You know how I was gonna do this big Facebook experiment? Well, my account got suspended because — here’s a shocker — Facebook is under the impression that Twisty Faster isn’t my real name. Evidently using a nom de bloggue is a capital offense. Unlike the captain of the Costa Concordia, the IBTP page went down with the ship. I’m afraid I was unwilling to administrate the page with my Earth name.
I suppose one of the jacknuts I banned ratted me out. I’ve had that account for over a year, but they only just now got around to kicking me out. Funny how they let that hilarious guy “Joe Ker” — obviously his real name — jizz all over my wall with his funny rape threats.
Apologies to everyone who took the time to friend me, and particularly to the We Blame the Patriarchy group blamers for their generous consideration.
I have to admit, though, I’d be lying if I said my obstreberal lobe wasn’t pulsating with relief. That lobe never did think Facebook was such a hot idea.
Well, I’ll be back later with a gripping post on why radical feminism and sex work advocacy are doomed to catfight in hell forever, but first I’m off to delete my Earthling Facebook account. Best to make a clean break.
45 comments
2 pings
hayduke
January 31, 2012 at 9:27 am (UTC -6)
Why am I not surprised? They’ve got a long history of going after pro-breast feeding pages and doing squat about numerous “violence against women = funny!” pages.
Looking forward to that post.
josquin
January 31, 2012 at 9:29 am (UTC -6)
It was a valiant effort, but I find that I am somewhat relieved also. There are hidden shoals in the seas of Facebook. It just feels safer here.
Shelly
January 31, 2012 at 9:45 am (UTC -6)
And in the meantime, half the people I come across on Facebook have obviously fake names. Some of their dogs even have accounts. Hmf.
Keri
January 31, 2012 at 10:31 am (UTC -6)
I look forward to that post too because those are two things I just can’t seem to reconcile.
buttercup
January 31, 2012 at 10:59 am (UTC -6)
Aw, darnit. I felt special because I was friends with you. I’m sorry it didn’t work out!
Twisty
January 31, 2012 at 11:04 am (UTC -6)
Buttercup, we’ll always be friends here on Savage Death Island!
Friend of Snakes
January 31, 2012 at 11:05 am (UTC -6)
Use my real name on Facebook? I think not.
stacey
January 31, 2012 at 11:13 am (UTC -6)
How… ordinary. Fuckers.
buttercup
January 31, 2012 at 11:32 am (UTC -6)
Oh, the warmth in the cockles of my heart. Thanks, Twisty!
TwissB
January 31, 2012 at 12:05 pm (UTC -6)
Hail to all Facebook Resisters. Don’t assume that FB’s claws are that easy to detatch. Awhile back, I was suckered in when a distant daughter deigned to “friend” me for one day only for a reason that I no longer recall. There was an immediate deluge of strangers that go-between FB sent over to friend me. I didn’t understood or want to understand any of FB’s cutesy jargon or other icky conventions. The last straw was encountering some long-forgotten piece of my own prose posted on my so-called page by an unknown hand. I told FB I wanted it dead and ordered it to shut down my page. Recently went back to verify its non-existence only to find FB still hanging on.
FB knows where you live.
Satchel
January 31, 2012 at 12:58 pm (UTC -6)
I hate it when the bad guys win.
livvysidhe
January 31, 2012 at 1:10 pm (UTC -6)
Well, blast! I must admit I was a little worried when Unfriend Finder (a GreaseMonkey script useful for those of us who find it amusing to be notified when we’ve offended high-school acquaintances beyond repair) told me you’d suspended your account this morning.
Twisty
January 31, 2012 at 1:21 pm (UTC -6)
I didn’t suspend it, Facebook did. I did attempt to delete it thereafter, but ominously, as was TwissB’s experience, it seems to have a half-life.
livvysidhe
January 31, 2012 at 1:24 pm (UTC -6)
Yeah, should have been more clear, I got that after the post, but apparently Unfriend Finder doesn’t differentiate, so I thought we’d grown wearisome already.
AlienNumber
January 31, 2012 at 1:26 pm (UTC -6)
I too hate it when Bad Guys (is that redundant?) win. Boo!
Sorry to start a second sentence with “I,” but here it goes: I thought about joining FB at one point (i.e. work for them), but then I realized that their workforce is 90%+ greasy white dude douchebags (is that redundant?) and decided that I’d rather continue to hang out with the ladies, in the Pink Collar Zone. It is no wonder that they kick Feminist Twisty out before MRA Joe Ker.
*Public Service Announcement brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
Before I shut the ole pie hole, a declaration of amour: Twisty Faster, FB is just not the same without you.
