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Comment by EvanKelly | Hacker News Reader

I certainly support the argument that this type of option should be the users' choice, but I'm curious by how many people seem to want to subvert this so that they remain unsearchable.

I use Facebook so that I can connect with people I meet. If I don't exchange contact info with someone I meet, but they know my name, it's great for them to search and find me on Facebook. I don't want my Facebook connections to solely be people I choose to friend.

I guess it boils down to how people use the service.

Real Question: Why do you have an account, but not want people to be able to find you?

EDIT: Thanks for the responses, some of them make a lot of sense that I didn't think of initially.

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Lots of people need that. Teachers, doctors, social workers, care workers, people who work in/out of prisons, people who have had violent spouses/family members and this is just off the top of my head. The list goes on.

It is frustrating that the largest social media network is darn right hostile to large swathes of people.

Lots of events and groups solely exist on facebook. I think it is kind of awful that we let a company cut people out of their real life social networks just because they have stronger privacy requirements than 'normal' people.

Many of my high school teachers' profiles were easily located, but it was pretty easy for them to keep their information protected and simply explain that district policy prevents them from friending students. The only information you leak is the fact that you have a Facebook profile.

If someone has interacted with a public page/event, you don't need to see the person's profile, you just need to see the public/page event (which is indexed by Google).

> Why do you have an account, but not want people to be able to find you?

I signed up when I was young, and now my FB account is a liability I have to manage. (Which FB keeps making more difficult.) I communicate with friends to share, not to present an image to the world at large. I stopped adding FB "friends" years ago to prevent future issues, and I would rather people just believe that I don't have one until I can unwind the youthful indiscretion of signing up in the first place.

Because I want to share 'things' with the people in my social network and have no desire to share things with people outside of it like: employers, prospective employers, lawyers, police officers, people I do like but didn't want to hang out with more than that one night, etc.

My understanding is the privacy settings will still exist and function. You have every ability to decline friend requests from the people you listed. I suppose there are social ramifications to declining a friend request from people you may see semi-regularly.

>Why do you have an account, but not want people to be able to find you?

It's a placeholder for Pages, and for the rare case I want to see baby photos.

* edit: not to encourage FB but would probably pay for a business page that didn't need a personal email or setting up a fake account just carry it.

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