I’ve been wary of Facebook’s privacy settings for a long time. I set mine to the most restrictive possible back when they announced Beacon. Since then they’ve released new features on a regular basis, each of which seems to share information about me without my knowledge or permission. You know what, Facebook? Fuck that.
I even disabled the most recent feature–“instant personalization”, which allowed third party websites to read my information on page load. Yet my friends can still, according to FB, share my info with any third party. Name, picture, gender, city, friend list, pages, and more. I have to explicitly block each and every app that wants my data. I don’t even know how many there are! That “recommend” button? Gives the app access to your data and permission to publish to your feed indefinitely.
Even with instant personalization disabled, CNN.com shows my friends and their profile images on the main page, merged with what CNN stories they liked recently. That’s too much for me.
I didn’t want to leave. I’ll miss keeping in touch with distant friends, especially those who aren’t computer experts. I loved looking through photos, too. But I downloaded all the stuff I cared about, wiped my profile clean, and deactivated the account. Just can’t trust these guys.
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