Why use Facebook at all.
Privacy
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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It is addiction just like any other. I felt like I can't quit it, I feel like I will lose connection with the friends and family that is still using it. That it keeps me informed and other BS.
After deleting it on 2nd try (after navigating the maze to delete, they gave 30 days to change mind, hoping I won't be able to resist and will log in. And of course I couldn't resist the first time and logged back in) I realized that I haven't lost anything of value and the people that I still matter I have other ways to contact.
It was just an illusion.
Edit: fixed
I deleted my facebook account in 2022 and have essentially not been contacted by friends since, so there's that
:(
Marketplace can be good for local deals and I can’t fault anyone for taking advantage of that
Yeah I use it extensively for this.
If it asked me to verify and I couldn't use someone else's face it would be a tough decision.
Marketplace is the one and only reason I havent deleted my account. It sucks but it is by far the best way to buy and sell.
I tried to find something on marketplace a month ago. Dozens of posts because it's a super common item, all posts were a week or less old. None were legitimate. Every one was a scam, responses all leading to bullshit websites to buy, or users that never responded.
Has to get the item on Ebay instead because apparently they actually have basic scam prevention systems in place while Facebook apparently doesn't have shit.
Through no fault of my own, the people I talk to (family) are tied to the FB ecosystem...and they are very resilient as to leaving it.
2026 will have to be the year of "please, for the love of all that is holy, can we switch to Signal"
Here's a word of advice: do not use that sack of shit company for anything. Always use decentralized alternatives wherever possible
I signed up for friendica, after 2 decades of having never used facebook.
It's blank, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
I can't comment on what the facebook experience is, but I imagine they don't just dump you onto a blank white page, with zero explaination.
Note that I am NOT defending or endorsing facebook. I'm just saying the decentralized services have work to do before they can fully be reccomended.
I also recently signed up for pixelfed. It took 3 days to login the first time. And I'm still not sure what the point of collections is. But I did upload 4 pictures.
Happened to me on twitter. They wanted to open the front camera and look at my face and estimate my age.
I just went to thispersondoesnotexist.com on PC and showed twitter that image. They accepted it.
One(1) ethical use for generative AI
Have been for a while. Decided to try to make a fake Facebook account mid-laat year to use marketplace since it's the dominant platform in my area. As soon as I saw this I just closed the browser tab.
I had an account but deleted it years ago, during covid my kids school put a lot of information on their Facebook account so I tried making a new account. Facebook told me there wasn't enough proof I was real, so I made a fake account with a super common name, they were fine with that. So now I have a Facebook account that I occasionally use to repost sports articles,I have zero interest in sports but my guy seems to like them.
Well, just uploaded a photo of someone else now it says this...

That means Facebook already knows what you look like. Otherwise they couldn't have known you submitted the wrong photo.
Or it knows who the other person is
both. and all your friends and 'friends', too.
This information goes right to the US government.
Anyone who doesn't think Facebook is an arm of the US government is naive at best.
It's been like that for quite a while. I remember deleting all big-tech accounts in 2019, and shortly after, Facebook started requiring login for full public page access. Therefore I created a burner account using a 'this person does not exist' picture, which provided me short-lived access after manual review. For account recovery, I was required to supply additional selfies (or even video-selfies?), but at that point I gave up.
THIS!
I tried this to get an account. This was back in 2021. My account was deleted immediately. Probably a mixture of name and face. Maybe. But F that.
Delete Facebook and problem solved. Here, where I live, we have websites for marketplace and website for concerts.
wdym? facebook automatically showed us it used facial recognition at least as far back as 2007 by asking us to click boxes on faces and subsequently asking us to label them... We really did all of the heavy lifting for them. -I got out while i could in ~2018
I am sure the plan is to eventually roll this out to everyone.
Don't use this shit
It's been several years already.
I don't even use facial unlock on my phone. I enter the pin every time.
Unfortunately, to access the Social Security site, I was required to send a picture of my face and driver's license. So, I suppose Trump will sell that to whoever want's to buy it now.
Is there still real people there? I thought Facebook was a bankrupt platform filled bot profile keeping the chaos an revenue on?
I went to create an account a while ago. When I saw this, I was this close to sending them a picture of my dick and balls. But I thought myself better than these fucking creeps who insist on knowing how many wrinkles our ass has.
Thank you for the session. Same time tomorrow?
I really need a car and to sell some shit I'm not using for money, that site is so hostile I said fuck it, facebook market place isn't worth it. whose got a worth while alternative?
Check local alternatives. I use Bazos (though it's only has support for Slovakia, Czechia, Poland and for Austria)
I see a lot of people saying "just don't use it". If it was that easy…
In some places, FB has took the lion share of the 2nd hand online selling. Historical platforms are in agony and your chance of finding a buyer/seller dramatically reduce if you avoid FB maretplace.
In some places, FB is so common that schools, activities etc. are organized on FB. You don't have an account, no worry: you'll be the lone idiot to drop your kid at school the day it's closed because of a snow storm.
In some places, FB is the personal life blogging platform. So if you want to know about old friends you've left behind as you were relocating to different countries, you're going to miss on some quite important events (death in the family, etc.) as that's where they let people know.
In some places, if you want to build a network, that's where "everyone" is. You like trekking and want to find a group for that? They're all on FB. You want to play board games? Groups are all on FB.
The list goes on and on.
I mean, it's right in the name, took them long enough to demand your face for their book.
Are they the police?
Would never upload picture to American big tech service and im surprised people think thats something they agree to. I guess the addiction is too strong, to these shitty services.
It’d be a shame if someone use AI to generate an image to upload. You’d just be feeding AI data into AI, and that could ruin what Facebook’s trying to do.
Last time I used facebook they required me to send in a legal ID after a couple months of being registered, which locked me out of my oculus quest 2 headset back when they required facebook accounts and weren't called meta.
Use a Google Voice phone number, and an AI generated photo/video.
You can even use augmentations to create different photos/videos of the same fake person. Or create an “altered” version of yourself close enough to match whatever Facebook has.
…Hopefully.
I’m in the same predicament. There's always eBay, but they take a fat cut on top of whatever is paid for shipping.
No problemo, Zuck.

Unfortunately it forced all existing users to submit as well, but we already gave it a bunch of photos of ourselves before the beast had revealed itself