Social Network Suicide? Not If Facebook Can Help It.
Will 2010 be the year that Internet users cut back on friending, tweeting and connecting with their long-lost acquaintances?
A site called the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is banking on it. It offers to help visitors “kill” their online presence on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn by clicking a “commit” link (complete with a noose icon).
It works by prompting users for their account information, then removing their friends, updates and other content, then changing the password and logging out — leaving an intact but bare profile.
The site offers this service for free and coaxes the uncertain with words like “delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles,” “feel free like a real bird again and untwitter yourself” and “you want your actual life back?”
At least one social network appears to be putting up a fight. The Suicide Machine currently notes that Facebook is blocking its IP address, preventing Facebook suicides.
“We are currently looking in ways to circumvent this ungrounded restriction imposed on our service,” Suicide Machine says on its site. Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tech-savvy folks have considered whether they’re too connected via social-networking sites almost as soon as they launch — artist Cory Arcangel staged a “Friendster suicide” back in 2005.
Are you planning on paring back your profiles this year?
UPDATE: “Facebook provides the ability for people who no longer want to use the site to either deactivate their account or delete it completely,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. “Web 2.0 Suicide Machine collects login credentials and scrapes Facebook pages, which are violations of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. We’ve blocked the site’s access to Facebook as is our policy for sites that violate our SRR. We’re currently investigating and considering whether to take further action.”
source: blogs.wsj.com
Tags: Facebook, Myspace, Social network, Social Network Suicide, Twitter