Filed under: Internet, Photo, Social Software, web 2.0
"Baby, please don't go!" Facebook laying it on thick when you deactivate
Like a desperate boyfriend who's just been given a one-way ticket to Splitsville by his girfriend, Facebook is going to do its best to win you back. Before you push the big red button and vaporize your account (but not your content, since Facebook can keep it locked up in the basement 'till the sun doesn't shine) they're giving your heartstrings a good, hard tug.
Yes, they've found another great way to put your friend's photos to good (and acceptable) use. They're going to guilt you into staying a member of the social networking goliath when you visit the deletion page. I enjoy the zinger Facebook includes, which reads: "Your [number] friends will no longer be able to keep in touch with you." [sad trombone] Yet further down the page, there's a great big list of opt-outs for you to peruse.
Why? "Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups." So wait...They can't keep in touch, but they can invite me to parties, post and tag pictures of those parties, and ask me to join groups that plan upcoming parties?
Man, that's really cutting the lines of communication.
I definitely wouldn't call this a "brilliant tactic" as Mashable's Jennifer Van Grove did. Of the pictures Facebook chose to display to me, I've only actually messaged two people and each of them only a single time. There are other users I've interacted with a heck of a lot more and would actually give a rat's ass. These three? Nothing against them, but they probably wouldn't notice my account missing.
Maybe this works better on more active users. Try it yourself - are the recommendations on point, or are they as off the mark as a Geroge W. Bush anecdote?
[via Switched]
Get a WordPress.com Blog
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
216 said 9:47AM on 7-27-2009
"So wait...They can't keep in touch, but they can invite me to parties, post and tag pictures of those parties, and ask me to join groups that plan upcoming parties"
Yea I used to like FB, but I got tired of it a long time ago. I'd close my account but i hate the fact that people can STILL tag you in photos (without your consent/permission).
Reply
Richard Brooks said 10:01AM on 7-27-2009
If you don't want people to tag you, you should unfriend them.
If you don't want your content accessible, delete your images OR block everyone but you from viewing them with a privacy setting.
You can get the job done by doing this stuff manually; however, it is upsetting that these operations arent carried out automatically when you close the account.
216 said 1:42PM on 7-27-2009
o i already have it set that no one can view photos that are tagged of me. But yea the people who usually tag me in pics are my actual friends lol not random fb adds.
Eric Shapiro said 12:25PM on 8-07-2009
No, your friends can't tag you if you don't want that to happen. I'm on FB but set up my privacy info such that I can't be tagged at all on photos anywhere in FB.
I got mis-tagged twice by different folks within my FB network, but I appeared nowhere in those photos and the people in the photos looked nothing like me -- one of them was because the real person has the same first name and a last name that puts him alphabetically right next to my name in that person's FB network, and he was careless when he clicked on the other person's name next to mine with his mouse; the other mis-tagger apparently had a senior moment and thought my name went with someone else's face -- and after I alerted both mis-taggers, the tags were corrected.
After the second mis-tag, I came across an article somewhere online that explained how to permanently block such tagging on FB which alerted me to the possibility. Later I lost that article but I looked at my privacy controls and figured out how to do it, and went ahead and did it.
Rocketboy said 10:27AM on 7-27-2009
It's funny, because it's a GWB blooper right?
So, we should be seeing Obama blooper reals in Download squad posts sometime soon?
How about this rib tickler, how we needed to pass the stimulus bill right away to save jobs, due to it's immediate effect.
But now we'll need to wait 2-3 years for it to actually do anything, because that was the plan all along.
What a knee-slapper.
Reply
Generic said 11:38AM on 7-27-2009
I see your wisdom.
Actually I don't. What does your comment have to do with 'facebook' the social networking site.
Butters said 1:10PM on 7-27-2009
What does this have to do with the article? Just because the author mentions a former president doesn't mean you can turn this into a republican versus democrat political debate.
Leave your hatred at the front page.
Rocketboy said 1:25PM on 7-27-2009
Generic... My point exactly. What was the point of putting poltics in a facebook post?
Butters...
"or are they as off the mark as a Geroge W. Bush anecdote?"
(Complete with youtube link)
I'm not the one who started the politics.
I just pointed out the pointless politics ALREADY IN the post. You know, the anti-republician slant already inserted into the post.
Or maybe it's only ok when someone doesn't like a republician?
(Full disclosure, I'm registered unaffiliated, I don't deal with party politics)
Lee Mathews said 1:30PM on 7-27-2009
Anti-republican? No, he's just phenomenally bad at telling anecdotes. It's a fact. He's proven it many times. He can't do it.
It has nothing to do with politics.
Coffee said 11:26AM on 7-27-2009
47 Friends?
Reply
Generic said 11:37AM on 7-27-2009
LOL!
OK OK, not everyone is on facebook as much as everybody else.
Saint Seminole said 1:36PM on 7-27-2009
Before I left Facebook in 2008, I meticulously deleted every post I'd ever made on anyone else's "wall" or pictures or anything else. Then I waited a week. I went back to find even older posts showing up, and I deleted those. I removed myself from every group, fan club, game, app, that I'd ever used (not that many, fortunately). I deleted everything that others had posted on *my* stuff, and waited another week, to make sure nothing would show up again, and removed *all* my friends, and changed my privacy settings to *no one* could find me.
So when I deactivated my account, all Facebook could say is: "Are you sure?" And since I was sure, I ended it.
Reply
Gav said 3:16PM on 7-27-2009
I just clicked it and seeing as I'm only tagged in a few photographs, it came up with the friends who I was tagged with.
Reply
Niels van Dijk said 3:57AM on 7-28-2009
Thanks Downloadsquad! I'm facebook clean.
Reply