The Creepy Nature of Facebook
Recently, I made a difficult choice in my life. I might even call it a milestone though I haven’t decided yet. I deleted my Facebook account. Shocking, preposterous? Have I gone mad? Quite possibly, and for a variety of reasons, but deleting my Facebook account is not among one of them. It is indeed rather one of the more rational and sane decisions I have made in my life. It hasn’t been long now since I made that fateful choice, and the long term ramifications remain to be fully seen. I already have found myself on the outside circuit, shunned and disconnected. I am no longer able to attend events because I cannot click Yes under the RSVP invitation. I no longer know what’s cool anymore because I cannot “Like” it. Is Weezer still relevant? I have no idea now because I cannot read the posts and comment on them. I can’t sit fully engaged in front of my computer screen and browse the newsfeeds. Will I ever be able to live with myself not knowing if Tim is drinking a Tim Horton’s coffee while studying for his midterm? That rich fiend could be drinking Starbucks! I will never know anymore. Have I perhaps made a grave mistake? A serious lapse in judgment?
No.
You see, I came to the conclusion that Facebook was taking over my life. Not only was this happening for me and most of the people I know, but this is exactly what Facebook wants. Facebook wants to know everything about you. Have you ever stopped to consider why it is free? It’s because they don’t need to charge a monthly membership fee and risk losing users. They make money is a very different way. It isn’t free because Mark Zuckerberg cares about you. What that crafty little weasel does care about is what you are saying, why you are saying it, and to whom. This is how Facebook, a company that offers a free service, is currently worth more than 50 billion US. It is a data mine. What is a data mine? Well, everything that every user has ever said, liked, or posted remains buried away forever. It is never truly deleted. Facebook can then sift through this information. They then sell this information to advertisers who target products at specific groups. It’s called targeted advertising, and it is Facebook’s speciality. Facebook knows everything about you and unlike the government, which also knows everything about you, there are no laws currently in place to stop Facebook from using any of that information in whatever way they please. This concerns me. This worries me.
What finally solidified my decision to rid myself of this superficial and shallow service was after learning that Facebook had been following its users browsing activity even after they were logged out. That’s right. Facebook was able to track all of its user’s online activity even if they weren’t signed in to the service. I say was because they recently publicly admitted that they had had the ability to do this, and they released a statement shortly after saying that they were working on fixing the “bug”. For me, that crosses the line. Bug or not that is a serious invasion of privacy.
When I first got my Facebook account I thought it was a genuine, trustworthy way of staying in touch with friends and safe way of sharing information. I now feel that to be different. The illusion of the nice, free and safe service is tainted, gone. It may have been Facebook`s intention to provide a unique and viable service to its customers free of charge with no strings attached, but it certainly is not anymore. And I don`t blame Facebook entirely. There are of course other people looking to make money who will do anything they can to exploit a service like this to increase their bottom-line, even if that means going through our private data to learn about what we like so they can target products and ad’s to sell useless crap to us. Facebook is walking a tight rope right now. I don`t know about you, but I would rather people I don`t know not be able to sift through information and learn about my life without my consent. I jumped ship and I feel as though it was the right time. I am sure too that my friends will still be able to keep in touch with me. I will just send them an email. Unless...do people still use email anymore? I have no way of knowing now…