There are a lot of new and upcoming social media
platforms that are garnering huge increases in user follow-ship. Social
media was once dominated by Myspace. The new trend has been largely
Facebook over the past two years, but now with some poor policies
instituted by Facebook, networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are quickly expanding. These are ten reasons you may want to leave Facebook and create accounts on other social network websites.
1. Users being Blocked from Sending Friend Requests
- That's right. At the beginning of Facebook you could send friend
requests to anyone you like, and they had the choice to either accept or
deny the request. Unfortunately in the past year Facebook created a new
function. This function allows for a user, after denying a friend
request to select "yes" or "no" as to if they know that person. if they
select "No" the user who sent the friend request is warned by Facebook
to not send unsolicited friend requests. If this happens multiple times
the user is blocked from sending friend requests, and their current
pending requests are cancelled. The block time increases steadily from
24 hours to one month. If it persists the user is warned that they will
be permanently blocked from sending friend requests.
Now maybe
I'm way off base here, but I assumed that social networking was ABOUT
connecting with new people. This problem is causing Facebook users to
become increasingly isolated.
2. Less than 15% of your Friends see your Posted Updates
- As a way to increase funds Facebook added the "promote" feature. At
the same time they scaled back how many people see posts by users and
pages to around 10 to 20 percent. They took away a feature and decided
to charge for it. I've personally noticed that less and less are seeing
and commenting on my updates. So if you don't comment or like posts
regularly by old friends or relatives, you stop seeing their posts and
they stop seeing your posts.
This new policy more than anything
else is rapidly turning Facebook into a ghost town. There are hundreds
of millions of users now disconnected from each other, having to work
much harder to see simple updates from their own friends and family. A
governing point of social media is the ability to outreach to untold
hundreds and even thousands! With this new feature, unless you're a
medium or large business you're not going to have the extra money to
"promote" posts. This creates an ugly situation, allowing the wealthy to
hit thousands at their leisure, while making it harder for smaller less
well-funded organizations to get the word out. Dangerous is the word
I'd use. And simply poor policy.
3.Repeated Privacy Violations - Facebook's privacy policy
states that "We may also share information when we have a good faith
belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to
prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from
people violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This may
include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or
other government entities." In fact Facebook's abuses of user privacy
are so numerous and incredible that I don't even have the space
necessary to list all the cases and problems. They've been fined
multiple times by the FTC and are now required to submit to outside
audits for the next 20 years.
Some of the major concerns have been:
Facebook tracking users as they surf the web, Facebook mobile App
caught spying on text messages sent from phones, overtly deceptive
privacy claims, sharing personal information with advertisers, tracking
users physical location, sharing information with law enforcement
regardless of subpoena, and many others.
4. Censorship - It has been reported that Facebook pays workers to go through and delete certain items on Facebook,
such as holocaust denial groups and other offensive content. However,
there are some things being deleted, such as Palestinian resistance
groups that are raising concerns. There has been notable censorship of
search terms in the Facebook search function. Political figures like Ron Paul
were often targeted for censorship on FB as well. Notable outspoken
political critics have had their accounts mysteriously deleted. Confirmed include:
former diplomat Emeritus Peter Dale Scott, 9/11 Truther Richard Gage,
Michael Rivero, CNN reporter Amber Lyon, Natural New's account, William
Rodriguez, radio host Anthony J. Hilder, William Lewis, Wacboston,
Michael Murphy, Packy Savvenas, Sean Wright, Katherine Albrect, and
several Infowars.com writers.
Many regular users have reported
from time to time controversial posts being deleted. There have also
been reports of users receiving strange messages like "Are you sure you
want to post this?" and "This post has been deleted for violating
Facebook Terms of Rights & Responsibilities."
5. Poor for Psychological Health
- Facebook has been shown to cause anxiety, envy, and unhappiness.
Suicide has been a problem, with some users posting suicide notes on
their accounts. Addictioninfo.org
states that the envy created by social networks can lead to
self-loathing, resentment, feelings of inferiority, and severe
depression. Facebook addiction is a growing problem, especially for
young people.
Another concern is bullying, especially for young
people. Although Facebook requires a minimum age of 13 to sign up (this
is quite young anyway) all the user has to do is input a fake age. Mark
Zuckerberg the owner of Facebook has spoken out about removing the minimum age
for the sake of "education." I wouldn't want my children having access
to that kind of unregulated information, though I am all for
transparency and freedom of information. Facebook doesn't have a good
track record on either of these concerns anyway!
Leaving
Facebook, especially if you're an entrenched user is a big decision. It
would mean cutting ties with a lot of close friends, but the information
is out there, black and white, why Facebook is a poor choice. Consider
creating accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, LiveJournal, Word
Press, Tumblr, or many of the other social networks out there.
That way you can gradually switch to other networks, and bring your
friends with you! You can deactivate your Facebook easily enough, but
then it's as easy as signing back in and it's all right there! I
recommend permanently deleting your account, you can do so here.
What is truth? Who is God? What is the meaning of life? On this blog we explore the interactions between Christianity and topics like culture, politics and philosophy. The word says we must love God and love others. Jesus Christ is God come to us; He is alive. God will call all of us to give an explanation of how we lived. Trust in Jesus and receive forgiveness; a new life. Stand for the truth. Glorify Christ in how you live. A new world awaits.