I'm so glad I never joined Facebook - email addresses changed without warning

[malaise]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2012/jun/25/facebook-email-addresses-change
<snip>
Facebook has introduced its latest social media innovation – changing the email addresses posted by users on their profiles, en masse and without warning.

In the change, which took effect on Monday, Facebook abruptly replaced the details users had elected to associate with their account with addresses using a "@facebook.com" convention.

Emails sent to the Facebook address end up in the site's messaging system, rather than users' email accounts.

Facebook allocated users an email address based on their profile URL, if they had elected to choose one. Users without a customized URL were instead issued with an email based on their profile name, with the addition of a few numbers.

[bigwillq]

1. Hasn't affected my usual Facebook habits

So not a big deal for me.

Hey, it's a free site. They're free to change what they want at any time. If one does't like it, they're free to deactivate their account.

None of the changes that the site made has affected my usual posting habits. I think folks (not you, malaise, but folks in general) just like to hear themselves complain!

[Ilsa]

2. The two things that bothered me

about Facebook is that when I deleted my account, it said it would only deactivate it for some absurd amount of time, like six months, in case I changed my mind. I thought that was patronizing.

The first thing that bothered me was the buckets of auto-generated emails I got from people I barely know about linking up, or messaging on Facebook. Every time someone posted on their page about their kid going to the dentist I got an email. Who has time for that, much less spending all that time deleting emails?

[bigwillq]

4. I like the deactivation feature

It saves your account for a period of time, so in case you change your mind, your page (and all features) will be saved so you don't have to start over if you decide to rejoin.

There are settings where you can turn on and off the e-mail notifications. I turn them all off.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. This is one of the silliest complaints yet about Facebook

First of all, you can easily turn off your email notifications and still have a complete Facebook experience.

This is also being framed as if Facebook is somehow changing members' email accounts. That's not what is happening. Private email accounts still work. The change is in how you are notified that someone is posting on your page or replying to a thread where you posted.

If you don't want to use the Facebook email, you can easily switch to the email account you prefer.

[obamanut2012]

7. +1

[hobbit709]

8. The point is that they created a email account and switched all emails to it

without notification or choice beforehand.
I have an email box I use just for notifications from FB. All of a sudden it is no longer the default box that FB uses and they want me to use a box they created for me-that I didn't know existed until I looked at my account settings page. Their sole purpose is they want to data mine your contacts on your email list. It has nothing to do with YOUR convenience, only theirs.
I went in and changed the settings to use my own box, but we'll see how long that lasts.
They are as bad as Micro$haft at changing defaults without notice or options before the fact.

[HopeHoops]

5. I registered my full name as a domain and use it for my primary e-mail.

I log into Facebook about once a month, and don't stay long. The only thing I've found it useful for is making initial contact with old friends.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. This I really don't care about.

So Facebook changes the display of my real email to a facebook email?

Whatever. I don't think I had my real email displayable to anyone except my friends, but that's one less place for spammers to pick up my real email. So I'm okay with this.

[BOG PERSON]

9. [The] streamlined mode of subjectivity

must fend off a host of problems that threaten a network society’s ideological legitimacy: Widespread opportunism, generalized mistrust in a society of self-promoters, deliberately fostered information asymmetries, coordination problems among narcissists, exclusion, secretive networks, the fact that “some people’s immobility is necessary for other people’s mobility” and that flexibility may merely be vulnerability to exploitation.

Facebook’s basic functionality addresses some of these issues: It’s quasi-democratic (anyone can get a profile) and ostensibly more transparent (there’s an accessible record of who’s connected to who). Facebook permits asynchronous engagement, which theoretically helps cure coordination problems on potential “projects.” And it supplies a basis for quantifying reputational capital that makes it seem more fair and objective.

But beyond that, the reformulization of subjectivity is key. Facebook must naturalize what amounts to a post-authentic sense of self that won’t recoil at the self-branding, lateral surveillance, opportunism and self-promotion that comes with network organization. In the projective city, Boltanski and Chiapello suggest, “the question of authenticity can no longer be posed.” To function, Facebook must realize that possibility.

So first, the old ideal of authenticity as a consistent, unified self must be broken down. Authenticity has served as a fulcrum for critique in consumerist society, presenting a limit on encroaching commodification: things were “genuine” because they could not become products, or were “private” because they weren’t expected to contribute to the valorization of goods. Capitalism responded by trying to sell authenticity as a product. Incessant marketing efforts (aided by various postmodern ideologists) helped castigate uncommodified “authenticity” as hypocritical, untenable, elitist, or essentialist. These rhetorical onslaughts and the flood of “genuine” products onto the market provoked an intense anxiety about what is really “real,” culminating in the past decade’s debates about things like hipsterism.

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/facebook-in-the-age-of-facebook/

[daaron]

10. Facebook boosters out en masse, again.

Remarkable. Simply remarkable how much passion some people can muster to defend a corporation from defamation of character.

[MichaelMcGuire]

11. Very cheeky of them

Only got this to say to them.

Fast-forward to 2:55