Why Is Facebook Forcing Me to Upload a Photo
Is it possible to be a passive user of Facebook? I want to read announcements relating to friends and colleagues, and maybe post comments, without building a profile with photos, a timeline then on. I have managed perfectly well without joining, only occasionally miss useful information that is not available elsewhere. Eira
What'southward known as "lurking" – being a member without actively participating – is very common. To quote Jakob Nielsen, "In well-nigh online communities, xc% of users are lurkers who never contribute, ix% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the activity." This is known every bit the ane% rule, and it's evidently a gross generalisation.
Facebook's participation levels appear to be much higher than that. Nosotros don't know the number of lapsed or (literally) dead accounts, simply in September 2018, Facebook reported 2.27 billion monthly active users (up 9.vi% over the previous year) and near 1.five billion daily agile users (upwardly nine.3%), despite losing about i 1000000 users in Europe.
While at that place's no obligation to participate, at that place are much trickier questions virtually privacy and tracking.
What distinguishes Facebook from Twitter, Reddit, Metafilter then on is that information technology is based on existent identities, which are fundamentally public. While yous can choose how much information you post on Facebook, and how widely you lot share information technology, your friends may already have given Facebook your email address as part of the "find friends" procedure. Some of them may besides have posted images of yous, mentioned you in comments, or linked to things yous posted on other services. Every bit a effect, when you sign upwardly, Facebook may already know who most of your friends are.
This data may be about you, merely it isn't yours: it belongs to the people who shared it.
Either way, any organization that knows your real name tin can probably notice out a lot well-nigh you. This was already obvious in 1999 when Sun'due south Scott McNealy said: "You have nothing privacy anyway. Go over information technology."
Minimal Facebooking
To sign upward for a Facebook account, yous need a name and a working email accost or mobile phone number. You lot can utilize whatsoever name you are known by. Nevertheless, if you run into a trouble, y'all may have to provide an adequate grade of ID to verify it later.
You volition also be asked for your appointment of nascency – because you have to be at least thirteen years old to join – and your choice of gender. Both may be used for advertising purposes. Later that, everything is optional.
Facebook will want yous to consummate your new contour by uploading a mug shot and a cover photo, entering the names of schools or colleges you attended, where yous live and then on. Yous are non obliged to do any of this. Your profile photo could exist a cartoon character. However, there could be from dozens to thousands of people who have the same proper noun every bit you. The more details you enter, the easier it will exist for friends to find you.
Side by side, to make the system work for you, you lot have to "friend" people you lot know. Facebook encourages y'all to upload your contacts volume (run across in a higher place). It'southward much better to track people downward one by one, though information technology is more than work.
And that's information technology. When your friends mail service things on Facebook, they will appear in the news feed. You will also accept a timeline under your name, which used to be your wall. You tin't get out of having these, but once more, you don't have to post anything to them.
Privacy settings
When you practise post something, you lot can control who sees it past using each postal service's settings carte du jour (three dots), but it's better to choose settings for your whole account. To do this, click the downward-arrow on the far right of the blue heading bar, select Settings from the menu, and then Privacy. The main entry is "Who tin see your hereafter posts?" You lot probably won't desire to use Public, which means anyone on or off Facebook. Instead, limit visibility to friends, perhaps, or customise information technology. Yous can exclude by name anyone you don't want to see something.
Y'all can also limit the range of people who can look you up using the email accost and/or phone number you gave Facebook, though that tin can brand it harder for friends to find you.
Where it asks "Exercise you want search engines exterior of Facebook to link to your profile?", answer no.
You should also visit the ad preferences page and click on "Advertisement settings". This lets you plough off adverts based on "information from partners" (external websites, not Facebook), and adverts on external websites based on your activities on Facebook. This removes the advantages of tracking you. Otherwise, Facebook could use the information that you lot visit, for example, car websites to show you lot auto ads.
You tin can also modify "Ads that include your social actions" to "No one". This stops Facebook from using your actions (signing upward for events, using apps, making recommendations and and so on) to promote them to your friends.
Finally, Facebook publicises birthdays. The setting is on your About folio under "Contact and basic info". Note that you can ready unlike privacy levels for your date of birth and your twelvemonth of birth. You could prepare both to "Only me" or just keep the year – and therefore your historic period – individual.
This description barely scratches the surface of the many ways you tin manage your data. Facebook provides detailed command over your privacy, and how information technology can target y'all with the adverts that pay for its complimentary service. The problem is that it would accept many hours to find, understand and customise all the settings bachelor. Understandably, near people just don't intendance enough to make the attempt when the only visible benefit may be seeing less appropriate advertisements.
Facebook disconnect
Facebook Connect or "Log in with Facebook" is an identity organisation that, conveniently, lets you log into other websites, play games and so on with your Facebook ID. While this saves creating a lot of different login names and passwords, it also lets Facebook know what y'all are doing away from Facebook.
This isn't a new idea, and Facebook's tracking network is much smaller than Google's, but it's what drives the use of things like Ghostery, Privacy Badger, Disconnect.Me and Redmorph.
You can opt out of using the whole platform. This stops Facebook Connect from working, and disables all the apps and games that take been used by 3rd parties to harvest user data.
To do this, become to the Settings page and select "Apps and websites". Scroll down to the Apps, Websites and Games section, click Edit and so select "Turn off". I got some dire warnings when I did this a few years ago, just every bit you're a new user, it shouldn't bear upon annihilation.
You can also limit Facebook tracking by running Facebook in a container in the Firefox browser.
It's not just Facebook
Facebook explained in a blog post what sort of information it collects and how it does it. Plain, information technology mentioned that other net companies are doing exactly the same things.
In fact, the primary difference betwixt Facebook and LinkedIn and some rivals is that most (but non all) of the personal information on Facebook and LinkedIn has been willingly contributed by users for their ain purposes, rather than gathered past spying. Facebook has get the universal kicking boy partly because of its abandon, and considering its massive calibration ways its blunders can affect far more people, or even whole nations.
Ultimately, still, the trouble is not Facebook simply "surveillance capitalism": the business model whereby users trade personal information for services instead of paying for them.
As security adept Bruce Schneier wrote terminal yr in a blog post on Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: "for every article about Facebook'south creepy stalker behaviour, thousands of other companies are breathing a collective sigh of relief that it's Facebook and not them in the spotlight. Because while Facebook is i of the biggest players in this infinite, at that place are thousands of other companies that spy on and manipulate us for turn a profit".
For those of us with afar friends and family, Facebook is but too valuable to give up, and its replacement(south) might well be worse. Information technology'south the whole organisation that needs fixing.
Have you got a question? Email information technology to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/mar/07/is-there-a-way-to-use-facebook-without-giving-up-my-privacy
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