AlienNumber
January 31, 2012 at 1:27 pm (UTC -6)
(livvysidhe, does this amazing GM script work on Chrome too?)
quixote
January 31, 2012 at 1:28 pm (UTC -6)
I remember reading an approximately twelve-step list of what it takes to really close down a Facebook account. There oughta be a law.
As somebody pointed out in another thread, there is Diaspora. It’s an open source, user-controlled FB analogue. It gets no traction because “nobody” is on it, but for a private group that doesn’t want anybody, that’s not an issue. I don’t know how difficult setup is because I haven’t tried it myself.
About the pseudonym-hate, they may be ratcheting it up because they’re having an IPO soon and it’s somehow connected with having a higher-value farm of users to promise to advertisers. Or they may just be continuing the usual Zuckerbergian assholery.
slade
January 31, 2012 at 1:40 pm (UTC -6)
Ever since I saw the movie about the little boyz who started Facebook, I’ve hated them and it.
And it’s going to go public soon so the little boyz will have more and more $$$. May they choke on it.
Who in their right mind would use their real name???? Of course I like privacy. And of course Facebook slammed IBTP. Just watch that disgusting movie about the little turds. I can’t even remember the name. I needed to block it from my memory.
The IPO of Facebook ends civilization.
Twisty
January 31, 2012 at 1:42 pm (UTC -6)
Yeah, I just found out that Facebook retains my info as-is for another 14 days, during which I may not click any FB icon or whatever on any 3rd-party website lest the account be reactivated. After the 14 days, although I have relinquished my ability to access it, Facebook still keeps my shit. This whole set-up is creepy in the extreme.
Doctress Julia
January 31, 2012 at 1:44 pm (UTC -6)
Those DICKbags. Well, I hope I can wreak more havoc on FB before they try to delete my ‘alias’ account…
If only people would figure it out all at once, and have a mass exodus from FB. Like overnight. THAT would hit them where it hurts. If only… what would it take?
Sure hope I can be all you wonderful blamers’ friends, even without FB…
livvysidhe
January 31, 2012 at 1:45 pm (UTC -6)
AlienNumber, it does indeed! It looked like it had versions for just about every browser. Well worth Googling it up!
minervaK
January 31, 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC -6)
Yay, Twisty! One more wall of separation between you and the patriarchy.
minervaK
January 31, 2012 at 2:10 pm (UTC -6)
Oh yeah: for those of you who haven’t done it yet, in order to most fully separate yourself from BookFace, you have to jump through a special hoop. On your account settings, you have the ability to “suspend” your account, but all that does is lock you out of your account after 14 days — it doesn’t delete any of your information (i.e., BookFace keeps it). To really, seriously, for sure DELETE your account, you have to make a special request (which they, naturally, do not tell you up front). If you haven’t yet been locked out of your suspended account, you can log back in and request DELETION here:
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=224562897555674
AlienNumber
January 31, 2012 at 2:35 pm (UTC -6)
Since I spend so much time on FB, I don’t have time to google!
Thanks, livvysidhe. My favorite feature of the script so far is that it shows me the Pending Requests.
(if anybody wants to help me with my FB addiction, please do!)
wondering
January 31, 2012 at 2:49 pm (UTC -6)
Rargh. I have never used my real name on FB, and the majority of my friends don’t use their real names either. FB doesn’t like it because it dirties the pool of information that they sell on us.
And of course it provides weaponry for jackasses who want to get you in trouble. So far, fortunately, I’ve only been yelled at about it, as opposed to actually reported.
Kea
January 31, 2012 at 4:10 pm (UTC -6)
Ah yes, the old DGBBP (Dudely Gestapo Big Brother Patrol) thing. Not much one can do about that. It boggles the mind when, in the internet age, they use excuses that are demonstrably false. Happens to me regularly. I only pray that Google never goes that way, or we’re all dead.
Blind Horse
January 31, 2012 at 5:01 pm (UTC -6)
Motion to start “Fembook”. Aliases welcome. D00ds – not so much. Who here has the computer savvy and free time to make it a reality?
Kea
January 31, 2012 at 5:04 pm (UTC -6)
Alas, Blind Horse, we would also need Cash.
stacey
January 31, 2012 at 8:12 pm (UTC -6)
Fembook sounds AWESOME. But it would all collapse in a lake of resentful goo in no time flat.
I’ve got my real name on FB because I aspire to be a Famous Artist some day; having been burned on the internet in the early 00s, however, I’m very selective about the info I put on there. (It’s mostly updates about my period.) And then all the “popular” kids from high school started friending me left and right – the ones who never spoke to me, nay, ridiculed my New Wave fashion-disaster self. They all still live in the same town, married to each other – the very picture of Hell.
