Is An Evil Alien Lurking in Your Smart Phone?
In the pit of my soul, I am a geek. I joined Facebook before anyone in my age bracket. I was one of the first 50 people in my area to have a Twitter handle. Before Instagram revealed its dastardly intentions with my pictures, I had a decent following. On Google+, I am a popular female.
Because many of my readers do not keep up with the goings-on of social media sites, I believe a post on Facebook is in order.
A couple of months ago, I removed Facebook’s app from my iPhone and iPad. Through a deal with Apple, they negotiated the right to override my contact list with Facebook contacts in an update to the iOS operating system.
Why does that matter?
Well.
Because, several months ago, Facebook assigned every user a Facebook email address. To check that email address, the user had to be logged in to Facebook.
I found out how often many of my friends log in to Facebook back in the fall, when I ran an experimental social media campaign. For the overwhelming majority, they’re not on Facebook as much as Facebook represents.
Making a Facebook email address useless. Why would I want it to be the primary contact in my contact list when I care about staying in contact?
Facebook’s latest Android app is even more insidious. If you have Facebook installed on an Android device, NOW is the time to delete it.
Here’s why.
The latest Facebook app update for Android automatically allows it to bypass future update notifications. IT CAN UPDATE YOUR ANDROID DEVICE WITHOUT TELLING YOU A THING.
In his update on Google+, J C Kendall does a stellar job of explaining the badness of Facebook’s latest move. Click here to read his message in its entirety.
To summarize Kendall’s take on the Facebook for Android update:
- If Facebook can update your device without your knowledge, they can push all kinds of things your way. Like advertising through Facebook Exchange. And tracking your movements.
- Once you approve their latest update, you will not receive any updates about future changes to the Facebook app on your Android device.
- The update defaults to a setting that will enable your Android device to be a heightened target for malware. (And a target for any unknown source, like a Facebook Exchange Partner who wants to mine your information or sell you something through your smart device.)
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
Facebook is an advertising platform tasked with the crushing burden of making back their ridiculous IPO. It is NOT a social network.
I keep my profile there because a publisher will require me to have one. Except for exceptional situations, like the recent visit of the Peru Rotary GSE team, I no longer post photos to Facebook. I don’t allow geo-tagging. I do not connect any other application with Facebook. I share my blog and post a quote, and I’m done for the day.
If you want to know what I’m really up to, please follow me on my preferred social media platform, Google+. Click here to circle me.
Or, click here to follow me on Twitter.
Whatever you do, please click ‘delete’ on your Facebook for Android application. And, consider every post you make to Facebook as up for sale to the highest bidder.
Even the ones you consider worthless or banal.
Note: Today’s featured photo is my guide son Cooper’s father. He is not related to Mark Zuckerberg.
Here, here! I am with you on this one. I am really wondering why Google is letting them get away with this on Android. Such a stunt should have Google ripping Facebook’s app out of the Play marketplace. Especially since there is no love loss between the two of them anyway.
But you? A geek? We will have to have a conference on that one.
Some folks suspect that taking FB’s app out of Play’s marketplace is Google’s ultimate goal. Especially since they have a competing (and far superior) product with Google+.
I think the problem with getting folks to move over to G+ is that habits are hard to break and once someone has lived with Facebook and its continuous changes, it’s hard to get them to move. Personally, I like G+ a lot and enjoy following folks there, but, 99% of the folks I communicate with are on FB and not G+. I’ll just keep checking and updating my settings on FB and check FB, G+ and Twitter for social exchange.
Okay, I’ll go ahead and say it……
Facebook is counting on people feeling this way about their service: “Oh, everybody is there, so I can’t leave.” If people really care about me (like you and a host of others in my life), they are using more than Facebook to stay connected. The rest of it has become a whole freaking lot of noise.
And pressure. I used to feel awful when someone posted something big to Facebook, and I did not see it, because they assumed I knew the news when I saw them next. I no longer feel that way. If a piece of news is vital enough that I need to know it, then take the time to tell me by email, via text, on the phone or in person. Facebook is not the place for big news, because they decide how few of a person’s connections actually see that news.
We will see how Facebook loyalty changes when they roll out video advertisements in the timeline in April. That’s the real reason behind the major updates to the timeline.
I don’t feel intelligent enough for Google. I’ve got it, but don’t really know how to communicate with anyone on it. I know, I know, I haven’t examined it close enough as I have the patience of a knat, actually, I think a knat has more patience than I do…I think Mike would agree.
If you have the new Facebook timeline, you essentially have Facebook’s ripped-off version of Google+, only Google’s social network does not contain ads, while Facebook’s ad-centric.
I wish more people that I care about would use Google+, but that is not the point of this post. I hope I made people more aware that Facebook’s intent is to make money from every piece of data we give them, from every click we make, from every interaction we have, from everything we share, all while restricting our ability to see the information we want on their platform. I have decided to limit what I put on Facebook because of that.
