best of scenarios, some of your friends might be inspired to join us. (At the end of this list is a draft of the message I am considering posting.
- You might want to message all your “friends” and let them know that you are leaving. Again, keep the statement simple and direct. (Again, the statement at the end of this list might be useful.)
- Remove any and all photographs you have uploaded to Facebook.
- Go through all photographs, posts, etc. you have been tagged in, and remove your tag.
- Edit your profile and remove all information that you no longer want to be visible on Facebook.
- Remove any wall posts that you don’t want to leave behind.
- Remove any widgets or applications from your profile.
- This one may be the most difficult (but it will definitely cause the most attention): un-friend everyone.
- And, of course, finally deactivate your Facebook account. And please, take a screen shot and post it someplace if it’s as amusing as the ReadWrite Web article.
Of course, you may not want to try to do all of these things on the Quit Facebook Day itself. Some of them may take some time (like sending out messages to your friends, or un-friending everyone), so you may want to plan to start a few days early.
Finally, here’s a draft of the message I am planning to post on my wall, and possibly send out to my Facebook “friends”.
Dear friends and fellow Facebook users. There has been much press recently regarding the Privacy Options that Facebook provides. I have put some thought into this issue, and have decided to join over 13,000 people that have dedicated themselves to pulling the plug on May 31st. During the next few days you may notice some changes in my profile as I clean things up, and I may even un-friend you as a result of this cleanup. Do not take this personally, I am still your friend, and can be contacted in any of these locations:
Website:
Email:
IM:
Of course, you put in the information that you want your friends to have, and decide if that information is something that you want posted on your wall.
I hope that you all have found these suggestions useful. Please, if you have any more suggestions or recommendations leave a comment.
The 10 Steps for Quit Facebook Day by The CerebralRift, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Hey Dylan,
Thanks for the comment. The reasoning you stated is precisely why this movement is happening. There are too many people that don’t care as much as they should. In order to make the general Facebook users realize there issue is important, a statement has to be made.
I’ve read today that 14,000 people are just a drop in the bucket compared to the 400 Million registered users on Facebook. True, but if the average participant has 200 friends, then there are 2.8 million combinations (approximately). That means that 14,000 people could make changes that would impact approximately 1 percent of the user base of Facebook. It’s not a huge impact, but it’s enough that it’s likely to get a “wtf” reaction from some people. And that’s a conservative estimate.
There are some other FB style systems out there — I’m considering setting one of them up now (I can completely control how much or how little information people supply in their profiles, and of course, since it’d be locally owned privacy can be maintained). I’ll let you know what I find when I play with it.
Diaspora is the one that is getting the most attention at the moment as it presents a whole different model for maintaining personal information, that definitely has promise in the long term. But, given that there isn’t a code base for it yet, I won’t be holding my breath.
The problem with leaving Facebook is that most people don’t really care that much. Admitedly, when I tell wifetype about it, she just rolls her eyes because it isn’t that important to her. And it seems like other people feel the same.
I’m waiting for that OSS version coming out, it looks like it has a lot of potential.
But, I guess, until Farmville shows up on other networks, it won’t matter.
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