IBlameRonPaul
February 1, 2012 at 3:02 am (UTC -6)
When I was on ShitBook, I used a fake name, gave no occupation, and filled out only trivial details about myself (i.e. for religion, “Keep your government hands off my uterus,” and for music, “Bowie, REM, Soundgarden, [insert wide range of bands/artists/musicians from the 60s-90s that are incredibly popular]“).
I can’t remember what option I chose when deleting it, but either way, I sure hope Goldman-Sachs and the little twerp who invented the thing has fun with all my fake, non-useful trivia for their various and sundry marketing scams!
humanbein
February 1, 2012 at 9:23 am (UTC -6)
I never felt comfortable posting on Facebook. On Facebook I have a sex, here I can exist without a gender as best I can.
buttercup
February 1, 2012 at 3:22 pm (UTC -6)
humanbein, I am without gender on facebook. It doesn’t like it when you opt out, but it is possible.
That being said I totally understand the assorted reservations. I wouldn’t know what to do without it because I have no real-life friends.
Comrade PhysioProf
February 1, 2012 at 3:41 pm (UTC -6)
Srsly. FUCKE FACEBOOKE!
G
February 1, 2012 at 7:37 pm (UTC -6)
Kea said “I only pray that Google never goes that way, or we’re all dead.”
They already did. Have you heard of nymwars? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/2011-review-nymwars
Lurker Lyn
February 2, 2012 at 6:27 am (UTC -6)
Someone silenced a feminist?! How shocking and unexpected.
*cough*
Fuck the P. I am more angered by this than I could have predicted.
KittyWrangler
February 2, 2012 at 1:29 pm (UTC -6)
@Comrade PhysioProf
Why do you add “e” to the end of words like “fuck”? I’m not complaining, just curious.
Twisty
February 2, 2012 at 2:17 pm (UTC -6)
No, KittyWrangler! Don’t encourage him!
veganrampage
February 2, 2012 at 2:55 pm (UTC -6)
SARAH- DELETE HER!
That’s a link to sign into SHITBOOK, and she ain’t no she and certainly no blamer.
Monika/Shermanvolvo
February 5, 2012 at 12:23 am (UTC -6)
This policy reeks of white dudes who have never been stalked or harassed.
Jezebella
February 5, 2012 at 5:30 pm (UTC -6)
No shit, Monika. I have a couple of friends who were stalked several decades ago, haven’t had contact since then, and are still completely unwilling to be visible on the internet or FB for fear their stalkers will find them again. Twenty years on, and they still feel unsafe in public and on the internet. It’s a shite policy, mired in privilege.
Katherine
February 6, 2012 at 6:42 am (UTC -6)
Facebook has been an invaluable resource for many people who would otherwise be isolated from each other. Mother’s in a nuclear family for one – ie nearly all of us. I wish Facebook could be lessing frickin’ evil about it though.
Katherine
February 6, 2012 at 6:43 am (UTC -6)
Also, I go around “Liking” every feminist or feminist-related page or group I come across. I figure raising the numbers for feminism, whilst having to participate in evil Facebook is a small amount of mitigation.
AlienNumber
February 6, 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -6)
Well, this is certainly quite upsetting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/facebook-is-using-you.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
stacey
February 6, 2012 at 3:15 pm (UTC -6)
Here’s a couple of links to articles in the Globe and Mail (Canada) that I found interesting. Interesting in that they talk about how much of our facebook-dislike is validated, and how it may work in the future.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/digital-culture/facebook-nation-needs-a-constitution/article2326127/
…talking about how, with 800 million users, Facebook constitutes a constituency powerful enough to have Zuckerberg ATTEND THE G8 CONFERENCE LAST YEAR, FUCK!;
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/advice-to-facebook-ditch-the-ipo/article2324654/
…detailing how much content control Zuckerberg has, and doesn’t want to let go of;
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/digital-culture/social-networking/when-zuckerberg-hits-an-iceberg/article2326100/
…things that could, and hopefully will, go wrong in the future of Facebook.
As always, avoid the commentariat. The Globe is a national, business-centric daily with a fairly conservative readership.
Katherine
February 7, 2012 at 3:53 am (UTC -6)
As always, AN, the world is worse than I think or know. Ugh. I have small comfort in the existence of the Data Protection Act here in the UK, but actually I don’t know what, if any, effect that has on international companies holding data. And there are many juridictions that don’t have such a law, including, I think, the US.
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