I am not on Facebook
In my email in-box, I have just got a whole load more friend requests from Facebook, and once more, they present me with a problem of conscience. I am supposed to reject them or accept them. But I am not on Facebook, and so will do neither. Then I worry that these people, many of whom I know and others whom I have never heard of, will think that I am ignoring them, that I am getting above my station. The truth is that my Facebook profile is just a shell: I enrolled or subscribed or whatever you call it for the specific purpose of finding an old schoolfriend who now lives in San Diego. I found her immediately. Facebook had served its purpose, for all of five seconds, and that was the end of that.
But the friend requests keep pouring in, presenting me with conundrums of manners and mores. Do I email those whose addresses I have and say, listen, I found your friend request, but I don’t use Facebook so don’t think I’ve rejected you, because I didn’t? Do I go up to people at parties and say, about that friend request….? It’s ridiculous. I don’t need these hassles. I suppose I could unsubscribe or whatever, but that’s another hassle.
So I’m going to tell people via this blog: I don’t use Facebook. I am not interested in Facebook. I already have too many things to do via the internet without adding hours of Facebook time to the list. I already have a grumpy husband who claims that I have fallen madly in love with my beautiful new laptop (he’s right; I suffer anxiety attacks when parted from it). Please don’t send me friend requests because I was raised as a Catholic and this means I go around looking for reasons to feel guilty.
When people ask me why I’m not on Facebook, I think, are they kidding? With so many people doing their utmost to invade my privacy, it’s not likely that I’m going to help them by invading my own. I have absolutely no desire to do that kind of thing. There is no instinct which makes me want to expose private details and photographs of my life to every Tom, Dick and Harry, or even to a select few. I am amazed at the sort of things my contemporaries are pasting on Facebook, for every pair of prying eyes to look at, laugh at, and gossip about. Is this the new exhibitionism? I can understand doing it when you’re young – and by young, I don’t mean people in their 30s – but there’s something ever so slightly off about men in their 40s and 50s whose marriages have failed posting photographs of themselves with their new ‘partners’ frolicking at the beach, on holiday, and much more. It makes you wonder what they’re trying to prove. It’s most unwise and hardly in the best possible taste, given that their children’s friends browse these sites just to have a good laugh. “Look at X’s father! Hahahahahaha…Miskin X, how embarrassing for him.” But X’s father clearly doesn’t think it’s embarrassing. He thinks it’s what my maternal grandmother used to describe, scathingly, as ‘with it’.
So please, no more friend requests. I’m a bit too far along in life to think of a friend as somebody who wants to exchange peeks at photographs over the internet. My friends are people I can ring in good times and bad, and vice versa, and I’ve had most of those for 20 years or more.
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Daph
I think I can help you on this.
Just logon to FaceBook one last time. Then enter this URL to delete your account.
http://www.new.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account
It’s important you logon to facebook before using the URL above, else you’ll get a different form altogether.
You’ll receive an email from FaceBook telling you they’ll get back to you. Just ignore this, and in 24 hours your account should be deleted.
(Daphne – Gosh, thanks.)
It seems that nowadays, employers log on th FaceBook and similar sites to check on employees – so BEWARE !
Allow me to offer another bit of advice. Facebook is an ideal market for identity theft – You put all your details including date of birth etc – just what identity thieves need! If using it, JUST PUT YOUR NAME. It’s happened before!
@ Marika Mifsud
imbezzaw bil babaw!!!!
Hmmm… i disagree with you there.
Divorce is a witheld right in this country and people whose marriages have failed can only have another relationship out of marriage.
You seem to imply that this second relationship is inferior to the first simply because the first was an official marriage.
Is it OK to post photos with your husband but not with the man you spend your life with forcefully unmarried?
Each situation is different. Of course, the manner with which a marriage breaks up has an effect on everyone, especially the children, but there ARE separated people out there who are still friends with their “former” spouses and who are in loving, long-lasting relationships with new people who get on very well with the kids.
I would not judge so hastily as I feel that gossip says more about the gossiper than about the victim…
(Daphne – David, believe me. The one thing you shouldn’t do when you have children in their late teens or early 20s is spend time on Facebook. People in that age group laugh at the adults trying to get in on what they consider to be their act, and get this…..they pity them. An even worse step is when men whose marriages have failed post photographs with their girlfriend, say, canoodling in the waves when they know that their teenage sons and daughters and all their friends are going to see them. The sons and daughters will feel embarrassed and the friends will feel….sheer scorn, mixed with compassion for the humiliating plight of their friends, having such an embarrassing father. I know this for a fact. I overhear the conversations from time to time. I don’t see a second relationship as inferior to the first. But I do believe that lots of people – strangely enough, men more than women – tackle the onset of a second relationship pretty much as though they were 20 years old and starting out in life. A different behavioural code is required when you’re in your 40s or 50s, have a failed marriage behind you and grown-ups kids. And why would anyone want to post pictures of their married life on Facebook, anyway? Does the latest generation of grown-ups have an in-built compulsion to invade their own privacy,or is it the latterday version of Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame?)
