to hate the facebook culture

[aristomache]

I cancelled my facebook account 4 months ago, as I was getting increasingly irked by the culture in which it has became socially accpetable for us all to know what's going on in each other's lives.

I had a few people on my facebook who were wingers/moaners/show-offs/public dirty-laundry airers, which I hated but who I couldn't delete as it would have caused bother.
Anybody who's important to me has made the effort to keep in touch via other means, and I dont miss it at all- it's also really cut down on my internet usage and cut £7.50 a month from my mobile phone bill, as I only ever used mobile internet to facebook.

Today I've been told that a family member of mine had uploaded photographs of me that I wouldn't have wanted the world and his wife to see - when I rang them to ask them to delete the pics, I was treated like the nastiest bitch on the face of the planet and hung up on!

Before anyone jumps any guns, I was as nice as I possibly could be about it, asked nicely and didn't demand that the pics be removed - just said that I'm not on facebook because I don't want everyone knowing everything I get up to and I'd rather that they didn't let everyone know what I was up to either, and please if they didn't mind could they delete any pics of me.

But the general concesus seems to be that I'm a tight bitch/am no fun/have no sense of humour for asking this, none of with is true btw - I just really hate the facebook culture.

I've started this kind of thread before on another forum and was roundly flamed for daring to diss the facebook.

so,AIBU? is it really just a fact of modern life that I have to get on board with or does the facebook culture actually suck?

YANBU. I like facebook, it's kept me in touch with some far flung friends and family. Not everyone has to like it though.

Any photos that I put up are only visible to my 'friends', but my mother keeps sharing one album (of my baby pics) so it's available to all her 'friends' and actually anyone who cares to see. Doesn't matter how many times I ask her not to she does it again

I've stopped putting photos up now, but because I like the rest of it, I'm still on there.

Anyway, you're a better person than me if you can keep away from it

Dont like FB and never have that said my boys are both big time users.

I hated it for ages before I actually plucked up the courage to delete (or de-activate as they call it) my account.

It's not just a personal thing either, about pics etc - it's the whole culture it has bred. It IS now socially acceptable to know what everyone else is doing, or to share every little bit of your life even if it is just with "friends"

I don't miss it one little bit.

I think its a personal thing and for everyone who loves it there will be someone who hates it and that's fine, those who aren't into it can stay away.

One aspect which I agree with you over is the photos thing. Even if you choose to totally boycot facebook, you can't easily control or stop people putting photos of you up there.

Now, if you aren't on there yourself, you can't be tagged (in any meaningful way) but there's a good chance people you know (mutual friends, basically, in real life I mean) will see these photos. If you are not on there yourself, you dont even necessarily know you are there which may be a mixed blessing. At least you aren't searchable, as such, but it doesn't solve your problem.

My worst scenario with photos and tagging is that I wake up one morning and realise that someone tagged me in a photo and that all my friends list has seen it, and its a shocking one. So for that reason I have my privacy settings such that nobody can see me in anything tagged except me (i.e nobody is notified of the tag - it wont show on my wall or their news feed about me - if that makes sense).

My brother in law took some shocking photos of me without makeup, hungover, bleary eyed in my dressing gown last Christmas. I said to him "you put them on facebook and you are out the family" and he didn't but if he did, what really could I do.

This problem exists whether you choose to boycot facebook or not. If you complain to the person or facebook you can seen a boring old cow so its a bit of an annoying one really.

I do wonder if its going to make people very twitchy about cameras in years to come. People are already getting pretty damn twitchy with their kids and rightly so in some instances - things have changed so much since the digital camera revolution, in the old days, if someone took a photo of your child, it wouldn't appear on the internet, it wouldn't get emailed round, and genearally people would get one photo printed out and that would be it. Now, photos can be reproduced everywhere over and over and it does make people nervous, and rightly so.

God that was a ramble, well done for getting this far, I have bored even myself!

I certainly agree with you tatty

but even though I am annoyed with it on a personal level, it's the facebook culture that makes such things "the norm" that is even more annoying - I really don't know if I have a stick up my arse about this and need to move with the times, and wonder why the majority of people don't see it in the way I do?

