November 2011

Update: Almost 2.5 years after deleting my Facebook account and writing this post, I have gone back to Facebook and created a new account for myself. This time I will be mainly a passive viewer on Facebook and WhatsApp (which I joined a bit earlier) and keep myself protected from Facebook’s evil designs by doing everything necessary. Details are probably long enough to warrant write a separate post some time later 🙂

I am really glad that my parting message inspired a few of my friends to join Diaspora on one of the pods (http://diasp.org). Here is the message for the benefit of those who didn’t read it before I deleted my account. It strengthens my belief that we can empower our friends with freedom.

As a birthday gift to myself, I am quitting Facebook and deleting my account.

Why? Facebook (and a lot of other websites) tracks and stalks the users (and non-users too, through shadow profiles) all over the internet and make money by selling information about you and targeting advertisements at you. The kind of evil things they do, I am too offended to even list here.

I want to be in full control of my data and privacy, which is why I wanted to quit Facebook about 6 months back. But I decided to wait till my birthday so that I can pass on the message to my Facebook friends who visit my wall to wish me on my birthday.

I already use a lot of anti-tracking measures – Using Facebook only in incognito mode, using a lot of browser extensions like Ghostery, Facebook blocker and browser settings to keep the tracking to a minimum. The all-pervasive Facebook social plugins which put “Like” buttons on all websites are pure evil. They help Facebook to track your internet activities – what websites you visit, what links you click, what your interests are and much more.

I am interested in getting to know more about people whom I have encountered in my life and also to find interesting people. But Facebook barely facilitates that. My ‘News feed’ is full of spam from an ever-growing list of Facebook applications, scam/spam/porn posts broadcast across friends by friends who are smart enough to be easily fooled by such things and Youtube videos, celebrity photos and etc. which I am totally not interested in. Previously there used to be a filter for the news feed through which only the status updates could be viewed, but Facebook has removed it.

Facebook never deletes the user data from its servers even after the user deletes own account. That doesn’t matter to me as I am more bothered about not giving Facebook any more data.

We don’t need a Yahoo! email account to be able to send emails to other Yahoo! users. All that is needed is a valid email account on the internet. But to keep in touch with friends on Facebook or Twitter or Google+ we need accounts on those websites. How sensible is that? There are a lot of other social network which value users’ privacy and also provide inter-operability, meaning you can follow a user on other social network from your current social network. This is possible through a lot of upcoming open standards. Identica (running the StatusNet software), Diaspora are a couple of social networks that provide this feature.

So how do you get in touch with me once I quit Facebook? Those who are in touch with me, already know how to reach me through other means. 🙂 If you are not one of those, but still want to get in touch with me, you will find me on Google+, Twitter, Identica (http://identi.ca/guruprasad) and Diaspora (http://diasp.org/u/guruprasad) and of course my website (//www.lguruprasad.in/) and my blog (//www.lguruprasad.in/blog/). If you are already thinking why I am still on Google+ and Twitter after blabbering about privacy, tracking and control over my data, just hold on. I am on my way to get out of those too pretty soon 🙂

She stood by the moonlit window, silently looking out to the beyond, not looking anywhere in particular, but lost in thought. Sigh! She let out a slow, long-drawn breath and looked back at the little boy, sleeping peacefully on her bed. The innocence and peacefulness touched her. She has never been gifted such kind of peacefulness. The ghosts from her past always haunted her. The mistakes she did, the chances that she missed, the opportunities she let go, in front of her very eyes. All the time knowing that she will never be at peace ever again and that life will never be the same ever again.

She wished from the depth of her soul that she knew better. How better life would have been if she knew that Aakash was the one for her. They both were in love and were a happy couple until Vinay came along. Blinded by a trance and urged by the separation from Aakash, she slowly lost her sanity and fell for Vinay. She could not believe how it happened. She still could not fathom how she went astray. Her love for Aakash had been so pure. Yet, how did this happen? That is one question to which no one had an answer. Aakash had tried to make sense with her, fought hard with her to make her see that she was willingly going to destroy her life. He fought with all he had. He never gave up. But, she refused and brushed him away so strongly that she broke him to pieces.

What happened after that was just a swirl. She has pushed away Aakash so hard that he could not dare to come back to her and reason with her. And in her trance, she was in temporary bliss. And then, slowly it had happened. Before she knew, the trance was over. The mist lifted and she saw the truth. She was crushed. She kept thinking that it was a bad nightmare and she would wake up soon and find herself in Aakash’s warm arms soon. But, that never happened and she realized the implications of what she had done with her life. Life had presented such a golden chance to her as to none else. She was so lucky to get Aakash. They knew each other from their childhood and so made for each other. How could she have been so blind all of a sudden and thrown all that away? That was a question that she had been searching an answer for so long, but never got one. And she knew, she never will.

After she realized the truth, she could no longer stand to live. Many things happened and all she remember now was being all alone, all of a sudden with not a single soul to care about her or for her to care about. She realized Vinay was not “The guy” for her. She should have known better or at least she should have listened to Aakash. She searched high and low for Aakash, not to get back, but to apologize. Because she knew, she does not have the worth to be his. She was that pathetic. She was sick of herself. On the outside, she just dragged herself on with her life. Inside, she was dying every day, cringing at what she had done. That was when she had met the little boy, nameless, homeless and helpless on the road. She had adopted him and named him after Aakash. Since then, she has been holding on to life only for 2 causes. One, to find Aakash and apologize and the next to bring up little Aakash to be a citizen of whom the nation would be proud of. Except that, she has no reason to live for. She sighed heavily and decided to let her tired body to rest. As sleep took over, she knew that the ghosts from her past will visit her again, tomorrow.

Until later,

Keirthana 🙂

P.S: My first guest post and that too @ The Midnight Sun! 🙂 I know I have turned a geeky, almost-technical blog to a different genre, by starting off with a story 😛 Hope you like it 🙂