The Book Facebook Doesn't Want You to Read

Foreword
This book was needed in an age when the big illusion of friendship is keyed to the extent of Facebook followers. Facebook is often termed part of social media, and bears the crown of being known as a social network.
Once Facebook was put out as a share on the market, the illusion is that there is no single owner running the show, and that may be one of the reasons it hasn't yet attracted any of the same critical attention we see towards other market leaders in the Information Technology arena such as Google or Microsoft.
If your definition of friendship is a timeline where algorithms decide what is important among friends, so be it. You probably won't agree with any of the arguments presented in this book. I didn't write this book to pad anyone on the back. I wrote it as an explanation of why it became necessary for me to leave this network, and I hope the time I have spent writing this may help others wondering whether they too should leave.
The decision is yours, and I applaud each and every one of you who also makes an individual and personal decision about whether to stay or leave the Facebook era.
Happy reading


”I Want to Break Free” (Queen)
Facebook was started on a very positive idea by college student Zuckerberg and his entourage. This idea could have become one of the most beneficial tools in the hands of the millions of users who mingle on that network.
Facebook made a turn of events when they began decreasing your personal rights by changing their terms of service. Your privacy is long gone. Your updates are put into a pressure cooker of raw computing power that compiles all this information into aggressive timelines combined with advertisments in a format that truly stresses a lot of people.
You know this out there. You have probably been tired of information such as friend xyz liking a fast food chain or a shoe selling store. You have been overloaded with information that ended up being maybe relevant, but surely unneeded when all you wanted was mingle with your followers.
You were brought to believe that being friends on Facebook was the most natural thing in the world, and collectively so many say this to an extent that you fear becoming a paria if you decided to give Facebook the boot.
You wanted to break free, but feared the consequences of such a decision.
Let's be honest. The friends you knew before Facebook will stay on your friend list as long as you are honest. In fact, some will even applaud your decision, because you are doing exactly that one thing they have probably also considered doing.

My Personal Story
I know exactly how charming and convincing the idea of followers can be on Facebook. I created a blog advocating some of the Facebook games I played while I was active on Facebook, and I have been more than able to sell sand in Sahara as we say here in Denmark about good salesmen. Conving people to join is no problem...
But once you realize just how much time you spend checking timelines and reading worthless repetitious crap about people experiencing the same things, well, you lose interest in trying to solve things for people.
It is, obviously, never fun when a Facebook friend experiences trouble in his or her romantic life, but let's face it: when this person keeps doing the same mistakes, how can he or she expect a different result?
When I discovered 32% of my 3G mobile data was from Facebook, I was somewhat surprised. The app is draining both your battery and your wallet if you have the wrong kind of service provider for your smartphone!
My sister and brother-in-law have been off Facebook for quite some time, and when we talked about it in general terms, I was encouraged by their lack of interest in joining the network again, because it actually hit a nerve with me. I had thought about leaving for some time, but never actually made the decision. As I said, probably wondering what life would be like if I made this decision to leave.
I have been involved with social media for ages. I joined Twitter in september 2008 after reading the book Twitter Power written by Joel Comm, and obviously LinkedIn is also used for professional networking, and Instagram is used for sharing photos.
So I am not in any way a hermit that was just a bit disillusioned with Facebook.

Blocking Isn't Enough!
Sometimes we hear friends say: ”Well, you could just block the people who annoy you”
Yes, you could block all people above the 150 friends limit. You could do a lot of things, but in reality that is just repairing a few of the symptoms. The root cause of a lack of understanding of what really constitues and makes up good friendships is what I will be talking about in the course of the next chapter.
We shouldn't have long lists of blocked people. We should only be on networks that are mutually beneficial, and speaking out against it is the only way that works.
Again, let's face the facts: not a single iota has ever been changed in the Facebook Terms of Service (ToS) based upon user feedback. Facebook doesn't listen to users, and why should they? For every person that leaves this network, they probably have three new people joining.
As these get sucked into the doctrines of how cozy everything is, it is not likely that people will make the same decision I did, is it?

