It’s Quit Facebook Day! You Ready?

Alright people, time to pack it up. It’s Quit Facebook Day, and it’s time we all banded together and showed Facebook exactly what we think of their privacy-convoluting ways! Oh, what, you’re not ready to leave Facebook? Yeah, me neither. As of right now, QuitFacebookDay.com has just over 27 thousand ‘committed’ members – those who have vowed today to delete their accounts and leave the site forever. Considering Facebook’s userbase is over 500 million, that doesn’t seem like an awful lot. “I personally never expected high numbers,” tweeted Matthew Milan, one of the site founders. “But something doesn’t have to be viral to be successful.” True say, Matt, true say. Most protests usually go this way. But is Facebook willing to listen? The site exists as a result of Facebook’s privacy woes over the past couple months, but as Milan and co-founder Joseph Dee state, the privacy issues only underscore an overall lack of respect on Facebook’s part for both the user and his or her data. “The cumulative effects of what Facebook does now will not play out well in the future, and we care deeply about the future of the web as an open, safe and human place,” say Milan and Dee. “We just can’t see Facebook’s current direction being aligned with any positive future for the web, so we’re leaving.” Truth be told, I wouldn’t miss Facebook much if it was no longer a part of my life, and I’m sure many of you wouldn’t, either. But the fact of the matter is that deleting one’s Facebook account right now amounts to social – and in some cases, professional – suicide. Right now, there just isn’t anything else nearly as widespread in use. Godspeed, Diaspora. Godspeed. Any readers here planning on leaving Facebook today?