Regret Facebook? Here’s an escape route.
Although people are becoming more aware of the disturbing aspects of facial recognition software in general, and Facebook’s dogged attacks on personal privacy in particular, the masses are still either quite apathetic or ignorant of the dangers.
We have shown in past how these technologies can and do gather vast databases of information over which you have little to no control. This wealth of information can be sold, distributed, and shared with anyone THEY choose.
Read:
CIA admits full monitoring of Facebook and other social networks
Facebook Spies On Chats For Suspicious Behavior
Facebook tracks your every move, even after logging out
Face The Truth: Facebook Acquires ’Largest, Most Accurate’ Facial Recognition Software
Is it paranoia if they really are watching you?
While some suggest that Facebook itself might be losing members (Is the age of brag over? Why Facebook might be losing teens), that doesn’t diminish the point that if you use Facebook or other social networking services, you should be vigilant and ensure your privacy (such as it is online) is secured.
Facebook is often singled out as a whipping boy for the ills of online social networking and the privacy concerns that go with it. There’s no doubt, and the majority seems to agree, that Facebook is a useful tool for social interaction, instant communication, sharing, networking, and information gathering. Such tools are vital for communities of people who need to let their truth and messages be heard and shared in a way that didn’t exist before, and shapes our world today. This is excellent.
However for those who wish they’d never joined in the first place, here is some advice on how to minimize exposure. It’s not easily done, as once Facebook has you it’s slow to let go.
Careful, though! Apparently not using Facebook is ’suspicious behaviour’ and a sign that you might be a mass murderer.
How to Strip Your Info From Facebook:
Facebook.. meh. It’s taken me almost a year to give them the slip, and THIS is how you do it!
1.) Shut off your wall, and put your privacy settings to maximum. You want to close down the ability for ANYONE on your friends’ list to add to it and keep it active. Why you do this becomes obvious later.
2.) Go through your profile and change every field you’d entered data in to question marks.. just four or five per..
3.) Logout and wait no less than THREE weeks. This give the Facebook servers time to float your new settings and profile data across their system.
4.) Once back in, start going down your activity feed and deleting posts. I did a ’page’ every few days. Occasionally, a remove/delete request won’t go through, skip it and move on to the next. What that means is that their servers are busy, no big, you can get it later.
5.) Untag photos and remove any that you’ve posted. Give ALL of this time - I worked out that two days between removal sessions seemed to be the trick.
6.) Go down your friends’ list and remove them LAST, only AFTER you’ve cleared out the posts you’ve made to that individual person on the list. If you ’un-friend’ someone before you’ve deleted all your posts/replies you made on their walls, you’ll not be able to delete the messages. Stay ’friends’ until you’ve gotten all your posts/data off their page.
Once it’s cleared out... bye!
The thing is, Facebook is designed so that when you log in, it will pull up data that you’ve posted (or replied to in another’s post) to put on your feed wall. As you scour down through the posts you’ve made and clear them out, it will pull up older data.
You just have to give it time. There’s really NO quick-flush button you can push on Facebook to purge your data.
You have to manually go in and get everything, but the cool bit is, if you’re diligent, you can use the very nature of how it works to your advantage.
Eventually you’ll be getting at the posts you made on other people’s walls or in reply to their pictures.. whatever, and then you’re into the part where you are rounding the corner on getting your data out.
You CAN remove 100% of your presence. It’s not what you have put on your page so much as it’s the stuff you’ve put on OTHER people’s pages that keeps your information in their system.
Clear your posts and pages off first and the rest will come to you.
You’ll know you’re doing it right, when you login a few weeks after deleting everything and finally deleting your friends lists it’s offering you random names of people you don’t know to add to you ’friends’ list.. If you’re still seeing old ’friends’, you’ve got data, like a comment to a picture or a reply you made still remaining on their account somewhere.
Source: As written by commenter FoodAndArt for the article "Facebook’s facial recognition system, why it’s scary".
There are those who use the "If I’ve done nothing wrong, I have nothing to fear" from these information gathering systems.
The answer to that is simple: ’wrong’ is rarely defined by the people, and often defined by the state. THEY decide if you’re hiding something, even if you think it’s innocuous and normal. Under that argument, if you have nothing to hide, you surely don’t need four walls. Or privacy. Or due process.
"Give me three sentences written by the most innocent man, and I will find a reason to hang him."
-Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642)
By Elizabeth Leafloor | Red Ice Creations
