Well, TV now is not relevant as it used to be, since we get our content other ways. Maybe Facebook needs to go the way of the TV, and fast.
They sell your data to scammers, they helped sway an election, now they want a picture of your face. What wil it take for you to recognize the EVIL in FB? 
I think that everyone in this thread recognises the evil in FB. The problem is the other 2 billions people.
Let us face it: because of FB (and google) market dominance, there is no chance that they will curb their activities any soon. There is no chance that they would suddenly lose enough users to matter. They is no chance that they would lose more users than the new recruits they get everyday. They will plateau, eventually, but that still keeps them in a position of quasi-monopoly.
The only option to curb their activity is the legislative. China essentially prohibited Facebook. Russia managed to stay out of their influence. Europe is taking small steps (far too small, I am afraid). Legislation is the only way to curb corporation and monopolies.
But in the case of FB and google, I don’t see appropriate legislation coming. I am not even sure that “appropriate legislation” is even possible or what form it could take.
Once and again we face the same problems. Legislation doesn’t fix anything – the people need to fix it. Do you really want a state that will ban Facebook? It would be close to authoritarian – and would be grounds to banning BoingBoing, because, why not?
You say that everyone in this thread recognizes the evil, but sometimes there’s a kind of resignation, of acceptance, that makes me feel like maybe they don’t recognize it fully.
We can make small changes in our day to day life, more powerful than we recognize. This is a consumerist society. By not consuming you send the most powerful message you can send.
So, let’s stop using Facebook and let’s make an example for our friends and family. It might not seem much, but every little thing counts, and it’s better than just yielding because “eh, people are stupid”.
People ARE NOT stupid. It’s just that most of the time, the powers-that-be go out of their way to prevent people from thinking, IMHO.
/rant
“There is a segment of our users who are consistently using our product every single day, but they are unsatisfied with some of our business practices. Our priority should be to immediately get busy and change things to make them happier.”
— No corporation, ever.
I don’t want that. But what I would be much more afraid of is a state that would use Facebook for its own purposes.
Yeah, OK.
Well. . . while I have a FB account, I rarely log in, and I’m always considering deleting it. I don’t really need to get updates from people I haven’t seen in 20 years about their kids I’ve never even met. So if FB wants to close my account, fine.
You can live without Facebook, just like you can live without the internet, running water and electricity. That might sound ridiculous, but the internet is still mostly a “First World” issue-- if you can’t live without FB then how are you going to survive a power outage that lasts a month or more, like Puerto Rico just had?
I make it a point to not spend my leisure time in countries run by dictators. Your preferences might differ of course – but I daresay in that case having a facebook account may be quite low on your list of concerns.
I block facebook.com at the router to stop all those fetches of the Facebook logo to prevent tracking me even if I don’t have an account.
Pareidoloop 2.0, anyone?
I once tried to make an account with facebook to talk to an absent friend, and the system demanded a photo of some ID to verify that I was a real person.
That is way too much information about me. And now they want “clear photos” for what is certainly nefarious, profit-based reasons?
Fuck that noise.
But you can’t draw a red face with transparent ink.
When I got my Creality CR-10 3D printer, I very reluctantly signed up for Facebook, as that was where the CR-10 forum was located.
That was months ago. Recently, all of a sudden, Facebook will not let me sign in. They are demanding a cell phone number as part of the login process, with no alternative. They use it to send a text message containing a confirmation number. What does a cell phone have to do with a web site? Couldn’t they send that number to an email address?
I refuse to give just anyone my number. I have enough problems with my home phone receiving unsolicited calls, without having the same problem with my cell phone.
And what about those of us who either don’t have a cell phone or have a flip phone that doesn’t receive text messages? Way to go, Facebook. Your so-called ‘security’ procedures may make sense to you, but not to the rest of the world.
Mike
Interesting. They keep asking me for my cellphone number (to 'improve securityh") but I can ignore it. How can giving them more information to lose improve my security? Frankly, since I use my primitive flip-phone very rarely, one of the reasons that I am reluctant to the number to people is that it is a terrible way to contact me.
[citation needed].
Actually you’re right; it’s email for idiots with the added feature that it seems to increase depression in a lot of its users.
It could have been legitimately useful and convenient.
Now imagine what would have happened when the telephone system first started up if AT&T had announced that it would be funded by advertisers who would call you at random throughout the day to make sales pitches, and that you would receive lots of political calls based on how you voted at the last election.
When I was at a wedding I told some of my family members that I wouldn’t go on facebook because of mental health reasons, and they still won’t give me any other way to contact them.
You don’t need a Facebook account to absorb your day and spoonfeed you shit news and shit ads. But as others have said, you do need a Facebook account to participate in some forums and other online platforms, so having a fake account is valuable. Facebook is increasingly becoming like a social security number. It’s intended to help you pay your social security taxes and that it. It’s not supposed to be used as a Federal ID, but try doing anything online without one. I’m sure it’s possible, but it’s not easy, and you’ll still be locked out of some services.
I deleted all of my photos showing my face from FB years ago, turned off face tagging and asked people not to upload photos of me. As if facebook’s face.com aquisition was some way to improve user experience. They’re selling your facial data to the government. Just wait - the TSA will suddenly lax their airport security lines as airport cameras match your face as you walk through the doors to a government dossier on who you are built from your data trail and those of your friends over the last decade. People of interest will be pulled into the airport security office for screening
And of course, theyll sell it to industrial stalking big data companies too, so adverts can follow you everywhere you go in public, calling out your name and showing you crap you googled last week,
