It may come as a shock to many of acquaintances but I am NOT quitting Facebook. There are, of course, very good reasons for my staying so let me lay them out for you.

First:
My church uses Facebook. I don’t like this fact but it is still a fact. Many people in the United States don’t realize (at least not yet) that the rest of the world is not as “free” as we are here in the US but we are catching up the the rest of the world quickly now. In many parts of the world, it is illegal to the point of death to convert religions. A person who converts is generally called a proselyte (one who converts) and we (the church of GOD) proselytize (the act of try to get another to convert) both of which can get you killed in MANY countries around the world. To this point, Facebook is a giant sieve of personal information. Plus, with their new “Open Social” (open?! Plllease, don’t get me started!) initiative will silently collect information about where you go and feed it back to Facebook. There are a few things that we know about this information: 1) it can and has leaked out, 2) It can and has been sold by Facebook to anyone with money and 3) it can and has been coerced out of companies (yahoo, Microsoft) by governments (China).

Second:
Someone has to tell the masses (that keep signing up) that Facebook is NOT safe. If I delete my profile, then I’ll be on the outside of Facebook’s walled garden. From the outside, I would be unable to tell those that seldom stray outside that they are in fact, in the belly of the beast.

If the only thing holding you to Facebook is your friends/contacts, then tell them what your email address is and delete your profile. …remember, May 31 is delete your Facebook profile day.