---
title: "Aaaaaargh, Facebook"
url: https://perrotta.dev/2013/11/aaaaaargh-facebook/
last_updated: 2026-02-19
---


_Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. Facebook.
Facebook._ No, I'm not trying to index my blog. This represents the buffer
overflow (>> overload) of information. Nicholas Carr would be proud of it
(_NO_). Today I'm deleting (again) some of my facebook info. It is soooo hard to
stop giving information / maintaining (on-line) privacy while you enter in an
inertia state. I'll let some of my steps here; if you care about that, you can
try to reproduce them too.

Note: Deleting (actually, deactivating) my facebook account is not an option
anymore, because everyone are there... nowadays: to negate facebook is to negate
(almost all of) social life. Whoa. Also, I'm writing here some of my practices.

## Privacy practices

- **Remove all of my public likes** (set privacy to 'only me'). There's no way
  to do this with just one click. You have to set this option to every
  individual category. And, when facebook (ever) invents a new one, you'll have
  to apply it to this one too.

- **About my (current) private likes:**
  - I'll just like brands that I have (products of). For example (now): lenovo,
    motorola, intel. I think this supports the companies.
  - I won't like anything related to music (anymore).
  - I won't like anything related to politics (anymore). You see, this web 3.0
    thing made everybody think that they have opinion, and more: that their
    opinions actually are relevant to everyone. That includes me, of course. But
    this is not true (I think). **This is an illusion**. Common exception
    (maybe): mass causes. For example, the june/july protests that happened in
    Brazil this year. Without internet support this would be condemned to (an
    obvious) failure.
  - **Events:** I'll only like relevant ones (for me). Also, if you usually
    confirm your presence in an event, I recommend (un)confirming it after the
    event, otherwise it will be registered _forever, yay_ that you went to the
    event.
  - I'll maintain some likes related to page of friends or college.
  - I'll maintain my likes related to some random campaigns, like phoneblocks.

- **My likes have been reduced from ~170 to ~70.** Whoooa, so much non-useful information filtered!

- **About photos:** You won't see me posting any photos to Facebook (I only did
  this once since I created an account there), besides my profile picture.
  Neither tags of me (it's the same thing, just a different name...). Today I
  prefer Flickr (from Yahoo) to share public photos, and Dropbox to share
  personal ones.

- **I deleted all of my notes.** I used to write them when I hadn't a Wordpress
  Blog. To delete notes is a nightmare. 4 clicks for each one.

## Additional settings

- **Limit (past) public posts.**
- **Deactivate audio notifications.**
- **Hide all non-useful posts.** I usually click in "hide all" in posts of
  friends full of non-useful info. This helps reducing (A LOT) the amount of
  spam in my timeline, and hopefully helps me seeing (more) relevant information
  from relevant people. Google+ is better in this category, because its circle
  feature allows one to customize what he'll see. (You can say facebook has
  lists, but nobody uses them, really.)

## Timeline and sharing practices

- **I don't write birthday wishes on the timeline** of my friends. The few ones
  that I care about (or remember, sorry, there are much (not toooo much,
  actually) to remember them all or to see birthdays everyday) I write private
  messages to.
- **I (almost 99% of times) never accept any (photo) tagging.**
- **If anyone ever posts to my timeline,** its contents will be only visible for
  me. Let's don't be orkut with public messages (oh, the old scraps...) all over
  the place, please.
- **I used to share some flood** (please don't read flood as spam; read flood as
  wasteful or non-useful or non-relevant info) way too much. Now I try to reduce
  this. I won't say I only share useful info, because the majority of people _in
  facebook_ simply don't care about them. According to Lunduke, ~"they are there
  (only) to see photos of babies...", sums up this.
- **Only post public posts when they must be public.** Your default settings
  should be to post to friends (or maybe friends of friends). Or maybe only you,
  who knows...(Please don't use facebook as a bookmarking place.)
- **To stay on-line all the time** is not really an issue (fast connection,
  we're not in the '00 anymore \o/), but it is better (for me, at least) to use
  some client to do it, like Pidgin.
- **To stay up do date with general subjects,** I prefer using a RSS feed.

Finally, the world changes, and we have to change with it (or stay behind, which
I don't find a wise choice). These practices may or may not change or apply to
the future. But now they are good. Thank you for reading.