Why Facebook is Bad, Evil and whatever other negative descriptor you can think of

[Dave]

I’ve been ranting about Facebook almost ever since they came online. I’ve never had a good feeling about this company. These are reasons specific to Facebook as a service. It’s easy to say Facebook is bad for any of a number of user generated content reasons (certainly for how they handle that content) …but that is for another post.

Facebook is a closed community in a number of ways and encourages circles of “friends or networks” and discourages connections outside of certain “cliques”. There has always been issues with privacy.

They allow you to limit much of your content online – I’ve never been a proponent of limiting legal online content. Don’t post what you don’t want others to see.

I shudder every once in a while when I think about what it would be like to actually work in what seems like from the user experience, would be a big brother environment – probably the same at a bunch of large corporations though, especially online based ones.

We keep a facebook account (personal and business) and use it to promote this travel site – as Facebook along with a number of other online outlets is important for business promotion. We post the same updates on both the business and personal page – but never photos and rarely videos – we use the platform as its not intended to be used, rather our use is simply a transitory spot – an online board similar to Craigslist (but without selling anything), a wall for people who otherwise may not view our website to be directed to our posts. All posts we place on Facebook are directly linked to this site. That’s it.

Why do we want to give content to a third party provider without payment, that we have worked hard to create? However, we are perfectly happy to give them links back to our site.

For being a social networking site, Facebook is far from that. I can’t count the number of times they’ve locked the account b/c we have tried to connect with other people who have similar interests. And we are not talking about sending out hundreds of requests but very small amounts. And by discouraging these connections, is that really promoting social interaction and what social media is for? I think not.

And then they lock accounts for days but give you this message: “Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes.” You entire account is offline and if one tries to go to that account they just get a blank page.

Very confusing to use – they have subscribers, friends, likes – personal page, business page etc. Not to mention they keep changing user options and have hidden a number of important options – I always find it a major pain whenever I want to update some random detail on the profile.

Those who are pushing facebook popups on websites when you first visit your site – seem to be missing the concept entirely. Is your site pushing facebook or your own website!??

I created a personal account when FB started but I stopped using it – I really don’t care what people are doing every hour of the day. If its a friend or something personal I will contact them directly about something not post an update for all approved friends to see. It is an extension of the tabloid world which has never been of interest. It can be a very negative experience – especially how shallow much of the content is or reading posts that scream “look at me” – course in this case Facebook is providing the platform not the content. And that is a big distinction. However without one you don’t have the other.

There is a basic principle that goes back to the beginnings of the online world – don’t post what you don’t want others to see.

Other good reads:

Reasons to delete your Facebook Account
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-reasons-to-delete-your-facebook-account-2010-5

When you are desperate to make money and value money above all else these things happen:
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/26/tech/social-media/facebook-uproar

Why Facebook is Doomed. Nice!
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130917125221-8451-facebook-is-doomed?fb_action_ids=10151711978732955&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

Curious to hear your comments – add them here, good and bad!

[Jamessmith.0901]

I agree with the post’s concerns about Facebook’s privacy issues and its encouragement of users to limit their content and connections. It’s important for users to be aware of these issues and to think critically about their use of the platform.

[Author]

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