Kyle R. Conway

I’m Done

—

by

Kyle Conway
in

The Goodbye Letter

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: I’ve finally built up the resolve and made a decision that has been a very long time coming: I’m done.

I’ve long considered Facebook to be not much more useful than a self-updating Rolodex (and it is only good at that due to the hard work of all of us), but I’m perturbed enough by news this time around that I’m done. An article at Forbes [1], of scary interpretations [2], of additional violations I didn’t ask for [3], or for the next round of privacy setting tweaks via a handy guide from the EFF to make Facebook temporarily palatable again [4]. I’m done.

And you know what? I’m really happy about it, and I know I’ll be even happier about it tomorrow. I don’t even feel like I was particularly addicted to Facebook, but it certainly had some sort of hold on me. I’m happy to be letting go and moving on. At any rate, I’m more active in other communities and I’ll leave you with some contact info should you want to see what I’m up to or contact me in the future (or send me non-Facebook contact info for yourself):

If you choose to stay, I won’t feel bad. I might be a little sad though. I chose to stay for a long time. Maybe you’ll be ready the next time something adversely changes (and it will). I would ask that you ask yourself a question right now: where is the line? Write it down, put a date on it, and use it to remind yourself of where you felt the line was today. Your future self would then have a choice to make. If you move the line, then keep a record of how often you do that (I know I moved the line a lot in the past years).

The internet is a new and exciting space that shouldn’t be taken over and closed off by bad actors with ill intentions. Don’t say that this is not your department http://www.howtoleavefacebook.com/

  1. Write goodbye message to everyone (and be a good friend and assist them in leaving with you).
  2. Archive account backup: https://www.facebook.com/help/212802592074644/
  3. Extended archive account backup: https://www.facebook.com/help/366909913347527/
  4. Disable 3rd party logins/apps (to ensure you don’t log in via another app): https://www.facebook.com/help/170585223002660/
  5. Disable auto-login to Facebook (check w/ your browser, phone, tablet, etc).
  6. Log date you delete Facebook: __________________
  7. Log length of time before official deletion: __________________
  8. Log the date of freedom: _______________
  9. After hitting “delete,” add the following lines to your /etc/hosts file.

Block Facebook IPv4

127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 facebook.com
127.0.0.1 login.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 www.login.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1 www.fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1 fbcdn.com
127.0.0.1 www.fbcdn.com
127.0.0.1 static.ak.fbcdn.net
127.0.0.1 static.ak.connect.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 connect.facebook.net
127.0.0.1 www.connect.facebook.net
127.0.0.1 apps.facebook.com

Block Facebook IPv6

::1 www.facebook.com
::1 facebook.com
::1 login.facebook.com
::1 www.login.facebook.com
::1 fbcdn.net
::1 www.fbcdn.net
::1 fbcdn.com
::1 www.fbcdn.com
::1 static.ak.fbcdn.net
::1 static.ak.connect.facebook.com
::1 connect.facebook.net
::1 www.connect.facebook.net
::1 apps.facebook.com

Thanks for listening and considering.

Links:
[1]: April 28, 2010 – https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-timeline
[2]: April 28, 2010 – https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/handy-facebook-english-translator
[3]: January 29, 2013 – https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/facebook-graph-search-privacy-control-you-still-dont-have
[4]:January 18, 2013 – https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/how-protect-your-privacy-facebooks-graph-search

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