Removed from Facebook

As of Saturday evening I have been unceremoniously removed from Facebook.

Login as usual got me a message that our account has been disabled.

A small statement said I could find some Frequently Asked Questions.

One of which said that for legal reasons they cannot show me what it was that according to them caused them to disable my account.

Its interesting to be without Facebook - especially since over the past few months it has moved in under my skin. I realise now - going cold-turkey - how much and how many times I would check up on "it".


Facebook is superb at a few things:

1. getting you in touch with all sorts of people who you never knew still existed - and also getting to know the odd new person along the way.

2. exposing you to a non-stop stream of nostalgia, ideas, current events, pictures - mixed in with the mundaneness and wierdness of the people you know (or think you know).

3. getting 'into the lives' of a few folk who use it to broadcast themselves. They aren't many (at least proportionally for me - among the 900 odd contacts we had only about 20 regularly - and I mean regularly - wrote what they were up to - but then some of them did that 4 - 6 times a day)

4. getting you supremely bugged at the multitude of inane quizzes, games, "applications" that so many jump into. I learned early on to keep hiding them when they show up - but there are so many of them out there...

At the same time, Facebook was a huge time-sucker. A massive draw on my thoughts. A different world.

I don't think I will join again. At least at this point since the powers to be have put me in limbo.

The melancholy pink box I got is reproduced below for posterity:



The scary thing finally is how much I put my trust in it. Its a computer programme, for crying out loud, which exists to help those who run it get rich.

OK, that's crass, but there is truth there isn't it? My account can suddenly be disabled, nullified, yanked - with nothing for me to do. I meekly sent of an email, and now I need to wait for the powers to be to reply. Its not like I can go to the neighbourhood police station and lodge a complaint (Chehera-kitab? Wo kya hain?...)

So as of now - Facebook (at least Andi Sheba's participation in it) R.I.P.