My way or the highway.........

[indianacarnie]

Needing to vent a little. I, like most of us I assume, have many different accounts with various websites. One of mine was with The Huffington Post. I spent a fair amount of time there, second only to our forums I guess. Today when I went there and tried to comment on an article, I received a pop-up asking me to verify my account. Something about a new system, supposedly to make our discourse more "civil". Fine, I don't care who knows my real name there (or anywhere else for that matter), so I clicked the button to verify. Imagine my chagrin when I was informed that the ONLY way to verify was through a FACEBOOK account! I don't have and will not have an account with facebook. Imo its nothing but a unsafe time sink and I deleted my accounts there a long long time ago. I sent a message to them asking about an alternate way to verify and was informed, politely I must say,that if I didn't want to open a facebook account then I couldn't be there. I think this is outstandingly arrogant and counterproductive. Not everyone has or WANTS a facebook account. To be FORCED into signing up for another website to use your site is ............... words fail me I'm afraid. I deleted my account and won't be going back. Am I being petty?

Has anyone had a similar experience with other sites? I must admit that I live in my little "circle" of sites and seldom venture out of them so don't know if this is becoming a standard practice or not.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Yes, one of my news forums, Advocate, did that two or three years ago despite a lot of people complaining that social Media sites are unsafe. All they cared about was simplifying their website. I chose the highway.

 

[andrew129260]

They assume everyone has a social networking account.

And they kinda get paid by facebook to do it. So its a win win for them, loss for us.

 

[boohbah]

it should be called the huffyton post

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

They assume everyone has a social networking account.

And they kinda get paid by facebook to do it. So its a win win for them, loss for us.

Actually, they do know that not everyone is on a social network; they just don't care.

 

[Britton30]

It would be the highway for me too Scott. I had a FB account for some NASCAR buds a couple or three years ago until I read so much negative about it and deleted it, which for some reason, takes FB 2 weeks to do.

I like to enter contests sometimes too and there are so many that want me to log in to FB. Anyone wanting to me to do anything with FB will have to kiss my, uhmm, you know.

This sounds like a commie plot to me, or Marxist. No I don't think you're being petty, rather practical and safe. Huffington can go huff themselves.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I avoid Huff's site anyway because the b*****ds always have a %$#@! video playing I can't shut off. I usually have music playing when I'm surfing so it's doubly annoying.

 

[Joan Archer]

I don't actually go to any news sites as such, unless it's a one of visit to pick up an article. I'd highway as well if it happened with any of the places I go to, mind you I do have a Facebook account for keeping in touch with family and friends who live too far away from me. I'd be annoyed as well if they played music while I was on the site, I like to be reasonably quiet when I'm on the computer, unless I'm using my Notebook and I'll be in the living room with the television going when using that and I don't want music from the computer alongside that.

 

[indianacarnie]

Whew! Glad to hear that maybe I'm not being a little silly about this. I don't like being "forced" to do anything, much less something I feel strongly about. Thanks to all for the support!

 

[Slartybart]

Any site that forces a user to open a FB account should close up shop and go live on FB.

I will NEVER have a FB account..... NEVER!

 

[indianacarnie]

Any site that forces a user to open a FB account should close up shop and go live on FB.

I will NEVER have a FB account..... NEVER!

 

[DocBrown]

Double Secret

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Well, I won't say never but a snowball would have a better chance in h...the Sahara.

 

[derekimo]

Another little gem that irks me is the mobile number demand for "account security" reasons...

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I agree one should never be forced to watch ads and video's or sign up for things they don't want to. As it relates to FB it's all in the eye's of the user. I enjoy having a place just as here to communicate and re-connect with friends and FB has pulled lost friends back into my life that I truly cherish......is it for everyone of course not, but blanket statements about it are just personal opinions, valuable but singular as mine is.

 

[Fantail]

Another little gem that irks me is the mobile number demand for "account security" reasons...

grrrrrrr, - GRRRRR :devil:

It's a bunch of snot, I never give them my cell. The whole google+ jazz is more snot.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Another little gem that irks me is the mobile number demand for "account security" reasons...

grrrrrrr, - GRRRRR :devil:

It's a bunch of snot, I never give them my cell. The whole google+ jazz is more snot.

First time I saw it spelled that way.

 

[Britton30]

I have a limited understanding of FB but I know it involves "liking" and a wall and "favorites and such crappola. IT was this liking stuff I think a bud of mine had his laptop seriously infected. The story goes he used FB to connect to his nephew who isn't real computer bright.

The nephew apparently liked everybody, or something like that. Someone in his lineage was a scammer who put something up which was the infection so those upstream trusted it since it appeared to come from this silly nephew.

To make it short, I spent 3 hours disinfecting my bud's PC and the nephew threw his away, lol. Uncle learned a good FB lesson.

FWIW, I use a Norton utility which did the disinfection, this was after two other "experts" had failed.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

It's just like the caution with any email accounts, you don't open things that look fishy.

 

[richnrockville]

I agree not to open attachments from unknowns. But then many older people get trojanized and send out attachments that are bogus and includes a payload. That is nice about having a Virtual Disk that is not connected to any other disks or the network. Works for me and I have seen some really interesting scams and infectious programs.

I never trust anyone. I am not paranoid, it is just that I first believe that everyone is out to get me.:sarc:

Rich