Facebook is a great tool for the CIA. It is said the CIA has complete access to Facebook data. I don’t know whether this is true – so no “conspiracy theory” accusations, please (what a cop-out that is, btw). But from what I know about how the CIA operates, it’s no surprise at all.
(Daphne – Oh for heaven’s sake! I’m beginning to suspect you’re a paranoid schizophrenic.)
I was on facebook for a while, and since cancelling my account I feel as if a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
(Daphne- That’s exactly what I mean. It becomes a compulsion, something else you have to do, and there are lots more people pestering you in the evening when you’ve spent all day being pestered by others.)
@ amrio
Thank you for this URL. Face book is a little too invasive. I have just deleted my account.
(Daphne – Well done. I don’t want to sound like Kevin here, but it’s a voyeur’s paradise that leaves you exposed to all kinds of weirdos.)
Facebook profiles, photos etc, can be set to be seen only by trusted friends.
(Daphne – Most people have just two or three trusted friends.)
Daphne – “paranoid schizophrenic”? I wonder what I’d have been called had I come up with the juicier stuff.
But the CIA, like the FBI, cannot be compared to the KGB, right? Both the CIA and FBI are made up of angelic agents who fully abide by the US constitution. Same goes for Homeland Security and FEMA…. and the Blackwater mercenaries, too.
Let me just quote former FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover – he’s more credible since he was an expert in false flag operations: “The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous, he cannot believe it exists.”
Or how about a quote from the monarch Himself, David Rockefeller: “We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.” (2000)
We live in a world where huge steel structures melt by dying fires and concrete slabs explosively disintegrate into powder to cause buildings to collapse within their own footprint. Structural engineers and other professionals are crying out to be heard, but the sheeple think they know better because CNN et al told them otherwise.
In any case, this is too monstrous to believe. Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga must have been mad when he divulged that it is a known fact within Western intelligence agencies that the CIA and Mossad perpetrated 9/11.
And that’s not even the juicy staff. But I’ll leave you all in peace to enjoy your pollyanna sanctuary. CIA infilitrating Facebook? Nah! The stuff of paranoid schizophrenics.
I totally agree with Daphne on the ‘perils’ of Facebook!
The paradox is that the vast majority of people on Facebook and similar sites then argue fervently on matters such as privacy!
And yes, prospective employers check Facebook and other social networking sites. I do and I know many others besides. All I can say is that I have turned down job applicants because of how they presented themselves online and in blatant discrepancies between the data they publicly posted and the CVs and information they supplied when applying for jobs.
So long as the information is public, it is good practice to research prospective clients, suppliers, partners and even job candidates and Facebook et al. help people like me (or rather, my staff) quite well… even though, I hasten to add that one should always allow for people pretending to be what they are not whilst online!
@kev – you seem to be the expert on conspiracy theories. What are your views on the 9/11 plane that crashed into the Pentagon? Some say the explosion there was not cvaused by a plane at all but by a truck bomb put there by some anti New World Order militant group.
@Daphne – having a grumpy husband eh? Serves you right for being addicted to the internet (it has been given a name but forgot it) – and spending time watching Joseph unplugged :)
It’s even worse when people mistake you for someone else who’s on Facebook. I’ve just looked and there are at least 10 ‘Antoine Vellas’, none of whom is me (never had an account).
It’s Facebook, people, not real life. Don’t sweat it.
(Daphne – FaceBook IS real life, Andrew, especially when it’s minutely examined by perverts, stalkers and house-robbers for valuable information that fools let slip.)
I am on FB and my life is not paraded on line for all to see. I just play games and chat occasionally.
@ Mario P – ferderal agents seized all CCTV records in the surrounding area. Then, after a suit under the Freedom of Information Act, they released 2 short videos, neither of which shows a plane. It is believed that it was a missile that hit the Pentagon. The initial hole in the Pentagon, before the rest collapsed (by explosives), is compatible with that of a missile hole, which also cleanly penetrated two interior walls (mhux tas-sejjieh). Many pilots and air traffic controllers maintain it is impossible to maneuver a plane of that size as told by the official story, especially by Hani Hanjour, who allegedly piloted the plane, but who was described by his flight school instructor as being unable to fly a small plane.
There is a lot of evidence proving that the official story is a lie. Anyone interested can google or youtube 9/11 and start from there. Many theories abound, not all of which seem probable, yet some of the most improbable ones become highly probable once you know the history of US government agencies’ black ops.
