Saturday, October 15, 2011

I Just Deactivated My Facebook Account

I took a 1 week hiatus from FB right after they implemented their interface changes and announced their new stalking you all over the internet protocols but because a great many of my friends were still hanging on over there and not making the move to Google+ I went back and started seeing what people were up to and finding some cool things to share over on G+ as well.

Now as many of you know there has been a lot of posting lately about the Occupy movement and I have been very into that because there are a great many injustices that I think should be addressed regarding small businesses having the ability to compete effectively against multinational corporations and the odds of a kid born into a poor family still having the ability through hard work and education to rise up and realize the American Dream.

So, up until about 4 days ago my posts, both regarding Occupy issues and humorous ones were getting some thumbs up, comments, etc. Then all of a sudden, nothing, nada, zilch. Not one single post I made on FB since 10/10/2011 received any feedback whatsoever.

Now understand, I have over 900 friends on my friends list and have been on FB for several years now and that has never happened. I always get at least some kind of feedback.

I checked and saw that I am still seen when I comment to posts others have made but my own wall posts were apparently no longer being seen at all.

So, was I being blocked by all of my friends for being too spammy? Considering the content of my posts I could see that being the case were it only my friends who get all of their news from NewsCorp sources and believe everything MSM tells them but my more progressive minded friends would not be likely to do that.

Had someone reported my content to FB and they put a throttle on my posts? Possible I suppose although I didn't post anything particularly offensive and had in fact predominantly reshared posts others had already posted there so that didn't seem likely but who knows.

Had FB itself taken it upon itself to EdgeRank me into non-existence? Ya know, at the risk of sounding a bit paranoid, Mark Zuckerberg is a 1%er and could be engaging in some social engineering. Hmmm.

A bit odd indeed. Anyway, if anyone cares to keep up with me find me on G+, check my blog or email me. Of course I will still be on Digg, Reddit, LinkedIn (occasionally) etc. too.

3 comments:

  1. Well, after a little over 3 weeks of leaving my Facebook page deactivated and quite frankly not missing it much myself as I've been having a great time circling, hanging out and meeting very interesting new people on G+. But it has been brought to my attention that many of my nearly 1000 "friends" on FB don't have my email address, know about my blog or have any way of contacting me outside of F-book. (I promise, I am pretty easy to find on most any search engine on the internet though ;-). )

    In any event, for the benefit of those whose web browsers are permanently attached to the big blue f I will reactivate my account today thereby making my contact info readily accessible again through that space. You are welcome. ;-)

    I still, however don't intend to waste much time there because I still see their Edgerank way of doing things to be non conducive to building social ties and interacting with more people. If anything I still believe what they are engaging in over there is more akin to social engineering and it's not what I signed up for. I still highly encourage folks who are stuck in that mode of interaction to give some other social tools a try like G+ or maybe Twitter (although, I honestly still don't get that 140 character thing) or Heck, even email. ;-) Just sayin!

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  2. Okay, so it's 919 friends after reactivating. As with anything, the number is likely to drop with lack of use. As a side note that's after about 4 years on Facebook. I'Veoh been on G+ since July and already have more than 1200 people in my circles.

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  3. Well no freakin' wonder nobody could see my posts! What kind of bonehead rolls out an update and sets the default privacy level for posts to "Me Only" anyway?

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