Breaking Up is Hard to Do. Can You Quit Facebook?

According to the quitfacebookday.com page, over 31759 people have committed to quit the social networking giant. With their motto/headline "Sick of Facebook's lack of respect for your data? Add your name and commit to quit!" The website states that "fair choices and best intentions, doesn't do a good job in either department." The website discusses the recent changes that Facebook has made to the how a user controls their Facebook privacy settings. Citing past articles from Wired and a WikiHow on how to delete your Facebook account and offering other social networking suggestions like Ning, Akoha, or the Diasporaproject. Diaspora, another start up by, "four talented young programmers from NYU's Courant Institute," state on their web site that their goal is to raise enough money so they can spend the summer working on Diaspora. Claiming 6192 backers and $194,019.00 of pledges, like Facebook, Diaspora is a start-up by programmers looking for a way to connect.

Washington Post Op-Ed

On Monday, May 24, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, wrote Opinion-Editorial in The Washington Post giving his side of the privacy and security issue. Zuckerberg goes on to in the Washington Post op-ed explain in the story that they made the privacy settings simple. Zuckerberg recommends users set their privacy to allow "Everyone," although rarely mentioned users can "Customize" their settings to allow only certain people to see only what they want them to see. The next day on Thursday May 25, the day after new privacy announcements were made, Ana Yang Muller, Facebook's Product Marketing Associate wrote additional explanations on how to use Facebook's privacy settings and reveals Facebook's new explanation page.

The people who started the Quit Facebook Day.

Listed on the Quit Facebook Day website under the heading "Who set this up" listed are @mmilan and @josephdee, which link to their Twitter accounts. According to their Twitter profiles, @mmilan is Matthew Milan from Toronto with 1,877 followers. Twitter account for @josephdee lists as Joseph Dee, also from Toronto. Joseph's Twitter biography lists as "I'm a creative web technologist who tries to bring meaningful online experiences to life with technology."

On Facebook

Searching for quit Facebook on Facebook itself reveals two pages, the Quit Facebook page with 54 people who like the page, and Everyone Quit Facebook with 40 people who like that page. Also listed in the search is the Please Don't Quit Facebook page with 21 people who like that page.

So, the questions remain if you are a Facebook user. Are you going to quit?

Sources
Quit Face Book Day
Facebook - Quit Facebook
Facebook - Everyone Quit Facebook