Concerning ulterior explosions, live news coverage at the time recorded several explosions at the WTC (because demolition requires major base explosions to blow up the central steel structure). These were not mentioned the following day or thereafter, while the Commission report mentions no explosions. Yet you can watch these live MSM recordings on Youtube – they are all there. One excellent giveaway that the towers were brought down by demolition experts are the giveaway angled cuts (by means of thermite, used to cut steel) – this is one example: http://www.sharpprintinginc.com/911/images/pagemaster/jones9_p1_5.jpg There is of course Larry Silverstein himself, the leaseholder of Tower 7, which was not hit by a plane, who said on national TV that they decided to “pull it”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WYdAJQV100
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are literally millions of videos and websites that prove the lie. Anyone who has not sufficiently investigated 9/11 with an open mind cannot sufficiently judge on what really happened.
Mario P – If you so wish, this is a good place to start your investigation: http://www.911summary.com/
(And now I’ll keep my promise and leave you all in peace.)
Actually it’s ironic that just as governments are passing data protection laws, people themselves seem to be more than willing to flaunt their private lives all over the place. It brings to mind a consumer campaign lauched in the 90s, I believe, for the removal of names and addresses from the vehicle licence sticker. But just as these details came off, in came the pesonalised number plates! With people flaunting their names and birthdays and what have you to make their car as recognisable as possible!
I suppose their is an exhibitionist element in many of us. Trouble is that many of us, then, are surprised at the consequences of a certain recklessness.
“FaceBook IS real life, Andrew, especially when it’s minutely examined by perverts, stalkers and house-robbers for valuable information that fools let slip”
That is so so true! People tell you when they are going to be abroad, their D.O.B., their picture – what more does a thief need! If you use it, use it wisely!
On the subject of internet security – may I impose on you to make use of your blog to give another warning?
All those who use wireless routers/access points raise their hands! Now all those who had it installed properly by somebody with more than a passing knowledge in the fields put down their hands …
Still many hands I see – people, as somebody who earns a living in IT, take my advice – set up any wireless internet PROPERLY! Ideally switch off the access point when not in use! At best you are just sharing your bandwidth with your neighbours, at worst you are giving crooks free access to your personal files and documents.
Even worse paedophiles are known to log on to some dimwit’s unprotected network to download and exchange child porn – using the said dimwit’s ip address ofcourse.
IT’S HAPPENED BEFORE AND CONTINUES TO HAPPEN (no, not yet in Malta to my knowledge, but you never know)
Secure your wireless!!!
Some of you guys are starting to sound like the Order of the Solar Temple.Run to the hills.
(Daphne – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Solar_Temple)
I read somewhere that Bill Gates cancelled his Facebook account when people created a Facebook group called “Would you sleep with Bill Gates for half his money?”
i m a very lonely sep mother of two . am i doing anything wrong being on facebook….i only have my daughter( as shes living with her dad) and some nieces as FRIENDS… who i chat with every now and then ..don’ t even have a pic of myself except of my two kids…so. again …please tell me if i m doing anything wrong …
(Daphne – Of course you’re doing nothing wrong as such. But you’d be far better off getting out there and meeting people in the flesh. Electronic communication is no substitute for meeting real, live people face to face. And I think it’s terrible that your relationship with your daughter, who lives with her father, has been reduced to that of a Facebook ‘friend’. Is this something you want, or a situation that has been forced on you?)
@ all – contact your ISP on instructions how to secure your wireless connection. It is a simple but effective procedure.
@Daphne – I am not one for conspiracy theories but the Pentagon incident is certainly a curious one
I think that if Facebook was around in 2001, then all the tragic events of 9/11 could have been prevented. The ever watchful CIA would have surely thought that something was up when some suspected terrorist posted photos of training exercises or wrote on their status bar that they were excited about exacting savage revenge on the infidel.
Having failed that, I’m sure some prospective employer or vigilant paedophile would have smelt a rat and informed the relevant authorities sooner or later.
Your security level in Facebook can be changed so only people you choose can see your information, photos etc. The problem is that many people do not bother change their security settings to fit their needs.
Like any other tool Facebook is what you make out of it, and make it work for you rather than just make money for the company that runs it.
Daphne, you should change your status (and privacy setting attached to it) to, for example, “I do not use this profile” on Facebook; like that your friends know you dont use it but also prevents some cyber squatter to hijack your name once you delete it.
(Daphne – No way. I am way over 25 years old and so are my friends. We keep in touch by telephone and email, and sometimes we have lunch. I can’t help feeling there’s something sad about people in their 40s Facebooking each other, unless they are separated by oceans and time zones.)