I agree with op, I find it really weird when you meet up with friends and you don't really have to ask them what they have been up to as you've already read it on facebook.

I think a lot of people probably do see it that way, but many are not on Facebook or haven't been in the past and are more unaware or ignorant of how it works so it hasn't quite made it onto their radar. By their very nature of being private non sharey people they haven't gone there in the first place if that makes sense so less people who ARE on facebook feel that way as they were attracted to it in the first place.

I think to a certain extent you have to choose your battles. You would certainly be wasting energy if you made an issue out of it every time you learned there was a photo of you on there (not suggesting you do by the way) - it depends a bit on your lifestyle, how often you are out, how your social circle is structured and how it overlaps, who is in the outskirts of that circle (when you have ex boyfriends as friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends, that can get tricky, or old nemesis)

You also have to consider whether its "too late" to bother once the photos have been uploaded. Once uploaded and published, they will have appeared on most people's newsfeed, albeit briefly, and anyone vaguely interested will have probably clicked. The damage is done. If they get removed, all that you protect yourself from is someone saying "oh have you seen Aristomache on Facebook, yep, she's on xxx's profile" etc.

I think also you have to remind yourself that the absolute worst thing that can happen is that someone sees you looking worst for wear, or in an unflattering pose, or carrying an extra stone of baby weight, or something like that - if you really analyse it, its not the end of the world. Photos, whichever way you look at them, are how you looked at that moment in time, and to an extent, we have to be okay with that or we are not at peace with ourselves in the way we probably should be for a rich and fulfilling life.

In principle though, I really do feel it is a violation of privacy if someone does do that to you and for that reason I think its not nice and people should be very polite about who they upload, regardless of whether or not you need to lighten up.

Just to clarify so I dont get jumped, when I say "the worst that can happen" I mean in relation to the OP from the general sound of it. I know that for other people, being published on a website can mean cover blown from the witness protection programme or getting hunted by a stalker etc etc. But I mean more in the situation of the OP who hasn't indicated anything like that.

I said in my first post "My worst scenario with photos and tagging is that I wake up one morning and realise that someone tagged me in a photo and that all my friends list has seen it, and its a shocking one"

I have to admit, this is more my problem than a problem with facebook, though its Facebook's existence that has highlighted this as a problem.

This is, basically vanity on my part.

It existed before Facebook did. Yes, I do care how I look (though not obsessively so, but yes, I do, and I know its a "fault")

I look how I look. The camera catches that. Sometimes it catches you out. Its easy to delude yourself that you look fucking fantastic when you look in the mirror and your eyes focus on the good bit - shiny hair, new mascara does the job! excelent eyebrow threading session, perfect symmetry... not "oh my god those eyebags are a whole new shade of blue, or is that french grey..."

If someone sees me looking bad, so what? They've seen me in real life. They've seen me looking good and bad. And in between. Do they care? If they do is that their problem or mine? Is it my problem if I care they care?

See what I mean, half of it isn't even really Facebook's "fault", it just brought it into existence, the problem was there to start with, in a way...

No you're right tatty but how many times have people said "if you don't want it out there - dont put it on the world wide web"

with the facebook culture that's taken out of our hands to some extent.

and why should we(I) just accept that it's ok for somebody to do that? even if it was a lovely, flattering photo - shouldn't the choice be mine as to whether it's shared in cyber-space ot not?

Absolutely you should be able to choose. Hence why they have that "do you have permission to upload this photo thing" which is all well and good but easily skipped over. I wish people would think twice and say "actually, I better check first".

Its not okay.

You liberate yourself if you go with it, and just detach yourself from it but I totally agree that its not okay.

One of my facebook friends I respect the most is a girl who clearly doesn't mind how she looks in photos and doesn't "stage" or set up the photos she takes of her kids either. She seems, of all my friends, to have the most fun and do the most stuff with her kids and be the most happy relaxed mother.

