Ask HN: How many of you still have a Facebook account?

I closed mine out in about 2014 and never looked back.

I don't have many... any friends from my early life, specifically from school. In fact I haven't kept any friends from before 5 years ago. Maybe I'm a dick? Maybe people naturally drift apart? I dunno. It makes me wonder. I've never been great at maintaining relationships over time or distance.

I’ve never had one. Never had an IG account. I’ve sadly not been able to escape WhatsApp.

An interesting side effect of this: I don’t have contact with any childhood friends. I have no idea what anyone became.

Creepy thing: I was once made aware of an IG account with my usual online handle and my first and last name. No pictures, and seemingly completely inactive, but it’s there. I tried to reach out to IG, however they didn’t care.

Recently, I received a blocking request from facebook at the moment here in Norway - pay 110 NOK and my data will not be used for ads or keep it for free and my data will be used for ads. They say at the top of the box for this: "Laws are changing in your region, so we're introducing a new choice about how we use your info for ads." What laws? Meta is being fined actually: https://www.reuters.com/technology/norway-data-regulator-fin.... (In Norwegian about this offer: https://www.tek.no/nyheter/nyhet/i/GMEqym/facebooks-abonneme...) Datatilsynet "doubts strongly this is legal".

So I still have it, but I think now it's time for a break. I like to just look at old pictures in some local groups. I can still use the mobile site though.

No Facebook account, no Google account, no Reddit account, no Twitter, no TikTok, no Instagram, no WhatsApp. My last parasite to remove is Microsoft/Hotmail and frankly this place.

Deleted my hardly used Facebook in 2018 after a breakup to make things easier. Figured anyone who would want to keep contact would call or email me. I also made an effort before deleting to save friends' info in CardDAV. This worked out fine because I naturally like checking on people here and there to catch up or get lunch.

Don't miss it at all, but occasionally use my fiancee's Facebook to buy things on Marketplace.

EDIT: While we're talking about Meta products, I've never used Instagram BUT I do regularly use WhatsApp as much as I'd prefer Signal/Matrix to be able to message my grandma and parents.

Facebook marketplace has basically supplanted gumtree as the place to buy and sell things in Sydney. Its the only reason i have an account

I use it and I like it. My feed is 40% animal posts, 40% what’s up with my family, friends and their families; and 20% physics and math jokes. Hard to see the downsides.

I do have heavy ad blocking so fb can’t follow me around the web. The ads I do see seem poorly targeted to me, so it seems like things are working.

Still do but mainly for participating in groups that are for specific interests. Easiest way to connect with, learn from and teach others interested in similar things.

Never had one, no Instagram or WhatsApp either. The latter sometimes makes it harder to find out what's going on along my former study mates as they (read: the whole year's worth of members of the student society I was part of) all and until relatively recently only use that to communicate but so be it. No Zuck, no Google, no Microsoft, no Apple, none of that all. I use a combination of mail, xmpp (running my own server and getting others to do so as well) and Telegram which keeps me in contact with those I care about the most.

I have one now. I started helping out at a local sports club and facebook is one of the channels of communication. There's an email list too, but that isn't discoverable.

I feel like this is what FB is good at and should be - there's posts about the group and about the sport. And that's it. I don't post anything on my personal feed and I don't read anything from anyone's personal posts.

Never used Facebook (technically I set up an account a very long time ago and then eventually deleted it).

I'm generally not into social media at all. Don't use X, don't use Instagram, TikTok, whatever.

I use messaging apps to stay in contact with friends and family. I don't need to publish my life to the world, and I don't need lots of pseudo friends who aren't really friends.

I have one, but I really only engage in groups. Groups on Facebook are so underrated. They made a big push for them a few years ago, but totally missed the mark. After that push, most of the good content died, but I still stick around for the people I met.

I closed mine a few years ago. I still have a Messenger-only one, which Facebook offered for a short amount of time. It’s working but lacks even basic profile settings for some reason. I cannot even change the profile photo.

I never had a personal Facebook account. I had a developer account about 10 years ago when I was contracted to write an app for a client.

I was horrified at the level of information you could scrape using the API and vowed to never have a personal account.

I use WhatsApp and IG daily, but stopped using Facebook in about 2018. Didn't close or delete the account, just removed the app from my phone and stopped using it on the web.

I didn't like that Facebook kept showing me content I wanted to argue about, even if that was 'just' the opinion of friends. I'm very glad I cut it before the pandemic.

I stopped Twitter for the same reason. That said, I'll still use it occasionally, but mostly just scrolling individuals feeds. It feels incredibly toxic there as well, particularly with the suggestions and everyone being verified. Feels more like "trust no one", which is a shame.

