I posted this link via Twitter 
earlier, both to share and as a reminder to come back to discuss the article. First my dislikes: what I dislike about this as journalism is it lacks any specific facts to support the notion that there is an “exodus” from Facebook. Any online service, with tens of millions of users, will have people leaving – and joining in droves. And just like “this one time, at band camp”, everyone has a story about a friend who left, or “almost left” or “is gonna leave”.
But that said, I’m adding myself to the list of former Facebookers. (is that a word?) My real world friend (and Facebook “friend”) Paul Gero asked “why?” on my profile page and I shared this:
It’s a great tool, but I have a growing concern about how user information is being mined and stored. ….but for how I’m using the tools (for now) Twitter is easier to mange. I struggle with the Facebook UI.…
So first and foremost, this is a move prompted by personal preference, not political statement. I’ve been on the net since the early 1990′s and my personal data is strewn and stored in countless servers. To suddenly be concerned about my personal information on the net is much like closing the barn doors after the animals have all left. Yes, I do have concerns that as more and more new and inexperienced programmers have access to the API’s and other tools Facebook and other sites provide developers, the greater chance there is for malicious use, but it’s a reasonable risk in the evolution of this kind of collaborative tool.
But returning to preferences, let me describe how I see Facebook. Facebook is a digital version of your refrigerator door. A central location to store and share your photos, important notes, reminders, and updates. IE: “Mom, I went next door to play with Billy.” Or “Joey, I’m working late tonight, dinner is in the oven and clean your room.”
And like your kitchen, which is the hub of main conversations, so, too, is Facebook. The difference is on Facebook, your refrigerator door and your kitchen table conversations are potentially shared with the world.
In the early days of “homepages” the choice of publishing was to self-host on a owned or rented server, or to host with a service like Geocities, AOL, Yahoo and others. In today’s world, for my preference, I still like self-hosting. I use WordPress, a handfull of gadgets and widgets and plugins, but still have slightly more control over my online “profile” than if I surrender that control to sites like Amazon, GoodReads, Facebook, Linked In and others. While I use or have used some of those, in the end, I still prefer the control of my profile. The NY Times article includes this insightful quote:
“The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us,” Harmsen explained by indignant e-mail. “It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.”
