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Facebook Celebrates Turning 12 Today (cnbc.com)
12 years ago today, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook, and since then the site has grown at a nearly unbelievable pace. Now, with about 1.6 billion monthly active users, Facebook makes an average of $3.73 in revenue per user worldwide. And as the company continues to grow, engagement is only getting higher. According to an analysis by CNBC, users spend an aggregate of 10.5 billion minutes per day on the social media platform -- that's around $3.5 trillion in squandered productivity, by their estimate. Facebook is celebrating its birthday by marking today "Friends Day" and adding personalized videos to each user's account showing their best moments with friends, or at least what Facebook's algorithms think are the best moments. (Users can opt to share the video or keep it private.) The company's also announced an updated degrees-of-separation metric to make it easier to connect with other users.
Celebrate? Lets mourn our collective privacy. Lets mourn proportionality of outrage. Lets mourn moving on from your mistakes. Lets mourn minding your own business.
when can we get rid of facebook?
I'd say "many happy returns". But in this case I'll simply say "sod off, and may you have no more birthdays - ever".
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
As I say.
Given that facebook has collected so much data that can be used by intelligence agencies, I'm sure they see this is VERY productive: People voluntarily giving lots of private data that has been used by hundreds of agencies including but not limited to government intelligence, insurance investigators, human resources, private intelligence/investigation, recruiting and marketing companies. Facebook has probably injected "nitro" into the fuel of face recognition technology development. Happy Birthday, Facebook (aka "The Facebook"). You've given us insight into our friends and family, in some cases more than the data owner probably would like if the thought about it in between postings...
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
I just watched my "Friends Day" video, and I'm now confused as to whether I have a social media account or a stalker.
People still use Facebook? How quaint!
Well, I'm no Facebook fan, (have been "wasting" my time here for years on /. instead.)
That hasn't stopped me holding down a job and delivering value to my clients over those same years.
Also, before the interwebs people did crossword puzzles, and other "non productive" stuff.
Plenty of people find Facebook a useful marketing tool also; my wife breeds and sells cats, and plenty of contacts have come via fb.
Thanks for posting! Timothy was about to drive us all nuts.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
At 18 you can kick them out, but if you let them get a BA degree in Afrikaans Translations of Shakespeare, they're going to end up back on your couch.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Only reason I have an account is to communicate with companies that don't have their own login system.
I'm on my second account now my first one was locked.
Apparently I fell awry of their real name policy. For some reason they didn't believe my name was ikate facebork.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
That means that next year, Facebook will be old enough to get a Facebook account, and the entire Facebook computing infrastructure will disappear in a burst of recursion...
With this news, I can now celebrate 12 years of not being on Facebook!
It's arguably the biggest threat to consumer privacy in our age - a Three Letter Agency's wet dream. I have never, and will never, ever use the steaming pile of user-exploiting, privacy-invading, advertiser-serving shit that Facebook has always been, and will always be. I can happily be a consumer, but I will never be a product if I can help it. I am the lone Facebook holdout amongst everyone I know, and proud of it.
Here's hoping we've already reached Peak Facebook...
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
I suppose that puts me on some sort of watch list...hmmmm.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The only reason I have an account is for friends and family - I wonder how many other accounts are purely for this reason?
Huh? Keeping up with friends and family is the main purpose of Facebook.
How a company that will do anything they want with your info, and seriously can't be trusted is held in such high regards.
On the flip side I need to access facebook to keep up with the family, and their doings, Facebook is their social setting.
Remember the days before Facebook, when you had to actually go over to someone's house and hide in the bushes to stalk them?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I wonder if Deez Nutz has a Facebook account?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Where else could you find out how hot that girl you refused to date in high school turned out to be later in life? (The hot girls I went to high school with now look like meth heads, whereas the girl I _almost_ asked out still looks exactly the same, despite being 40 years older.)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
CELEBRATE!
The anti-social network I have celebrates tomorrow. Celebrate! Your invitation never made it to the mailbox. But have a drink to commemorate the occasion, and have your dinner (for two-one now the other later) delivered to your door. Come on, do *I* have to think of everything?
Provocateur
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
But you have a slashdot account... that's SO MUCH BETTER!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
No, the main purpose of facebook is to analyze your activity and sell the pertinent data to a third party. That is facebooks main purpose. How and why you use it are part of the data that facebook collects.
