Main » 2010 » May » 14 » What Happens When You Deactivate Your Facebook Account
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What Happens When You Deactivate Your Facebook Account
Facebook
is a big part of millions and millions of peoples' lives, but what
happens when you pull the plug? Last night I met a man who walked to the
edge of the cliff and nearly deactivated his Facebook account. He took a
screenshot of what he saw after clicking the "deactivate my account"
link on his account page - and it is pretty far-out.
That man
considered quitting Facebook because it was having an adverse emotional
impact on him and I'll spare him and his contacts from posting the
screenshot he shared with me. I have posted below though a shot of the
screen I saw when I clicked that button myself. Check it out. I bet you
haven't seen this screen before, have you?
Can you believe that? How
incredibly manipulative! And what claims to make. Facebook has
undoubtedly made it easier to keep in touch with people than almost any
other technology on the planet, but to say that leaving Facebook means
your friends "will no longer be able to keep in touch with you" is just
wrong. Facebook often says little things like this that read like it
thinks it has a monopoly on human connection.
Apparently my
wife's good friend and one of my co-workers are really going to miss me
if I leave, though. That photo of Frederic my co-worker, that isn't even
his profile photo. That's a photo where he and I were both tagged. At
least it didn't say my wife would miss me! According to one report,
adding these photos of friends is keeping 1 million people per year
from deactivating their account.
Admittedly, this is also kind of
funny at the same time.
This is just loaded with obnoxiousness.
"I have a privacy concern" is listed as one of the reasons people might
be leaving. I think it's more likely that people would say "I don't
think my privacy is being protected on Facebook" or some similar general
statement, but leave it to Facebook to frame and minimize peoples'
concerns even as they walk out the door.
Just below the text box
where departing users are asked to provide further explanation why they
are leaving is a button you can click to select this option:
Opt out of receiving future emails from Facebook. Note: Even
after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag
you in photos, or ask you to join groups. If you opt out, you will NOT
receive these email invitations and notifications from your friends.
Amazing,
by default, even after you cancel your Facebook account, Facebook will
still keep emailing you, unless you opt out.
Of course you too
can go the the edge and not jump off. Go see who Facebook thinks would
miss you if you were gone. It's ok, I've clicked the "deactivate my
account" link 4 times today and just stopped short of hitting the
ultimate button. The pictures changed sometimes but they were always
people I really do know fairly well.
I'm not about to actually
deactivate my Facebook account, even though the company drives me crazy.
I like using it to keep in touch with people outside of tech, I think
it's important to challenge the company's policies when warranted and
let's face it - I don't have it in me to break the hearts of those four
people above who would miss me if I left!