Hacker News Reader

Comment by tyrw | Hacker News Reader

I understand the concept of a click bait headline, but "inherently evil" is a bit strong for a service that is completely optional.

View on HN

"Do not use the Internet. Do not use phones. Do not use bank accounts. Do not travel by plane. Do not enter public spaces. Do not show your face.

Otherwise you accept our Terms of Service.

Thank you for trusting us."

Exactly, the inherent problem is the creation of shadow profiles of non Facebook users. The most annoying part is the fact that they can make your friends snitch on you, just in case you're not using your real name

And they'll steal your phone number from your friends' phones and add it your account without your knowledge. Every once in a while I log in to FB and it will ask me if I want to share my phone number with them, with my number conveniently pre-entered in the input field. I never gave them my number.

Still use all those things to your heart's content; just don't create a Facebook account...

When 99% of your friends use Facebook, it becomes very hard to avoid it [0]. If you want to advertise your new book among them, what would you do, for example?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

Through one of the many other sites those friends probably use. Facebook probably isn't the only thing on the internet you and your circle of friends have in common.

Yes, but the other sites/services they use are also all pretty much similar walled gardens. It's becoming rarer and rarer these days for ordinary web users to have their own domain and site, or meet upon a completely unrestricted communications medium, like the Usenet of old.

Send them an email? Call them? Send them a postcard? Send a text message?

You don't need to! Facebook will create one for you. It's called a "shadow profile", and as far as I'm aware, there is no way to opt out, prevent it occurring, or even discover what information about you - true or otherwise - is retained under this rubric.

Actually they are likely to be illegal in the EU (http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/Compalint_02_Shadow_Profile...), and you can request your profile using ordinary EU data protection laws.

Facebook is not completely optional.

https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-pr...

Technically optional, but as it encloses the common forum, decreasingly so.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com