Hello Timeline, bye bye Facebook.

Ever since I first came across the Timeline profile on Facebook, I have hated it. Unwieldy, slow to display and confusing, there were no good things I could say about it. Not to mention the way everything about you was displayed every single time someone landed on your timeline, regardless of how many times they have read it before. So when I visited Facebook earlier today and saw that timeline was coming in a week's time whether I wanted it or not, I thought "Screw you Facebook". 

I have never warmed to Facebook the way hundreds of millions of other people have, which is pretty normal in my experience. When some new-fangled fad sweeps the world, I'm usually left thinking "Meh. And..?" I signed up for it to see what the fuss was about and have always had my profile locked down as tightly as possible, since I have always been wary of the privacy implications and what they would do with all my information in the future. Basically, I don't trust them.

So when I'm told by Facebook "Take this, you have no choice. We don't care that everybody hates it, you are getting it regardless" alarm bells ring. Quite apart from the fact that I hate being told what to do or like by someone else, I am seriously concerned about the further reaching privacy leaks that timeline carries the risk of. They are up to something we don't like, but they're not telling us what it is. There have even been court cases over timeline, so there is definitely much to be concerned with. If Facebook are that hell-bent on imposing it on users, regardless of almost universal dislike, something must be not quite right with their universe.

So thinking that most of my use of Facebook was clicking on posts I wasn't interested in and marking them "Hide this post" or "Hide all photos by Freddy", I decided the time had come for me to separate from Facebook.

So I have deactivated my profile, but I think I'll just delete it completely. I can live without Facebook. I hope millions of others also desert this malicious monster before it's too late. Too late for them, because once your private and personal information is out there, it's too late. And sooner or later, it will get monetized. And when that happens, you won't like it one bit. And there won't be a thing you can do about it.