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"Baby, please don't go!" Facebook laying it on thick when you deactivate
Like a desperate boyfriend who's just been given a one-way ticket to Splitsville by his girfriend, Facebook is going to do its best to win you back. Before you push the big red button and vaporize your account (but not your content, since Facebook can keep it locked up in the basement 'till the sun doesn't shine) they're giving your heartstrings a good, hard tug.
Yes, they've found another great way to put your friend's photos to good (and acceptable) use. They're going to guilt you into staying a member of the social networking goliath when you visit the deletion page. I enjoy the zinger Facebook includes, which reads: "Your [number] friends will no longer be able to keep in touch with you." [sad trombone] Yet further down the page, there's a great big list of opt-outs for you to peruse.
Why? "Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups." So wait...They can't keep in touch, but they can invite me to parties, post and tag pictures of those parties, and ask me to join groups that plan upcoming parties?
Man, that's really cutting the lines of communication.
I definitely wouldn't call this a "brilliant tactic" as Mashable's Jennifer Van Grove did. Of the pictures Facebook chose to display to me, I've only actually messaged two people and each of them only a single time. There are other users I've interacted with a heck of a lot more and would actually give a rat's ass. These three? Nothing against them, but they probably wouldn't notice my account missing.
Maybe this works better on more active users. Try it yourself - are the recommendations on point, or are they as off the mark as a Geroge W. Bush anecdote?
[via Switched]
Comments
14
Subscribe to comments216Jul 27th 2009 9:47AM
"So wait...They can't keep in touch, but they can invite me to parties, post and tag pictures of those parties, and ask me to join groups that plan upcoming parties"
Yea I used to like FB, but I got tired of it a long time ago. I'd close my account but i hate the fact that people can STILL tag you in photos (without your consent/permission).
Richard BrooksJul 27th 2009 10:01AM
If you don't want people to tag you, you should unfriend them.
If you don't want your content accessible, delete your images OR block everyone but you from viewing them with a privacy setting.
You can get the job done by doing this stuff manually; however, it is upsetting that these operations arent carried out automatically when you close the account.
216Jul 27th 2009 1:42PM
o i already have it set that no one can view photos that are tagged of me. But yea the people who usually tag me in pics are my actual friends lol not random fb adds.
Eric ShapiroAug 7th 2009 12:25PM
No, your friends can't tag you if you don't want that to happen. I'm on FB but set up my privacy info such that I can't be tagged at all on photos anywhere in FB.
I got mis-tagged twice by different folks within my FB network, but I appeared nowhere in those photos and the people in the photos looked nothing like me -- one of them was because the real person has the same first name and a last name that puts him alphabetically right next to my name in that person's FB network, and he was careless when he clicked on the other person's name next to mine with his mouse; the other mis-tagger apparently had a senior moment and thought my name went with someone else's face -- and after I alerted both mis-taggers, the tags were corrected.
After the second mis-tag, I came across an article somewhere online that explained how to permanently block such tagging on FB which alerted me to the possibility. Later I lost that article but I looked at my privacy controls and figured out how to do it, and went ahead and did it.
RocketboyJul 27th 2009 10:27AM
It's funny, because it's a GWB blooper right?
So, we should be seeing Obama blooper reals in Download squad posts sometime soon?
How about this rib tickler, how we needed to pass the stimulus bill right away to save jobs, due to it's immediate effect.
But now we'll need to wait 2-3 years for it to actually do anything, because that was the plan all along.
What a knee-slapper.
GenericJul 27th 2009 11:38AM
I see your wisdom.
Actually I don't. What does your comment have to do with 'facebook' the social networking site.
ButtersJul 27th 2009 1:10PM
What does this have to do with the article? Just because the author mentions a former president doesn't mean you can turn this into a republican versus democrat political debate.
Leave your hatred at the front page.
RocketboyJul 27th 2009 1:25PM
Generic... My point exactly. What was the point of putting poltics in a facebook post?
Butters...
"or are they as off the mark as a Geroge W. Bush anecdote?"
(Complete with youtube link)
I'm not the one who started the politics.
I just pointed out the pointless politics ALREADY IN the post. You know, the anti-republician slant already inserted into the post.
Or maybe it's only ok when someone doesn't like a republician?
(Full disclosure, I'm registered unaffiliated, I don't deal with party politics)
Lee MathewsJul 27th 2009 1:30PM
Anti-republican? No, he's just phenomenally bad at telling anecdotes. It's a fact. He's proven it many times. He can't do it.
It has nothing to do with politics.
CoffeeJul 27th 2009 11:26AM
47 Friends?
GenericJul 27th 2009 11:37AM
LOL!
OK OK, not everyone is on facebook as much as everybody else.
Saint SeminoleJul 27th 2009 1:36PM
Before I left Facebook in 2008, I meticulously deleted every post I'd ever made on anyone else's "wall" or pictures or anything else. Then I waited a week. I went back to find even older posts showing up, and I deleted those. I removed myself from every group, fan club, game, app, that I'd ever used (not that many, fortunately). I deleted everything that others had posted on *my* stuff, and waited another week, to make sure nothing would show up again, and removed *all* my friends, and changed my privacy settings to *no one* could find me.
So when I deactivated my account, all Facebook could say is: "Are you sure?" And since I was sure, I ended it.
GavJul 27th 2009 3:16PM
I just clicked it and seeing as I'm only tagged in a few photographs, it came up with the friends who I was tagged with.
Niels van DijkJul 28th 2009 3:57AM
Thanks Downloadsquad! I'm facebook clean.