Still have mine. Everyone I know uses it to the point where I don't know most of my friends phone numbers or emails, and some people don't even check their email every day.

Outside of work, where we use WhatsApp and texting, I talk to very few people who don't have it.

But, most of my friends are not in the tech industry, I mostly work on small teams for companies that incidentally need tech, and don't meet many devs, and non tech people seem to like it more than programmers.

Wasn't logged into mine for couple of years, finally deleted it completely 2 months ago. Was still using messenger, lost couple of contacts there. No biggie

Around 2017 facebook decided I have to send them a scan of my ID (I registered in early days when most people used nicknames). This was last time I used it :)

Cancelled in 2021 having not used it at all for 10 years. I put in a message to say I was leaving and folks said they would miss me. I think that says a lot.

Because I help a senior with his online existence I made one I use exclusively to test things and explain to him later in his own account. Otherwise, nope.

I had one until a few days ago when I got a prompt that I had to pay to keep my privacy settings. I hardly used it for anything except messenger so I sent everyone my phone number and deleted it, along with an Insta account I occasionally posted stories to.

Still on WhatsApp though, so if not Facebook then still Meta. I'm in the Netherlands where WhatsApp has become the basis for messaging anyone basically.

Still have one for that one best friend who's still on messengers, haven't been to facebook proper in many years, never use it for login.

Deleted mine nearly a decade ago, and then my google account a few years later. Both ended up being a lot easier than I expected.

Im forced to have fb account to conntact people from various groups on messanger. Is there any way to have messanger without fb?

Of course. All my friends and people I have ever met are on Facebook. Not even the privacy argument is strong enough for me to just delete my account out of spite. Do I use the platform? Not really. I use it to stay in touch with people I know, but not to post stuff on my wall or mindlessly browse through the algorithm.

Haven't used mine in ages but during Corona it was super useful. My local town has Facebook groups with over 10% of the population of the town. It's super useful to get local knowledge and details on new events etc.

So, yes. Still popular here. I wouldn't know where else these communities would form at the moment.

I unfollowed everyone and everything using that chrome tool someone posted on HN a while back. News feed is now a ghost town except for generated content that I have no interest in. It makes it easy to not get distracted when I open the app to check Marketplace.

Stopped using Facebook in 2013, never started using Instagram. I use WhatsApp, though.

I dropped Facebook and Instagram two years ago. Never found a productive use for it.

I still use Facebook Groups because they are great for Classic Gaming discussions. Oddly, the fact that Facebook is now largely used by older people made it a nice place for Nostalgia-related interests.

Never had one, I guess mostly because the people I know use other platforms.

I don't have a Facebook account with my name attached to it, but I do keep an account with a fake name to follow community pages and updates to my gym etc.

Facebook is how old folk stay in contact with family and friends. It's like Medicare in that you may not use it now but you will when you're older.

I keep it because of friends, a few family members, and groups for a couple specific interests (e.g. coffee roasting with a certain brand of roaster.)

I have one but only use WhatsApp and Messenger. When I opened Facebook.com recently it asked me if I want to subscribe to go ad free for 10 bucks a month.

I had to create one for work last Thursday. They still require either a phone number or credit card when creating a developer account too.

I'm in the younger generation where Facebook never really gained users, so no, I never even used it. I use Whatsapp daily though.

I have it, but I have not used it for the last 1-2 years. I need to have it active because I have some facebook apps in the account

Never had FB, IG, X, etc and am happier for it.

Seems like very few users use Facebook from HN.

Account: yes Last logged in: > 5 years ago

Have an account that can’t be searched for. Check it maybe once a month. Don’t post or update anything on there.

I do and many of my peers (we're an older crowd). The younger ones seem to use Instagram instead.

I use mine to manage various groups that are really related to my business

Most people I would imagine

I have a Facebook account that is deactivated, but not deleted.

I do, because I live oversees. Just for the chat though.

I still do, but the interface is a struggle session.

Still do and I used to enjoy it until just a couple years ago when the suggested content completely overran my feed. I don't know how they've managed to make the alorithmic recommendations so bad - they range from boring and cringeworthy to ouright offensive (like pages praising Putin for his anti-imperial efforts for instance). I've tried to be a good user and engage with that stuff just the way Facebook recommends - marking what I dislike etc., but no luck - it's still mindbogglingly awful. I've stopped posting and reading the feed and now only ever use it to comment on a single page.

I have one but have not used it for very long time. While reading comments here I logged in and as others have been asked between tracking and subscription. So I will just delete it.

Edit: done.

I don't use any of this shit, absofuckinglutely 0, just trash for the brain.