It’s been a while since all the hype with forced migration to the Facebook messenger app from earlier this year and this summer.

Last week I noticed I couldn’t access my messages from within the app. It would show me a message that I needed to download messenger and would show me a bunch of my friends who had downloaded it.  I still felt unsure about downloading it but began checking my messages on the browser of my phone.

I spend my work week tethered to a computer or a Blackberry so the last thing I want to do is be tied down to one on my free time. That being said, in my freetime I’m rarely sitting down long enough to boot my laptop up. Even as I type this I know I have messages sitting in my inbox that I need to answer. (Sorry I’m a jerk…a very busy jerk)

But it’s like McLuhan’s Hot and cold Media….the form of the message indicating urgency. I feel if you sent me a message on facebook, it’s not urgent. If it was you would have asked for my phone number, and in doing so the urgency would have been text (response at my leisure in the near future) or call (answer, preferrably immediately).

So I have been contemplating the mysteries of Facebook messenger and the sheer convieneces as opposed to the tiny interface on the browser. (Once you go App, you never go back?!?)

So I do what we all do, when asking any minute or life changing question….I googled. Facebook Messenger app news. Google answered, then answered again more indepth.

In the mass hyping about the new iPhones on friday, this important story didn’t really make it out into the mainstream.

A dev looked up the coding and found Facebook Messenger is (SURPRISE!) alot more intrusive than anyone expected it to be.

Last week I attended a talk on Social Media and the applications of it as evidence in Law. It was stated that Social Media along with internet is still so new. This made me chuckle because I have been on the internet for 20 years. Yes, that’s right we got internet in our house in 1994, before there was google and when the internet was a vast void…kind of like space. That being said in the present day, the digital age we live in is still like the Wild Wild West. There are scenarios coming up that no one knows how to deal with even though the internet has been around for decades. That being said the Social media is still strangely impactful and can be self indicting in general, but in the case of Law it depends on the judge until proper guidelines have been established.

People predominantly in Western states oppose being hacked and spyed on globally. I think everyone can agree that they like their privacy. On the same side of the coin, how do we feel about the fact we are offering up our privacy freely? How do we feel about that being used to see what we are up to even if we volunteeringly put it up? We aren’t quite comfortable but we still post all over the internet. I have long felt that Facebook was corporate front for the NSA especially when they acquired Instagram and What’s app. If some of us aren’t on Facebook, we post on instagram using their simple filters to beautify our pictures. For those of us who aren’t into sharing personal things on public domains, there’s WhatApp, which was bought by Facebook earlier this year.. In every which way this corporate entity is in our infiltrated all of our Spheres (Public, Semi-private and Private).

I will admit I never read EULA’s. I might half way through then just click ‘AGREE’ because the documents seem so damn long and I want to get on with my install. I am sure I have agreed to give up my first and third born children as well as my hair and something ridiculous like the legal rights to my bathwater. Other than the fact if we were reading EULA’s and winning prize money
, it is often in legal tone which hides the intentions of these coporations as well as protect them from any such reprocussions.

Either way, the point of this post is for you not to download Facebook Messenger. Realize everything you do and say or post is now being watched and that the Internet never forgets…or forgives.

TL;DR:

*I have contemplated downloading FB Messenger in the past week. I don’t like using it through the browser.
*a Dev discovered Facebook Messenger has spyware built into it’s guts (coding)
*Social Media is new, proper laws regarding it have not come into effect, but be aware of it’s self indicting nature.
*We don’t like being spied on, yet there are outlets where we volunteer our personal information
*Facebook Corp is prob NSA since they own apps people use for all spheres of privacy.
*no one reads EULAs and click AGREE, we have probably agreed to being spied on by doing so.
*Don’t download FB Messenger, also we will never be able to go off the map…
*The End

EDIT:  The above screen shot shows a bunch of my contacts that supposedly downloaded FB Messenger.  I did speak to some of my close friends (either named or pictured in the above screenshot) that Facebook said were using it.  None of them were.  They happened to download it in the winter, then deleted it.  However I presume Facebook is trying to peer pressure me into downloading and using the Messenger app by giving me a false sense of security by showing 177 of my friends are supposedly ok with it, so I should be too. Homey don’t play that.