If This Was a Bar or a Dating Agency
If you had behaved like Facebook when you ran a bar or a dating agency, you would be out of business in a matter of weeks, if not only days.
Try considering if you ran a dating agency and told your users that you now own copyright of their photos. It wouldn't be long before you had a lawsuit made against you, or a police officer visiting your offices. Many of the elements in the Facebook ToS are never allowed if anyone else practiced this.
If you were running a bar, it would be almost like you would also be followed to the toilet while the beer or club soda went through your body. Privacy is a totally foreign term for Facebook.
One news source was shocked when they found out just how much information is actually compiled based upon interactions between users. When you make a certain comment, databases are checked, and your opinions are filtered through language searches to 'profile' your personality.
If George Orwell had been alive today, there isn't much doubt what he would have called Facebook. It is a tool of highly targetted information and thought control. Worst of all is that every single user keeps adding even very personal information into the system every single minute.
In Denmark we have limits as to what is allowed to register about people, including race, political opinions, religious aspirations or sexual preferences. All of that is readily available within seconds running the right algorithms for advertisers. You can target single women who are bisexual with left-wing opinions in a matter of few minutes when you administer key words the right way.
This is dangerous. Very dangerous indeed. In the hands of the wrong people, this can be detrimental to millions of people. Yet hardly anyone pays any attention towards this.
It is much easier to accuse others of paranoia, rather than admit that something is wrong with the current behavior of Facebook. It is, however, rather strange that both Microsoft and Google have been targetted for behaving badly, whereas Facebook passes below the radar. One can only wonder as to why this is so...

”You Could Just Uninstall the App”
This is another suggestion made by those who want you to stay on Facebook, and every good intention may be behind this, but you have to realize that this is just an illusion.
The very fact that staying online benefits Facebook lies at the core of the problem. Facebook is earning billions of dollars as a result of your participation on Facebook. Nothing wrong with that per se. But the methods employed to achieve this are wrong!
Once again, please pay attention to the ads presented to you. When you are single, you will be presented with dating apps or ads for dating agencies. If you go check that special type of jeans, chances are the next ads will even be about clothes, and it seems like it never stops, because cookies are checked towards your specific profile.
When you try to clean out your cookies on your computer, you are suddenly faced with having to log into Facebook again, and the code generator makes it more troublesome to do this, and consequently people stop clearing their caches, thus adding to the misery of even more targetted ads.
So even though behavior is different between logging in from your computer and from the Facebook app, then there is still such a relationship between data that it intermingles into a big flow of data. Add geographic data to the pot, and you will be monitored 24/7.

In Conclusion
You may not like the facts. You may in fact dismiss it as just another person's opinions about Facebook, but nonetheless, you can't claim you haven't been warned about this. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
Once you discover just how personally invasive Facebook can be, it's time to make a decision. In real life, we all know a combination of friends with whom we agree, some we disagree with, and others with whom we only agree partially. Personal differences should be enjoyed as positive in life, yet conformity lies at the core of the Facebook experience. All are directed in one direction. Of course, you want a relationship when you are living alone. It goes without saying. At least if you accept the doctrine of the Facebook experience.
Challenging these pre-conceived ideas is what differentiates us from monkeys, and we should make personal choices based upon what we have learned from personal experiences. The choice is yours, and I am confident your friendships are stronger than any network – and certainly I hope they are stronger than the Facebook network...

Real Friendships
As I wrote in concluding the previous chapter, I value both friends with whom I agree, and those with whom I occasionally disagree. Individualism is at the core of my inner being. I enjoy common ground in key values. I want honest and positive people in my surroundings, and some of these core values are not subject to discussion.
Friends who agree with such common ground are more than welcome.
People who won't accept these key values are not in my network of friends. Some call it a circle of friends. You may call it something different.
However, I would never stop a friendship just because we couldn't agree on politics or the color of the walls in by bathroom. But take a look at what happens online.
On Facebook people can begin quarrels just because you give good advice on a specific issue. Who are you to challenge this person on his or her relationship choices? Back in the old days, it was beneficial for true friends to give one another food for thought. It was considered good behavior to help one another become better people towards others by pointing out nuances that a friend couldn't see. Nowadays, they simply block you because truth is ill heard in some areas...
Try counting the number of people you would define as real friends. People who would meet your cordial voice if they telephoned you at 11:00p.m. in the evening. People you would call if you needed advice. People whose lives really interest you. People you are curious about, if you haven't heard from them for a couple of weeks. People whose loss of family members touch you.
How many would you have on such a list?
Chances are, you probably would only put a dozen people on such a list. Probably not even that many people.
You can easily sympathize with the loss of family members among colleagues or friends and acquaintances. But you might not know the ones they have lost. You aren't that close.
So take a good look at your life. One expert said you could never have over 150 friends – and this number isn't even remotely a list of close friends. You might be among the most social of people, but if you had 200 people who called you late in the evening each time they lost a boy- or girlfriend, you would be even busier than most other people...

