Runbox is leaving Facebook
 

https://blog.runbox.com/2018/03/runb...book-platform/
Who’s next?

Interesting. As someone who utilizes FB for my business I find myself conflicted. I personally hate the service and would not have an account except for the fact I need it to run the business page, which is a pain in itself. I am also uncertain that it is worth the time and effort it requires to maintain, but when I speak to FB users they are mostly quite passionate about it and think it is crazy talk to even consider deleting it. You have to remember that almost without fail you mostly here from complainers in the news, and those who are happy are the true silent majority. Sure, most people don't like what FB has done with their personal data, but then again most people feel they personally weren't impacted.

I guess I've been living under a rock since I do not have and never had a Facebook account.

What exactly was the relationship between Runbox and Facebook?

Were you able to send and receive messages from FB that used RB's servers?

Thank you.

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Jacinto

I'm pretty sure that Runbox just used their FB page to connect with the public in a marketing sense: information, advertising, etc. That's how most businesses use it, with some also using it as a primary way of communicating with the public. Some people do most of their texting/messaging via FB, which I personally find very odd. My wife's job had to close during a snow emergency recently and the only message they sent out to staff and the public was via FB, believe it or not. There are many people that get all of their news via the FB News Feed, which is scary.

Thank you, TenFour.

That doesn't make any sense to me. I suppose that in this brave new world of ours, that is the "new normal."

I'm a very private person and don't do any so-called "public media" or whatever else it's called if that's not correct.

There is so much bad news about FB lately, that a dear friend of mine started to refer to it as "Two Facebook." :)

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Jacinto

This article talks about how FB is practically indispensable for many people. I suspect this varies a lot in different parts of the world, but for many people FB is the "Internet." In other words, that's about the only place where they do anything online.

As I said, I must have been living under a rock.

I had no idea that FB was so pervasive and that people live (and probably die) by FB.

It's scary that governments and public institutions use FB for public announcements and governmental functions.

If I never bothered with FB before, I will never bother with it now.

Having said that, I respect other people's decision to use or rely on FB.

--
Jacinto

Does anyone here ever use, or have an opinion of, any of the decentralised, open-source alternatives to Facebook, such as Mastodon or Diaspora?

I used diaspora for a while, but I didn't liked it.
At the moment I use Movim, that's a nice opensource, decentralised alternative for facebook
https://movim.eu

We only maintained a "business page" on Facebook for marketing and support purposes. It wasn't in much use so not a great loss.

- Geir

Congratulations Runbox on leaving Facebook
 

I am asking my professional advisers & others who hold my personal data either to confirm that they do not use Facebook, or that they will totally dispense with it within a month; failing which they loose my business.

It will be interesting to see whether Pobox & Fastmail follow Runbox's excellent example.

NJSS

Hello, Geir.

Just out of curiosity, how was Runbox able to give private and confidential support on public media?

--
Jacinto

Support isn't always private and confidential, and we would always ask that customers with account specific questions contact us via https://support.runbox.com

I didn't say anything about private or confidential support. At times users or others have asked us questions via Facebook, and in that sense it's no different than this forum (which is unencrypted and also an area where we might make changes).

- Geir

I'm not sure that I understand "an area where we might make changes".

If this means the Runbox participation here on the forum, you do not (to my knowledge) have any influence to be able to change the forum set up.

So I conclude you may seek to change the participation of your employees on the forum, similar to what happened with FastMail abandoning this forum?

I, for one, would certainly not want this to happen.