Monday, May 31, 2010

Nearly 29,000 people deactivating accounts on Quit Facebook Day

Toronto - The same day Americans everywhere remember the fallen on Memorial Day is the same day thousands of people plan to deactivate their Facebook account on Quit Facebook Day.
Nearly everybody you meet uses Facebook and some might consider you weird or out of the loop if you don’t have a Facebook account. But recent actions by Facebook led to the creation of Quit Facebook Day.
It was reported that founder Mark Zuckerberg called the first few thousand users of the website “dumbf**cks.” Facebook has also been in the media about concerns over its security settings.
Quit Facebook Day was created by two Torontonians: Joseph Dee, a web technologist, and Matthew Milan, a partner at Normative Design. According to PC World, Milan tweeted, “I personally never expected high numbers [for Quit Facebook Day]. But something doesn't have to be viral to be successful.”
The website states that they care and are concerned about the future of the World Wide Web and feel Facebook will not have any positive impact on the future of the Internet, “so we’re leaving.”
Exactly 28,682 people have committed to leaving Facebook but it’s unclear if they will actually deactivate their account due to its importance in social circles.
The Globe and Mail reports that there have been numerous attempts by many people to quit social media networking. In 2008 and 2009, Jeffrey Sass set up a blog called 28 Digital Days and then established a 140-step to quit social media.

Pakistan lifts ban on Facebook

Bloomberg reports that a Pakistani court has lifted a restriction that saw Facebook banned in the country for the past 12 days.
Pakistan blocked the world's most popular social networking website, Facebook, on May 19, after a user on the service created a page asking other Facebook users to draw their version of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam.
Late today however, Bloomberg reported that the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, had "spoken" to Facebook who had assured him that no "blasphemous" material would be available to Pakistani visitors.
The news comes following the unblocking of YouTube in the country on May 27, which was blocked a day after the ban on Facebook was imposed.

Facebook unveils new one-click privacy settings

Facebook has today unveiled new, simplified privacy settings changes which it hopes will ease pressure regarding user privacy controversies on the social networking site.
In a media event held earlier today, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the changes will be rolled out in "the next few weeks", and that the company has sought to simplify user privacy settings following a severe backlash in recent weeks.
The update comes just days before the first official "quit Facebook day", which will see up to 30,000 Facebook users delete their Facebook account in response to the recent privacy uproar.

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