It feels like having a cute kid who you loved so very much you bought it everything it wanted and spoiled it rotten. Now that kid is an ungrateful little bitch teenager who just nicked all the money from your purse and has fucked off to Topshop to buy laddered tights and cider.
This started with a simple attempt to change profile information. I logged in, of all irony,to update it with my twitter ID (@ZtotheC). So that I could be identified to a network I actually use. On navigating to profile settings facebook asked, nay told me that all those words I lovingly crafted to describe my interests and likes must now link to facebook pages. I say, “thanks, but no, I don’t want to link to those pages. They are crap, have nothing on and most of them don’t make sense”. Facebastard say, “you have no choice in this underling, link to those pages from your profile or we won’t let you have any profile information at all, including the basic things like where you went to school. And, by the way, your face on those shit pages that we are going to make you link to is ours now, it is public and will show up not only in search engine results pages and facebook searches, but on 66 billion 3rd party websites. So shut your crybaby ass, because if you have a profile, your photo and name belong to us to make use of as we see fit and there is nothing you can do about it. And don’t think you can get clever by choosing to have all profile details set to private and selecting not to show up in searches, because that won’t work, you’re still going to show up on all those 3rd party sites and in serps. You’re our bitch now.”
And I said, “Fuck you Facebastard.”
And that, is what really happened.
A person over at Cre8pc Blog does a far nicer job of explaining this change to the way facebook works, and with pictures too.
But go on, I dare you, try and update your profile information.
Jeeezus. I don’t mean to be all pious about privacy. It doesn’t escape me that there are 858 photos of me willingly shared among a mere 342 friends. But I look at website user data all. day. long. And my spidey senses tell me there something to be wary of in this update. I'm probably in the minority for overreacting and feeling this way. I am also likely a raving paranoid acting in full knowledge of all the grey hat uses I'll put this newly shared data to during the day job. But above all, I feel like I’m being backed into a corner BY A FUCKING WEBSITE. Facebastard has all my photos and is an automatic directory of email addresses for pretty much everyone I’ve ever known. That stuff is meaningful and isn’t something I can easily come by elsewhere. If I want that stuff preserved, I have to gamble my identity.
My spoilt bitch teenager has now nicked the car keys and is threatening to run me over with my own rusty Peugot 106 unless I give her more money for cider.
Should you be someone who is more concerned about privacy than I am, (I am simply bloody minded about my own data), then this, this, this and this may bother you. This may just make you laugh.
I’ll continue my slow departure from facebastard by moving my photos, email addresses, and finally catching up with people I’ve been wanting to talk to for ages but haven’t quite managed to (because facebastard is good at helping me take everyone for granted), and then I’ll be deactivating my account.
When Zuckerberg stops being a megalomaniacal git and gives me back control of my description of me I’ll come back. But I doubt he'll want me. He probably won't even notice I've gone. He may also have to do some quality control in the future. Call me a prude, but look beyond the updates of your friends and you’ll see that facebook is now an un-policed cesspool of uselessness. Much like most of the internet c.1999.
Remember when Facebook was joyous, entertaining turds of wisdom in your stream? It was awesome. And now it is a mind-numbing chore of a bastard trading your data for power, and telling your future boss that you 'liked' the FHM article about sodomy and that you listened to Justin Beiber last night, whether you like it or not. And if I was him, I'd judge you for that.
The bitch teenager is now entirely cider dependent so I've sold loaned her to the local pimp on a commission basis and am using the money to fund a new snowboard
SCREW YOU FACEBASTARD.
The end.
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