I would, but I'm too busy grieving for the poor lost apostrophes.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I agree.
I think people knew that there was a something. They didn't know that the something could turn out to be anything.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yes., Also, And, And, And, And, And, And, And, And, And, And,
And More!
This should be their tagline: Facebook, the worst idea you wish you'd thought of first.
Tell me again, how Facebook makes its money?
As long as you understand that unless you've actively blocked them at the firewall or in your browser an alarming number of sites you visit will still cause Facebook to generate data about you ... because, well, between the Facebook button and embedded scripts, you might be surprised just how much they're already tracking you.
Well, them and the 15 other tracking sites embedded in most pages that people don't notice is happening.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I heard of some Asian guy having trouble with FB. His name was Fook Yu. I don't know if that was a true story.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
...I didn't need you to remind me that I have no friends.
The preview for me was just my kids, my wife, and my mother followed by a bunch of "Happy Birthday" messages people sent me because people subscribed to me, mostly from the rest of my family.
Kinda like the bottle of coke I had with a pizza, in a hotel room, on a business trip that instructed me to "share with friends".
I meant from the perspective of the user.
On other hand, I choose to be non-joiner to the bitter end.
Zuckerberg becomes one of the richest people in the world by building...the biggest waste of time ever devised.
Bill Gates is a prick. But at least his company built something - Windows - that makes people productive.
Andrew Carnegie was a prick. But his companies built railroads that allowed for westward expansion and are still in use today.
Jay Gould was a prick. But he too built railroads that helped to expand the economy.
What has Zuck done, exactly? He created a program that is such a time waster that many companies simply block it for fear of their employees surfing cousin Sally's wedding photos on the company dime. Sure, it has helped to reunite some families and I applaud that. And maybe it helped you find that long lost high school chum from 20 years ago. But maybe if you haven't heard from them in 20 years then they don't really give a shit about you? But I digress....
And the advertising...I mean does anyone really look at those things? If i buy a copy of Car & Driver then I'm really into cars and if I see an ad for car stuff I'm likely to at least read it. But if I'm looking at Sally's wedding photos do I really care about adds for car stuff?
I know that it makes money for Facebook but the whole thing just seems like a giant house of cards to me.
(3) or in the hosts file.
I come here for the love
It can actually get worse ... they have a feature which allows you to find contacts ... basically you (like a trusting idiot) upload your contacts to Facebook, who then scour through it to link you to anybody they can identify. So your friends can all get harassed and have their contact information provided to the assholes at Facebook without their knowledge or consent.
It'll even go one further, and let you just enter your email address and password, and then Facebook will log into it and scour it directly. That people would provide Facebook with their email address and password defies comprehension.
If you know such a person, Facebook has your email address because one of your idiot friends gave it to them ... which is how they know who you probably know, and what your email is.
And then once they can associate you with your browser, likely due to crap embedded in the email ... they can track you all over the web.
Isn't it fucking awesome?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Me too! Kinda figured that bitter end would've happened by now, though.
But do you have a TV?
It'll even go one further, and let you just enter your email address and password, and then Facebook will log into it and scour it directly. That people would provide Facebook with their email address and password defies comprehension.
I believe they at least use federated login for that so you're not actually submitting credentials to FB itself. But I've never been willing to find out.
you didn't delete your account. you deactivated it. all your data is still there, on their servers.
There is a way to delete your account rather than have it waiting for you. I mentioned it on /. long ago and was given a link that did the trick.
Google: how to permanently delete your account on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/help/... - no promises
I was like that with Myspace, caved on Facebook though. Mostly just for the login.
Why does everyone let the other Constitutional rights get shat upon, but act like that one damned thing is inviolate?
Why aren't all those people loudly braying about their 2nd amendment defending the other Constitutional rights?
Because the 2nd amendment is what will enable us to get those others back. There is a LOT of civil process still available before the braying you hear is gunfire.
I for one do not look forward to that. But the 2nd amendment remains as a legal means to enforce the will of the people as a *last resort*
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Please show me mine.Thank you.
I'm still proud to say, I'm one of the last 3 folks on planet earth that does not have a FB account, nor have I ever had one....
You're one, and I'm another - I wonder who the third is. ;-)
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.