Facebook wants your information to live forever. But there is a way out and Facebook doesn’t like it.
Many sign up to the likes of Facebook and Twitter and quickly realise they want out. Have you ever thought about ending it all?
Thousands of people are trying to do just that. They are signing up to services such as suicidemachine.org, a website that offers to delete social networking accounts for free and at the click of a button.
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Since it was set up last year, suicide machine has been overwhelmed by demand. Thousands have used it, while 15,000 are on a waiting list that is getting longer because the machine can only deal with one suicide at a time.Now a legal battle has broken out over people’s ability to “kill” themselves off. Earlier this month Facebook blocked suicide machine’s service, sending the owners a cease-and-desist notice threatening to take further action against the site.
First of all, “Suicide Machine”? Ick. I don’t think I could use a service with that name. But, to the point… Suicide Machine has found a way around Facebook’s block and has chosen to ignore the “cease and desist”. For Facebook, it seems to me that there is a simpler solution than legal action: Just simply guarantee that you will really delete all of a user’s information when they request that their account be deleted. I think people have that right.
I don’t know anything about Facebook but I’m slightly creeped out by it. I am tempted by the notion that I might use it to reconnect with old friends but I have to keep reminding myself that if anyone wants to reconnect with me, I’m here. I’m not hard to find. I’m not sure really what bothers me about Facebook – just unfamiliarity I guess. I hear things about Facebook – mostly just vague little hints and the occasional article like this one that makes Facebook sound like Big Brother. On the other hand, it seems like everyone’s talking about Facebook and I feel left out.
January 28th, 2010 - 11:02 am
Suicide Machine is an unappealing name. What about “I Vant To be ALONE” (a la Greta Garbo) instead? (FWIW: my paternal grandfather apparently had a bit of a crush on Greta Garbo; I think my dad actually has the autographed photo of her that my grandfather got after she was interviewed by his newspaper)
the idea that deleting an online profile is akin to suicide is sort of creepy. But probably a fertile ground for the Cultural Studies or Sociology folks to write about.
January 28th, 2010 - 2:26 pm
I have a Facebook account. But not under my blogger name.
In my experience, Facebook is okay but like much of today’s technology, it doesn’t quite live up to its hype.
And the idea that any information I give them is theirs forever doesn’t exactly make me want to post more stuff on my account.
But then there’s no such thing as a free lunch and generally if it sounds too good to be true, it is…
January 28th, 2010 - 3:08 pm
I set up a Facebook account last week, though I didn’t tell them much of anything that can’t be found out elsewhere on the Web.
Weirdly, one of the first friends to check in was my ex-wife.
January 28th, 2010 - 4:17 pm
I started to sign up at MySpace once but changed my mind when I saw that my answer to almost every one of the questions they ask would have been “not applicable.”