h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How addictive can a daft little game be?

Wot, like this? http://failbook.com/2010/05/27/funny-facebook-fails-farmville-anonymous/

RF

I'm not that bad!

I'm hooked on Kingdoms of Camelot and Nitrous Racer... it's only a game, right?

Of course. You can quit any time, you just don't want to right?

I quit, facebook that is. All the farm/mafia/etc. annoyances from others added to the rapid erosion of privacy was just too much for me.

I love how Facebook helps me keep in touch with friends and family, but the privacy issues do bother me. I'm going to wait it out for a bit, see how it goes, and if they still insist on knowing what I had for breakfast I'm off.

Yesterday I posted what I had for breakfast.

Mina is peckish and will have some toast. Life's so exciting...
Yesterday at 10:02

Was that wrong!?

Did you do it of your own free will or did you do it cos Facebook told you to?

Of course not. My problem was more about how FB specifically sells you to marketers. Especially troubling is how you have no control over who or what can access your information (including pictures you're in but didn't post... that whole tagging thing gets wrapped up in it.) Sure, you have a choice to block applications, but if anyone you've 'friended' accepts and uses that application, that application has as much access to your info as your friend does and you can't opt out of that. And the scary part is there are basically NO restrictions or oversight on who writes these apps or what they're actually doing. As long as they're writing small checks to Mark Zuckerberg, he's fine with it. Hell, he brags about how much he has made on very shaky marketing.

sorry, that was a reply to Mina's post.

I just make sure I only tell it what I'm happy for the world to know. I've always been like that online, took me nearly ten years to tell h2g2 what town I lived in!

Can't see why everyone thinks they can join a site *for* *free* and expect to give nothing in return. At least h2g2 kind of hints we should be writing entries.

It's really the sneakiness of FB that bothers me. It's insidious.

I really did enjoy some of the social aspects of FB, and I wish there was a viable substitute. But I'm very doubtful I'll get my RL friends to abandon it for any alternates.

I can deal with the adverts. Like Mina I'm picky about who gets to see my details and I'm not stupid enough to put my phone number etc on my profile page.

I've set up different levels of access for different people. The people who I am friends with just to get extra members in my team are all grouped with virtually no access to my RL details.

I could give it all up anytim... gotta go and check on my castle, back soon.

I just got rid of a load of people I never speak to. We might know each other from school, but you didn't bother keeping in touch then and you're not making much of an effort now so off you go!

I have heard of an alternative facebook thingie lately.

*fumble*

The Diaspora Project

http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/12/diaspora-open-facebook-project/

but I don't know whether it's viable.

Not yet. And, as I said, I'll never get my other friends to switch anyway. FaceBook is addicting.

*fingers flying across keyboard, mouse smoking slightly*
Take that villainous wretches!
Oh, sorry, this is H2G2. I don't have to kill anyone, sorry.
FB has brought members of my family back together after huge amounts of time, which has been good.

Also I can play games with younger nieces and nephews without having to put up with the profanity and all the minute details of who is going out with who and who hates who. I'm still in contact if needed but I can ignore the bulk of it.

There was that mother who just recently found her two kidnapped kids after 15 years through facebook.