I've been a casual Facebook user for three years or so now. Joining on a whim, I wanted to see what this whole ecosystem of apps and connections was all about. Even so, I never actively used the site extensively aside from letting Twitter cross-post to it and replying to comments.

Facebook is a huge accessibility nightmare. Many of its links aren't reported as such to assistive technologies--or at least, they aren't to Orca--and sometimes it's impossible to trigger some of its functionality via the keyboard. Until recently, there was a lite interface that gave increased accessibility at the cost of functionality, but this was abandoned and I'm now back to casual use.

Furthermore, Facebook's privacy policies are slowly eroding. For clear proof of this, see this timeline demonstrating the changes. Facebook hooked a huge demographic by offering tight privacy controls, then is gradually letting those slip away over time.

So why do I care? After all, don't I myself claim that I'm just a casual user? Yes, but the information associated with me on Facebook isn't always determined by me. Sure, I probably have control over that aspect of my profile as well, but if so then it's hidden behind some inaccessible privacy setting control made difficult to locate. Also, even if I have access to such things today, nothing says I will tomorrow.

Let me illustrate with a concrete example. I personally have never uploaded photos to Facebook. Being blind, I generally don't associate pics with my profile unless there's some tangible benefit--for dating sites and such. Despite this, there are five photos associated with me in which I've been "tagged." I didn't upload these. I have no idea what they are, if they're pics I want anyone and everyone associating with me. Sure, I could probably delete my tags on these, but the photos could just as easily be flattering and I'd not mind the association. But Facebook never asked me to confirm this. It just unilaterally decided that "hey, someone says you're in this picture, so here it goes on your profile."

In the past, the way to control your privacy online was to only disclose what you're comfortable sharing. If you don't want someone to know that you're eating a biscuit or going to the bathroom then don't tweet about it. If you don't want people knowing where you are then don't use services like Foursquare which share such details. But what Facebook does takes this out of my hands. Those things which are associated with me are not under my control, and while I haven't been bitten by that yet (at least, I don't think that I have) I don't know that waiting until that happens is a wise choice either. If you know that a stove burner is heating up, is touching it until your hand sizzles a good way to test how hot it is?

So where am I now if not on Facebook? There's my infrequently updated blog which is seeing more steady updates of late. I'm also on Identi.ca and Twitter. These sources are either under my control, or their scope is more narrowly defined to only those things I choose to share.

I like the Facebook model, just not what it stands for. To that end, I'm keeping tabs on the efforts of groups like Onesocialweb which will offer Facebook-like functionality over decentralized, federated networks.

So where to from here? I'll leave this note up for a few days so that anyone wishing to keep in touch can do so, but after that I'm deactivating my account. I think that Facebook requires a two-week delay between account deactivation and deletion, but I'm just not attached enough to this account to want to keep it in light of my concerns, and the two-week delay is in my mind another effort to retain someone's information for marketing reasons should they forget to delete. I'm not doing this out of any great anger or affront at how Facebook treats its users. As far as I'm concerned, it can do what it wishes. But, in every instance, Facebook continues to do what it does ultimately due to the actions of two parties--Facebook themselves and each user who quietly decides that it's OK. In my case, I've decided that it isn't, and it now falls to me to terminate my consent.

The bad news is that I'm launching yet again. I suppose this makes the millionth or so incarnation of a blog in some form on this domain. The good news, however, is three-fold.

First, I've put a decent amount of effort into migrating the four or so posts over from the old site, so the content and URLs should still be mostly preserved. Aside from possible aggregator spam and a new look, most of the content I deemed important is here. That said, I did skip posts that were no longer relevant, so some didn't make the cut.

Also, I'm blogging old school now. Part of why I've stopped maintaining the older blogs is that I grew tired of the maintenance. First I had to keep the platform itself updated due to security vulnerabilities. Even with an up-to-date platform there were the plethora of plugins I invariably installed, and no system of which I am aware makes upgrading many of those anything less than painful. Now I'm using Ikiwiki I can edit via the web should I wish, but the whole blog is stored in a Git repository, all the files are text, and a simple commit and push is all that is necessary to update the site. It's so incredibly easy, and I'll be updating much more because of it.

How do I know these aren't just empty words? Because I have three uncommitted drafts ready to post as soon as I've either found the necessary links or have done the things I've claimed in them. Of course, that isn't counting the posts I have planned but haven't yet drafted.

So what's upcoming? I haven't yet written about my work on Spiel here, nor have I written my thoughts on and efforts toward Android accessibility. Stay tuned!

Of course, another blogging frustration is that I have no idea whether the site itself looks decent or hideous. It's mostly stock with a few tweaks to integrate Disqus, and while I'm not exactly trying to win any "best looking site evar!" awards, not looking horrific is also important. Feedback welcome, and while I can't promise to know how to fix it to make it look better, I'll at least try.