Quit Facebook Day was a flop. Memorial Day was designated by a group of angry users as the date on which they and fellow Facebookers could show their displeasure over privacy issues by deleting their accounts.
But, as it turned out, slightly more than 34,000 reportedly did so — barely a drop in the bucket of 540 million members worldwide.
‘Largely Irrelevant’
“Facebook gives you choices about how to manage your data, but they aren’t fair choices,” the QuitFacebookDay.com site says on its home page. Adding that Facebook has put the onus “on the individual to manage these choices,” the organizers conclude that Facebook doesn’t have “much respect for you or your data.”
Brad Shimmin, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said the Quit Facebook Day was “largely irrelevant” to the site’s user base. The site “would need to do something fairly egregious to make a big enough dent in their membership,” he said, adding that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s apology and release of simplified privacy controls last week may have “lanced the boil.”
But the weak showing on Monday doesn’t mean the protests are over. The next organized event is Facebook Protest Day, described as “D-Day” and scheduled, appropriately, for the D-Day anniversary date of June 6.
On that date, instead of storming French beaches, participants are asked to “commit to not logging in or interacting with Facebook in any way.” This includes not using sites that employ Facebook Connect or clicking on any “Like” buttons.
Like buttons were one of the reasons for the current protests. Last month, the popular social-networking site launched new features which make a user’s likes and dislikes available on partner sites. Like buttons, which have quickly become famous, are placed on the partner sites to reflect the user’s interest in the site, photos, blog posts, songs…