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Tag: manipulative technology

Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning

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I came to realize lately that I have accumulated a huge number of online accounts over the years. Social media accounts, forum accounts, online services of every kind. Mobile app accounts, maps, instant messengers, heck even web browsers need an online account these days.

I have well over a hundred online accounts. How on earth did I accumulate all of these?!

We all know the dangers of giving away personal information to online services, even though we’ve become decidedly too comfortable with giving it away. Can you even sign up for a website anymore without it asking for your phone number, address, birth date, or, annoyingly, your mother’s maiden name?

But at least that is data that we decide to give away. Either you enter it into the text box, or you don’t. You create the account, or you don’t. We have an explicit choice.

Today’s online services are not so clear about how they get your data, about what information they collect, or how much of it they have. Services like Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and many more, collect massive amounts of information about us every time we interact with the internet. If it requires an online account, …

Why I’m Deleting Facebook

Why I’m Deleting Facebook

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I opened my first Facebook account when I was a freshman in College. Back then, the website was restricted to those who had a college or university email address, and had just opened registration to students in Canada. Everyone in my college signed up. Since then, I have been active on the website on a near-daily basis for the last 16 years.

Facebook and I have had a good run together. I met my ex-wife on Facebook. I created a popular Facebook application that ran for many years. Through Facebook, I connected with an amazing group of friends when I lived in Ottawa, some of whom I still keep in contact with a decade later.…