'Anti Social Networking' or 'Antisocial Networking?'

I had Myspace and Facebook accounts for years up until recently. I know, both sites suck--which also stands for any of a number of social networking fad sites. It's all time-wasting, identity integrity compromising, consumer whoring hogwash. It's not like everyone doesn't know this already based on the existence of a National Delete Your Myspace Account Day; I had just had enough.

Here's how I deleted both of them:

• Facebook: I tried logging in to delete the account and they told me it was already deleted from lack of use. One down, one to go.
• Myspace: Apparently nowadays deleting your account is impossible. I had read about this, but I'm a pretty tech-savvy guy...I did find out that they make it really difficult and forced me to lie, which is something I don't like to do. A sub-bullet breakdown:
  • Click-click-click to the delete account page, which is hard to find as it is. They promised a confirmation email, which is a decent safeguard against someone hijacking your page and deleting it. Fair enough.
  • No confirmation email as the (couple of) weeks go by.
  • I tried again. No immediate email (I didn't expect one at this point--just sanity checking myself on the first run).
  • I looked up on their site how to delete a Myspace profile if you are a parent of a child who is being targeted by sexual predators. Apparently there is a method! You have to delete information in a certain section and paste in some special text that will alert them. Convoluted, but it is a process.
  • Nothing happens as the (couple of) weeks go by.
  • Fed up, I sent their legal team this message:
    

    I have tried several times to delete my account with
    Myspace. After consulting my lawyer, it appears to be to my
    advantage to seek litigation after this attempt. If you do
    not acknowledge my repeated requests within 5 business days,
    I will sue your parent organization.

  • Of course, that parent organization is News Corp, quite possibly the worst major media company ever, and that is saying A LOT. That last link is to an AP article, an organization that is trash as well. Even they know Fox sux. I mean sucks.
  • The same day that I sent the threat letter my account was terminated and I was alerted via email. Wow.

So while I can't draw conclusions about Facebook, Myspace and News Corp care more to deal with legal threats than threats that their services pose to children. Anyway, good riddance.