The ones who stage their shots and airbrush and soft focus and make perfect albums never seem to be enjoying themselves as much and losing themselves in the moment.

I guess there's no way of policing it though, except for you to be able to report it (but even that doesn't work if (a) you dont know the photos are there in the first place or (b) you dont have "access" to the photos - ie not a friend) and have it removed.

Which is why I think people will become more and more nervous about cameras and they will practically be banned from most public places, which would be a real shame.

They never used to be such a potential weapon...

TLC rolls up sleeves and gets stuck in

Also, if anyone is interested, this is an interesting article:

www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

Doh! Forgot to link it properly

www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

YANBU - I like the social aspect as IMO you can be as involved as you want, but I'm currently in a grump with FB as it encourages this ridiculous fake activism thing. This whole "change your profile picture to a cartoon and raise awareness of child abuse" is a load of shit.

Completely agree about the cartoons - in what way exactly is it helping the maids, as it claims? Worse, it makes people feel they have done something- are they then less likely to donate?

Um, nspcc not maids! ( auto correct :) )

I agree FreudianFox regarding the fake activism but I do love FB. I love the fact that I get a look into people's lives and know what they are up to.

I do agree that it is weird that I know more now about the daily life of an old school friend than I did 20 years ago.

I avoided Facebook for ages. Thought it was a lot of silly people posting silly things about their boring lives.

Which it is.

But I admit I've been sucked in. Mostly because I have made some incredible internet friends on various message boards over the last 20 years and as each of these message boards has died we've all moved over to Facebook. So it's how I keep in touch with friends I've made, literally, all over the world.

As for unauthorized pictures...I'm not sure how to respond to that. I don't worry about it personally and in the digital age I am not sure Facebook is as dangerous as, say, sites that for a small fee let you search their databases for names and addresses, in the 'being stalked' scenario, for example.

As trite as it sounds, it's a whole new world with tons and tons of information available out there. And I, personally, have just accepted that privacy is a thing of the past.

FreudianFox - this 'activism' drives me mad - the cartoon ones or the status updates that say 'if you care about autism.. Post this'. These are nothing but Chain Letters like the ones that went around by letter and then mobiles. Or the colour of your bra.. No-one wrote 'off white/grey' did they?!

I am a recent convert to FB having avoided it deliberately for ages. Used sparingly and sensibly it can be brilliant, but I wholeheartedly agree wtih you about the crass obsession with it and the way people use it to manage their problems and intimate relationships - hideous.

I also think you have a very good point about the photos. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some kind of test case about this soon.

You totally have the right to not want photos on fb of yourself and of course you are not being funny at all. People should respect that and take them off immediately! How shitty of them to make you feel like you are in the wrong

YANBU

If they wont remove the photos, open a grudge account on facebook and respond in kind with some unflattering pictures of your own. If they arent shameless twats, they'll take the photos down.

How frustrating!

I am on fb, and enjoy it etc but I understand the lack of privacy aspects.

It would be awesome if there was an app that meant if someone posted and tagged pictures of you it would blur out your face until you verified them!

Someone I knew from school deleted her account (at 19) after someone from her mother's work looked her up printed silly pics of her and posted them round the office with signs saying 'look at x's DD'. Clearly the person who did this is unspeakably crazy, but I don't like the idea of unspeakably crazy people being able to access and do this kind of thing!

Thanks to Facebook I'm now back in touch with many of my friends from the past, and we've had several lovely reunions and days out, which wouldn't have happened had we not found each other again.

I've also posted old photos of my friends and myself, some embarrassing, and if someone's going to get arsey about a photo of themselves taken 20 years then that says more about them than it does about either me or Facebook.

If one of my friends posts a load of moaning drivel, I just hide their statuses, but I like having a bit of funny banter with my facebook friends. Also there are lots of good games on there which pass an hour when I'm stuck in with just DS for company and he wants cbeebies on the telly.

So, yabu. You can choose to get a lot out of Facebook, or you can choose to ignore it because of the bad bits, therefore missing out on the good stuff too.