Can One Register To Facebook Without Having Friends

Is information technology possible to be a passive user of Facebook? I desire to read announcements relating to friends and colleagues, and maybe post comments, without building a profile with photos, a timeline and then on. I have managed perfectly well without joining, but occasionally miss useful information that is not available elsewhere. Eira

What'south known as "lurking" – existence a member without actively participating – is very mutual. To quote Jakob Nielsen, "In nearly online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and ane% of users account for nigh all the action." This is known as the i% rule, and it'due south patently a gross generalisation.

Facebook's participation levels appear to be much higher than that. We don't know the number of lapsed or (literally) dead accounts, simply in September 2018, Facebook reported two.27 billion monthly active users (upwards 9.half dozen% over the previous year) and virtually 1.5 billion daily active users (up nine.3%), despite losing about 1 million users in Europe.

While there's no obligation to participate, there are much trickier questions about privacy and tracking.

What distinguishes Facebook from Twitter, Reddit, Metafilter then on is that it is based on existent identities, which are fundamentally public. While yous tin can cull how much data you post on Facebook, and how widely you share information technology, your friends may already have given Facebook your email address every bit office of the "find friends" procedure. Some of them may likewise have posted images of you, mentioned yous in comments, or linked to things you posted on other services. As a outcome, when you sign upward, Facebook may already know who almost of your friends are.

This information may be nigh you, only it isn't yours: it belongs to the people who shared it.

Either manner, any organisation that knows your real name can probably find out a lot about you. This was already obvious in 1999 when Sun's Scott McNealy said: "You have nix privacy anyway. Get over it."

Minimal Facebooking

Facebook's many communication services make it a useful tool. — Facebook's many advice services brand information technology a useful tool, but you don't have to requite information technology every bit of information information technology asks for to use it. Photograph: Eric Gaillard/Reuters

To sign up for a Facebook account, you need a name and a working email address or mobile phone number. You lot can apply any name you are known by. However, if you lot run into a problem, y'all may have to provide an acceptable course of ID to verify it later.

You lot will as well be asked for your appointment of birth – because you have to be at least 13 years old to join – and your choice of gender. Both may be used for advertising purposes. Afterward that, everything is optional.

Facebook will want you lot to complete your new profile by uploading a mug shot and a cover photo, inbound the names of schools or colleges yous attended, where you live and and so on. You are not obliged to do any of this. Your contour photo could be a cartoon character. However, there could be from dozens to thousands of people who take the same proper noun every bit you. The more details you enter, the easier it will exist for friends to discover you.

Next, to make the system work for you, you have to "friend" people you know. Facebook encourages you to upload your contacts volume (encounter higher up). It's much meliorate to track people down one by ane, though it is more piece of work.

And that'southward it. When your friends post things on Facebook, they volition appear in the news feed. You will as well have a timeline under your name, which used to be your wall. You can't get out of having these, but again, you don't have to mail anything to them.

Privacy settings

When you do post something, you can command who sees it by using each post's settings menu (three dots), only it's improve to choose settings for your whole account. To practice this, click the downwards-arrow on the far right of the blue heading bar, select Settings from the menu, and so Privacy. The chief entry is "Who can see your future posts?" You probably won't want to use Public, which ways anyone on or off Facebook. Instead, limit visibility to friends, possibly, or customise information technology. You lot tin can exclude by name anyone you don't want to run into something.

Yous tin can also limit the range of people who can look you up using the email address and/or phone number you gave Facebook, though that can make it harder for friends to find you.

Where it asks "Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your contour?", answer no.

Yous should also visit the ad preferences page and click on "Ad settings". This lets y'all turn off adverts based on "data from partners" (external websites, not Facebook), and adverts on external websites based on your activities on Facebook. This removes the advantages of tracking you. Otherwise, Facebook could use the data that y'all visit, for example, car websites to prove you motorcar ads.

You tin likewise change "Ads that include your social actions" to "No one". This stops Facebook from using your actions (signing upwards for events, using apps, making recommendations and so on) to promote them to your friends.

Finally, Facebook publicises birthdays. The setting is on your About page nether "Contact and basic info". Note that you can ready dissimilar privacy levels for your engagement of birth and your year of nascence. Y'all could set both to "But me" or just go along the twelvemonth – and therefore your age – private.

This description barely scratches the surface of the many ways you lot can manage your data. Facebook provides detailed control over your privacy, and how it can target you with the adverts that pay for its complimentary service. The trouble is that information technology would take many hours to discover, understand and customise all the settings bachelor. Understandably, virtually people but don't intendance enough to make the effort when the only visible benefit may be seeing less advisable advertisements.

Facebook disconnect

Facebook Connect or "Log in with Facebook" is an identity organisation that, conveniently, lets you lot log into other websites, play games and so on with your Facebook ID. While this saves creating a lot of dissimilar login names and passwords, information technology also lets Facebook know what you are doing away from Facebook.

This isn't a new thought, and Facebook'due south tracking network is much smaller than Google's, but it'southward what drives the use of things like Ghostery, Privacy Badger, Disconnect.Me and Redmorph.

Y'all can opt out of using the whole platform. This stops Facebook Connect from working, and disables all the apps and games that take been used by third parties to harvest user data.

To do this, go to the Settings folio and select "Apps and websites". Roll downwardly to the Apps, Websites and Games section, click Edit and then select "Turn off". I got some dire warnings when I did this a few years agone, only as you're a new user, it shouldn't bear upon anything.

You tin also limit Facebook tracking past running Facebook in a container in the Firefox browser.

Information technology'south non only Facebook

Facebook explained in a weblog post what sort of data information technology collects and how it does information technology. Plain, it mentioned that other net companies are doing exactly the aforementioned things.

In fact, the master departure between Facebook and LinkedIn and some rivals is that near (but not all) of the personal information on Facebook and LinkedIn has been willingly contributed by users for their own purposes, rather than gathered by spying. Facebook has become the universal kick male child partly because of its carelessness, and because its massive scale means its blunders tin can impact far more people, or fifty-fifty whole nations.

Ultimately, however, the problem is not Facebook but "surveillance commercialism": the business organisation model whereby users trade personal information for services instead of paying for them.

As security expert Bruce Schneier wrote last yr in a blog post on Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: "for every article nigh Facebook's creepy stalker behaviour, thousands of other companies are breathing a collective sigh of relief that information technology's Facebook and not them in the spotlight. Because while Facebook is one of the biggest players in this space, there are thousands of other companies that spy on and manipulate us for profit".

For those of us with distant friends and family unit, Facebook is just too valuable to give up, and its replacement(s) might well be worse. Information technology'southward the whole arrangement that needs fixing.

Have y'all got a question? Email it to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com