Tag Archives: social media

Fack’s Facebook Facts 2

Mashable: Facebook Admits to as Many as 270 Million Fake/Clone Accounts

“The social network upped its estimate of the portion of fake accounts from 2 to 3 percent and the number of duplicates from 6 to 10 percent, Business Insider first reported.

That means that as many as 270 million of the platform’s 2.1-billion-strong user base could be fraudulent or duplicated — a population verging on the size of the United States.”

Pretty sure by the time I’d decided to bail I’d received Friend Requests from at least 1/3 of these. Some of ’em were hot, too.

Fack’s Facebook Facts 1

Business Insider: What It’s Really Like to Work At Facebook

Facebook employs 23,165 people, worldwide*

I thought as my countdown to dumping Facebook, I’d share some interesting facts. The two people interviewed in the attached article paint it as a great place to work and it was recently voted as such.

As someone who has always worked for really small firms (5 people) I’ve always kind of looked longingly at those who worked at large companies that offered perks like cafes, fitness centers, laundry service. But it also kind of oogeys me out. It seems sort of closed-society, Orwellian in nature. The more they can do to integrate you into the ‘company culture’ the more you are committed to (trapped by?) it. Perhaps I’m just getting too dystopian due to my bias.

I wonder, are you required to have a Facebook account if you work at Facebook? I mean, that would be the ultimate employee monitoring system, no? If you refuse, are you like that person in the office who doesn’t chip in to the ’employee birthday pool’?

Do you get busted for spending too much time on Facebook at work if you work at Facebook?

And is it mandatory to accept the Friend Request from creepy Uncle Zuck?

*As of Sept. 30, 2017 via Facebook’s Company Stats Page

Au Revoir, Facebook.

I’ve deactivated it for time periods before, but going full monty this time. Over the past few months I’ve pretty much jumped off all the social medias, including the Plus here, but have decided to gradually come back to some, in a more curated fashion. Found overall that spending less time in front of screens was a really beneficial exercise.

I’m still going to have some reservations about not having a Facebook account, things that kept me from deleting it before. A couple of Groups I was managing, and a few other things, but for the most part I won’t miss it. I’ve made arrangements to share photos with family via Flickr and I have been keeping in touch via more ‘conventional means’ like email, text, and old-fashioned voice phone.

I had hung on to Facebook for a long time primarily for Messenger, but I’ve learned you don’t have to have a Facebook account to use it. People from Facebook can still connect with you on it provided they have your phone number. It also works with Instagram – just learned this today – which I plan on keeping because I enjoy it quite a bit. Something about it being image-based, and there’s less politics and drama. I hate that they’ve started fucking with the timeline chronology, but, oh well.

Deleted my twitter account as well. Hadn’t used it as more than a link-reposting device in months and frankly, looking at it these days just bores me.

I think I will be dipping my toes back into Google+ some, though it will never be like the early days. Just poking around I very much dislike a lot of what’s been done with it, even in the short time I haven’t really been paying attention. It seems that it’s even harder now to find that genuine engagement that made it so exhilarating in the beginning. I find there’s too much being ‘pushed’ at me now, with suggestions, ‘things I might like’ or other upsells.

Collections, though good in theory, only works if everyone uses them, allowing you to opt out of portions of people’s content. Unfortunately I find most people don’t use them, or at least the ones I wish did, don’t.

So my Facebook goes dark 14 (or less) days from now supposedly. Perhaps I’ll do some sort of countdown here, because, reasons. Whatever.