Quit Facebook Day

This coming Monday, May 31^st, 2010, marks the first annual QuitFacebookDay, which urges members to quit smoking. Ahem. No, it urges current Facebook members to leave the social network. At the time of this writing (9:30p CST, May 28^th, 2010), there are over 23,500 pledges - which begs the question: Why?

Well, a sense of flair for one thing, but more specifically, this vehemently anti-Facebook movement is using the whole "social" and "networking" thing against the site. Seeing as how the number of pledges is less than 1% of Facebook's total population, it is also a bit of marketing gimmick which has paid-off - QuitFacebookDay has been covered by most of the large Web outlets, and I'm sure it is going to take the mainstream press by storm Monday (though I'm eager to find out - if it doesn't, then you already know the media is down with the FB).

While a lot of users are upset over recent changes to the site's privacy options - compounded by recent revelations that Facebook, along with MySpace, has been disseminating users' private information - the administrators of QuitFacebookDay insist this is only part of the problem and offer a host of articles and information on what "the larger set of issues" is. These articles are available from the QuitFacebookDay index page.

The site's owners suggest finding an alternative, freely admitting that Facebook is fun and addictive, so you don't have to go cold-turkey. They also say they are looking forward to Diaspora, the new, "open-source" social network which is getting all the buzz from tech-sperts, but some say is doomed to fail, and encourage QuitFacebookDay members to get involved, as well.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010