man, this felt so good

 Yesterday I deactivated my Facebook account. Instagram will probably be next. When asked for a reason I stated that this company lacked integrity. Understatement.

I know addiction

 I try to check Facebook only once a day, Instagram once every three days or so. All sorts of male creeps try to follow me on Instagram and I am so, so sick of it. Email is bad enough, but at least there is a bit of privacy, or so we hope. I too believe that FB has done a lot of good, but does it outweigh the bad? I will watch The Social Dilemma again before I make a decision. I had heard about this documentary for months and yes, I am about ready to pull the Facebook plug. Watch this on Netflix, it is astounding. Very glad I never hooked up with Twitter.

I keep threatening

I really am tired of Facebook and I have considered dropping out often.
A few of my right wing relatives make me crazy and I am tempted to
destroy them with a few nasty words. But then I find a cool something
or other, such as the above, and I start up again and I'm still there. But
Facebook is a huge time waster, all in all.

one reason to love Facebook

I used to work with Sue Riddle at Borders and she posted this
exquisite piece on Facebook. From the top left: Justin with his
BIG earrings and leather teddy bear, me reading and dozing,
Valerie the romantic, and Andi with his tattoos and two cats.
Such talent. She dedicated it to Shauna who provided us with
dozens and tons of different xmas cookies every year and I
especially miss the peanut butter ones with chocolate topping.
Oh, and Shauna appreciated my addiction to Peeps and
spoiled me constantly with that treat.

Actually I have a few problems with Facebook that I won't go
into here. But for sharing something as wonderful as this,
who can not appreciate it?

something borrowed, something spilled

I don't really "do" Facebook anymore, but this morning I was
able to steal this ironic photo from a friend of a friend. It's
just your basic British Petroleum gas station with a tsk-tsk sign.

from this morning's chronny

Benny Evangelista,Alejandro Martinez-Cabrera, Chronicle Staff Writers

Friday, May 14, 2010

Josh Levy, a longtime advocate of the power of social media, is having a crisis of faith.

Last week, Levy created a site seeking 10,000 people to pledge to quit Facebook with him to protest the social network's most recent privacy changes.

Only 100 people have pledged so far. For individuals like Levy - who has worked with several social media startups and commented extensively on Web topics - it's not easy letting go. But someone, he said, has to send a message.

Levy represents a small but growing undercurrent of dissatisfaction over Facebook's march toward turning the Internet into one giant social network, a plan that relies on its members publicly sharing what they read, think, eat, watch, listen to, like and dislike.

"What Facebook is doing is not acceptable, and its attitude is too cavalier," Levy said. "I don't want to go back to the horse and buggy days. But I want modernity to be fair."

Analysts say the undercurrent is not yet strong enough to impact the Palo Alto social-networking king, which has more than 400 million active members.

In fact, Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the site has added 10 million members since April 21, when the company touched off the latest round of privacy concerns at its developer conference in San Francisco.

But anti-Facebook sentiment is surfacing in highly visible places, from the halls of Congress to the blogs and podcasts of influential technology experts like Leo Laporte of Petaluma.

"It seems to me that ultimately their goal is to funnel all Internet traffic through Facebook.com," said Laporte, who deleted his Facebook profile during a recent podcast and donated money to Diaspora, a project to create a more open and private alternative to Facebook.

Ended his account

Laporte was inspired to put an end to his Facebook account by a recent blog post by Jason Calacanis, chief executive officer of Mahalo, a question-and-answer Web site. He accused Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg of trading users' privacy for profit.

"Facebook is officially 'out,' as in uncool, amongst partners, parents and pundits all coming to the realization that Zuckerberg and his company are - simply put - not trustworthy," Calacanis wrote on his personal Web site.

Facebook convened a staff meeting Thursday to discuss the backlash, although some staff members described it as a routine gathering.

"We have an open culture, and it should come as no surprise that we're providing a forum for employees to ask questions on a topic that has received a lot of outside interest," Noyes said.

Since its inception in 2004, Facebook has evolved from a collection of private networks of college friends to an Internet juggernaut with more than 400 million users.

But privacy advocates criticize the company for exposing its customers - via public information posted on their Facebook profiles - to unwanted risks, from identity theft to workplace embarrassment.

Earlier this month, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and 14 other privacy and consumer organizations filed a complaint against Facebook with the Federal Trade Commission, accusing the popular social network of "unfair and deceptive trade practices" and violating users' expectations of privacy and consumer protection laws.

And last month, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked the FTC to develop guidelines instructing social networks on how private information can be used.

All of this comes in the wake of the company's launch of a new "open" social platform designed to bring Facebook features, such as its Like button, to other Web sites, and an experimental Instant Personalization feature that gives certain Web sites the ability to access a member's name, profile picture, sex and network of friends. The company also launched community pages that made topics in a member's profile more public.

Facebook defends changes

In interviews, Facebook officials have repeatedly said the majority of their members are benefiting from the innovations, which are meant to cater to the evolving sharing habits of the community. Indeed, Web sites that have partnered with Facebook, like CNN, have reported increases in traffic.

But critics say the process of hiding personal information is overly cumbersome. And minor security breaches in Facebook's chat program have only added to the criticism.

Still, social media analysts say Facebook remains far from reaching the tipping point where it would start to lose members, especially with no comparable alternative for consumers. But the company does have a brewing public relations problem that could get worse if doesn't act.

"Are people really going to leave Facebook and go back to e-mail as a primary source of sharing online? I don't think so," said Augie Ray, a senior analyst for Forrester Research Inc., a technology research firm. "Facebook will not suffer irreparable harm from continuing to offer Instant Personalization, but they will make their job of earning consumer trust more difficult."

Explain the social benefits

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst with San Mateo consulting firm Altimeter Group, said Facebook needs to take steps to better explain the benefits of an open social Web. And that's compounded by Facebook constantly revising its privacy policy.

"It seems like they didn't think things through," Owyang said. "They keep on doing it and pushing customers along whether they like it or not. They're going too fast, and consumers aren't educated about what's private and what's public."

The changes have already pushed several angry users to kill their accounts. On Twitter, hundreds of tweets proudly announced the deactivation - in some cases, the more drastic permanent deletion - of their Facebook profiles.

A user called JCollinsLambert tweeted: "I deactivated my #facebook account last week; will delete soon unless privacy policies change drastically."

who would have thought?

The blogmaid shamed, cajoled and dragged me into joining Facebook®
and now I am here to say thanks and I will quickly list what the
benefits have been for me:
1) finding old friends and acquaintances
2) keeping up (or not) with peoples' lives
3) information ~ yesterday I asked for book suggestions and I received
enough to keep me reading for several months
4) communication ~ on Wednesday one of our museum co-workers
was in a car accident and by nightfall we all knew she was OK,
via Facebook
5) photos and more photos

There is an alumni group for all of the folks who used to work at
the big box and of course it is HUGE and varied. What a pleasure.