"you've earned every squeeze"

ok. enough is enough. i've said this for EVER and... well, its time. effective my birthday, next week, i am quitting facebook. i can't come up with a reason to keep using it aside from keeping in touch with my high school crush. and, let's be honest. i'm not REALLY keeping in touch with him other than checking every now and then to see if he is still dating that skanky whore. no, i'm kidding. i'm sure she's... ummm, yeah.

i actually started this rambling on february 22. thats almost 3 months ago! and since then, i've been saving any facebook article i find and there are a LOT. and NONE of them are GOOD. privacy issues here, data mining there. how is the "networking" that it provides worth all of these issues? i don't get it. i just dont get it. and i even gave it a shot. the past few weeks, i have logged in often and tried doing those stupid updates and its really uninteresting to me. and then when facebook changed their privacy settings, all these people who i hardly know and some i dont even like, tried to be friends with me! and i dont want to be a bitch and NOT friend them, but at the same time... they're NOT my friends! why should i give them access to my updates and my actual friends and ... well, everything. and i absolutely HATE it when people "tag" me in those stupid photos! its really effing annoying. i don't appreciate people posting pictures of me that their "friends" who i dont know, can see. ugh! its so frustrating. so i'm quitting. i'm stopping. i'm out. as of next week. we'll give HIM a week to get in touch with me. we'll see what happens. wink, wink.

so that you can see just how DIRE the situation is with facebook and your privacy and the scariness of it all, check out these articles - i'll try to summarize them for you. but sometimes, the title just says it all. (oh, but before that, this was pretty great about facebook owning south dakota. i'm just glad its not north.) to begin, you can check out this facebook timeline.

• the article that got me thinking of the evilness of facebook - its potentially damaging to the environment
• but maybe that doesn't interest you. does facebook leaking email addresses bother you??
• not so much "bad news" but the realization that i was looking for a job, and the truth is - your facebook profile can only hurt you
• i have this same issue with google storing all this information about you so that it can create ads for you. great for marketers, not so great that my information is stored somewhere and someone can access it
• more bad news about facebook not caring about your privacy and just wanting cash - they give away your location even when your profile is set to private
• did you know that fb used to have partners delete your data after 24 hrs but now they don't?? who is storing your data? do you have any idea??
• they purposefully confuse their members so that they can get more cash. its all about the profits
• former employees are starting to sing about all the privacy issues
• oh! and don't get me started about the current employees spying on YOU. i dont want anyone else seeing how often i check so-and-sos profile
• five scary facebook monsters waiting to scare you
• franken - and how great is he?? - even says its not good (all the privacy issues, that is). listen up, people!
• oh and your IP addresses are leaked...
  
• oh and here's franken again and again - this time annoyed at the facebook ceos
• ok and its not just potential employees using facebook against people - creditors are, too!
• consumer reports even says that people are oversharing on facebook - be careful people!
• facebook privacy hole lets see where users go.

BUT i do understand the importance of social networks. wait. is importance the right word? i understand their impact to society. this is a decent article on which social network is right for you. i might start using linkedin more, BUT the same thing there - i HATE "connecting" to people i dont want to be connected to. ugh.

IF you are going to keep your facebook account (i dont know WHY), then please please please read this article about restoring your privacy. if you're all about deleting your accounts, like me, check out this article on how to delete them forever (on many different social networks). this one is specifically for deleting facebook forever. and if you do, as i will next week, we won't be the only ones doing it. check out this article about how many people are searching to delete their accounts.

phew. i'm tired. exhausted, even. just from rereading all these articles and summarizing them. think about it people. is it worth it??

oh, and the final straw that just came out today - delete your account, but they're keeping your information.

[i'm writing this as i watch dwts from last night and just heard tom bergeron say "you've earned every squeeze" and thought it was just... hilariously perfect.]