Google+ is definitely a tool for meeting people you don’t know but might like to know. It is not a friends and family platform. I’ve met writers all over the world through their Communities tool, and I talk to interesting people on almost every continent every day. The interactions on my posts there are not always a big as they can be with Facebook, but the conversations are more interesting. And, I love that I can structure it to see EXACTLY what I want to see. I don’t feel like I’m missing posts. I can send updates to people I choose. It took me a while to get over the feeling that nobody was there, because lots of people are there. I just didn’t know many of them in real life.
And for those of us who are paid to manage Facebook accounts for customers, we must use Facebook for many activities…finally they did make it easier when they came out with Pages, the page app for Facebook, because the Facebook Android app did not have full Page admin functionality. I love and use Hootsuite for both my desktop, laptop and Android device. I prefer it in fact, but there are some things about using it that don’t integrate well with Facebook, and so as a result, I must not use it for some activities.
I’m with Carnell, I hope Google gives Facebook what for…
Thanks for the article. And you are so right–we’re the product on Facebook. Make. No. Mistake. About. It.
They do not give priority to posts that come from Hootsuite on Facebook, do they? I thought they were relegating third-party app posts to the hinterlands.
Once again I am reminded of the desire to leave Facebook forever. Unfortunately I have friends and family on FB that will never make the move to G+ or Twitter. I also manage several groups and FB pages as well. GAH!!! The question I will pose is this. Should I remove FB apps from my iPhone and iPad? Do they pose a security threat to my devices? If so, then I have no problem deleting them. They are there as a matter of convenience so I can be mobile and not always have to be chained to a desktop computer or laptop. I follow J.C. Kendall as well and read his article which was most excellent. Thanks for sharing that with us Andra.
At this point, Apple does not allow app updates without internal review, so the iPhone and iPad apps do not have the risks that the Android ones do. However, when they slipped in the ‘automatically sync your FB contacts with your contact list’ feature, I deleted the apps. I do not want Facebook to access my contact list or my calendar. Ever.
Thank you for posting this very important info and helping spread the word on the dangerous precedent being put out there by FB right now.
You are gutsier than me, because you deleted your Facebook account. I really, REALLY wish I could. While industry trends suggest that publishers aren’t as sweet on Facebook as they once were, it is still a required part of a platform.
I wouldn’t call it gutsy, you still have a valid reason to use it. My only reason was to keep in touch with people that I don’t really need to keep in touch with. It wiped out a lot of noise and since I have detachment issues anyway I don’t really mind dropping chunks of people out.
I’m curious, though. How many people said something to you about being gone? I mean, I know I did, but how many others have noticed?
well, that explains some behaviour I had noticed about the Facebook app when it complained about an update failing. was too busy at the time to think much about it.
I hope the update failing means you don’t have it on your phone now.
quite a few, unfortunately Krista has people messaging her asking too, unintended consequence.
Good to know you’re missed.
for a normal person probably, for me, meh
Happily, my phone doesn’t have enough memory to run the app
That’s good. That’s very good.
I have my google + account but I rarely use it. I know I should get into the swing of it. But I haven’t. One of these days…
At least you’re in my circles now, Darcie, so that I will see when you post.
Yes! Definitely
Andra, I gave up my Facebook account many Moons ago. I’ve never looked back… but then, I never really used it as intended. I never posted. I was very quickly bored of updates that were mere drivel… I just had the occasional chat every now and again, but nothing of any great importance. To be honest, I’m not really that keen on social media (not counting blogging, that is!) I don’t tweet now and don’t know where to begin with G+. I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything – but I’m certainly not missing any Facebook ads.
I bought a book from Amazon the other day, and had an option to post my purchase on Facebook… that’s a new development… where will it go next, I wonder?
You were wise to run away from FB when you did, Tom.
As a blogger, it really is important to have a G+ account and claim authorship of your blog with Google. It has many benefits, but one is to catalog your writing and protect you from plagiarism.
Thanks, Andra. FB is creepy, like a peeping Tom. Perhaps it’s time for me to close my account.
A number of my friends have closed theirs, Nancy.
I will probably need to read this more than once to fully comprehend…I find the whole thing so complicated. If it weren’t for the fact I know a few friends read the post on FB I would probably be more than happy to just close shop. Thanks for being so current with the issues, and I’ll be thinking!
A number of people only read my blog when they see it on Facebook. Nothing will induce them to subscribe…………very frustrating.
as an Indie author (good lord that sounds pretentious) I have to maintain a book o face account to promote and be a nuisance to friend and family who just want to see picture of my beautiful daughters and lovely wife.
I don’t put the apps on my phone because I use my phone so much for work, the last thing I want is to be in a meeting and have my coworkers see what jadedpunkhulk has to say about Lindsay Lohan.
I relate to your feeling and post….but my inner geek compels me to our blogs and the twitter.