Good Friends – One Definition
Good friends are people with whom you want to share a meal. People with whom you enjoy their company. People who change who and what you are by being gracious enough to challenge world views in mutual respect.
Good friends are people you can trust will back you up – even when they don't fully agree with you. As I said previously, friends know what lies close to your heart. They know what your mental DNA is composed of, and they appreciate both your strong points and your weaker areas in life. They are not your friends because you are in any way perfect, but they are mindful of what constitutes the real you.
Friends are not bought or sold – and friends would never sell information about you. So even in this first area, a friendship network could not either work against you. Yet another sign that the social network Facebook is not, by any means, a friendship network.
You must identify the difference.
Facebook has destroyed much in our concept of what is good or bad behavior. Before Facebook it was quite natural for friends to rectify the problem. Now, you end up in a quarel with dozens of people who grab the occasion to bash someone else. It's an open war with no rules...

Good Friends Help You Grow
Good friends are not envious of positive news. They are happy for you, when something good happens to you or your family. In fact, true friends will help you grow even more – not for personal gain. It will be motivating for the entire group of people when one excels in something.
Nowadays, it seems as though some of the laziest people are just bashing one another.
Try giving advice on a specific topic. There is always going to be someone chasing that soft spot in whatever you write, hunting for a debate just for discussion's sake. There is no attempt in improving anything, but an attempt to excel at the expense of others.
You know this the moment you begin reading your timeline with this perspective. We have all seen this, and it is best left alone. In Danish, we have a saying that ”stupidity is fought against in vain by the gods” - impossible to win, but you can easily get a lot of new attackers waiting for when they can get even because you said so and so a month ago.
Good Friends Visit or Talk On the Phone
You don't need Facebook to be good friends with others. In fact, friends send out a little sms with positive wishes, ask about how life is treating you, and even call you when they want to be sure all is well with you.
People are alienated from one another if they only stick to Facebook, because it is often only an alibi for settling with the lowest common denominator.
You can try to dismiss every aspect of the book you have in front of you, but you can't deny the benefits of real personal contact. Even just a cup of coffee or tea is more fun than just settling with a like.
You write something uncomfortable, and people show sympathy by a like? Talk about being disregarded and overlooked by so-called friends!
Besides, people make a lot of assumptions about communication online. You don't have all the ingredients of visual elements to know what a person intends to say, yet far too many believe their attitude is the only correct one – and they are oftentimes very direct in voicing their opinion, yet very slow to admit their own failures. That would never have happened if these people actually knew one another.
Every one of these weaknesses could be easily identified if people knew you hadn't met one another, but people have been blinded by Facebook into becoming their own virtual kings or queens online. Once again, talk about being misunderstood!

In Conclusion
If people dared challenge these virtual friendships, and started comparing with the relationships they actually share with real friends, it would become painfully obvious for everyone that something was very rotten in the state of Facebook.
It may be painful for some to recognize, but you have wasted hours for no real reason other than being a willing fool at the hands of people who have no inhibitions against lying to you so you can keep their business alive.
The only thing that interests shareholders in Facebook is the earning potential, and once people start abandoning this anti-social network, the show will be over. It is an overpriced illusion that Facebook is a social network. Facebook began as a network for friends to meet, but it is causing more division between people because there is no sense of mutual respect between people, as you would otherwise have seen in real-life friendships.

How and Where to Proceed
My best advice is to make sure your real-life friends know why you have left the Facebook network, if and when you decide to leave. Most will understand, but some will of course be afraid of losing what they may have come to believe was a great network of friendship and social interaction.
Your data will be abused by the Facebook network against your own interests. That should be painfully obvious once you study the ToS, and the lack of respect for feedback from users. People are treated as numbers in a great play used to gain even more money for the Facebook shareholders. If this behavior had been used from the start, it would never have become such a massive network, and there is only one way to proceed – outside the Facebook arena.
I am sticking with Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Whenever a new social network is launched, I will probably take a look at it. Until then, I choose to let my data be mine alone, and I am willing to share much, but never to turn any copyright of my photos etc over to anyone.
I hope this book was instructive for you, and wish you all the best.