Quit Facebook Day

May 31st is Quit Facebook Day. Will you?

In response to Facebook’s constantly loosening privacy policy, many users – over 22,500 as of today – have pledged to give up Facebook forever. Many dismiss their concerns as mere paranoia, but the fact is that posting personal information on the Internet – especially when you can’t trust a company to keep it personal – is dangerous.

I do not have a Facebook. I never have, and I don’t expect that I ever will. I refuse to subject my identity to the whims of Facebook’s executives. And with the 31st approaching, it’s refreshing to see others taking a stand too.

Here are a few reasons I refuse to get a Facebook, and why you should join the thousands of others quitting this Monday.

Obviously, the privacy policies.

This link details how Facebook’s infamous regulations have changed over the years. Here’s what the privacy policy started out as:

"No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings."

Sounds legit. But here’s the latest development:

"When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. ... The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” ... Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.”

Now that, to me, sounds a little sketchy. Basically, they've dumped all responsibility for the safety of your information back on you. Obviously you should be careful about what you post to begin with, but the fact that Facebook has been gradually loosening standards is unsettling. Users join the site with the belief that their information will be guarded, but since Facebook can change its privacy policy whenever it wants to, more and more information is becoming viewable to the public and to third parties. And that's unsettling, to say the least.

Today Facebook reversed a few of the more controversial issues, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized, sort of, for upsetting users. But it's a little late for that, buddy.

Information availability.

When you post something on Facebook, it’s out there for good. 100% stealable if someone has enough motivation to get it. Everything stays on their servers, even if you delete it.

Maybe you were smart and took care not to give Facebook any personal details when you signed up. But you’ll still be easy enough to track down:

• Your friends will probably call you by your real name.
• Your friends will wish you happy birthday. (Some studies have concluded that all someone needs to extrapolate your Social Security number is your birthday and birthplace.)
• It’s easy enough to guess where you live from where most of your friends live.
• When you create an event, you’re revealing where you’ll be, when you’ll be there, and when your house will be nice and empty.

“But there are privacy settings,” you say. “Nobody’s going to see that stuff. It’s totally safe!”

Well... not really.

Creeper employees.

Facebook employees can – whether they’re technically allowed to or not – easily access people’s profiles, even if they’re set to private.

I won’t try to summarize it all here, but some things that go on behind closed doors are scary. Like, Big Brother scary. This article is an interview with a Facebook employee divulging a number of company (and personal) secrets. Please read it - it's a bit of an eyeopener.

And finally, if the above isn't enough to bother you, Facebook ≠ social life.

Someone I know constantly tries to pressure me into getting a Facebook, evidently thinking that it’s an absolute necessity in order to have any semblance of a social life. Now, granted, I’m not the most outgoing social butterfly to begin with: I enjoy and always have enjoyed being by myself, so maybe I’m not an expert in the area. But I don’t buy that.

Sitting in front of a computer not constitute a social life. Nor does commenting on someone’s status or photo imply a significant relationship. It’s also a bit lazy - do you really need a website to tell you what your friends are up to? Why don’t you just ask them yourselves? It would probably lead to much more meaningful conversations, and it wouldn’t be such a colossal waste of time. (Think about it – how long do you spend flipping through your friends’ pages without actually doing anything? I already spend too much time on the Internet. I don’t need another website trying to addict me.)

If I want to hang out with my friends, I’d much rather actually hang out than exchange comments online.

Think about what Facebook means for you personally. Do you really need one? Are you comfortable with what you’re putting out there for others to find? Is it worth the risks?

Visit www.quitfacebook.com. Sign the pledge to delete your Facebook and get back your privacy.

UPDATE: A good lesson from the JournoList scandal: nothing you put on the Internet is private.