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Why I reset this blog to zero

I’ve been blogging since around 2001. This blog had accumulated thousands of pages of content. Some of it was quite popular e.g. my post on ketogenic diets became a kind of support thread for keto dieters everywhere and I was regularly spammed by SEO marketers wanting to monetize that page.

My thoughts on this site spanned well over a decade of thinking, ideas and also chronicled the evolution of my ideas.

Today I’m a very different person to the Mark Maunder of 2012, the year I started Wordfence, or the Mark of 2008, the year I raised my first startup funding, or 2006 when I was contemptuous of funding of any kind, or 2005 when I sold my first startup, or 2003 when I worked for the BBC.

The trouble is that this blog represents me. So if someone googles me and lands on a page written a decade ago, they might encounter a naive younger man espousing out of date ideas.  For example, the post that launched Feedjit, a prior business of mine was titled “How to create and launch a startup in 10.5 hours.”. Today part of me cringes thinking of that title, and another part of me is very happy that naive Mark Maunder wrote that post and launched that product which resulted in a journey of discovery and ultimately the successful business and amazing team I work with today.

So it was time to clean the slate and start fresh.

For the record, I no longer support ketogenic diets. I think they’re a great way to lose weight, get smelly breath and ingest way more meat than is healthy.

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The 10 Reasons I Left Facebook

  1. FB will always have conflict between unlocking shareholder value by monetizing their member’s data, and protecting member privacy.
  2. FB has failed, and then failed again to control who has access to user data. It will become increasingly difficult for them to protect and control access to the worlds largest social graph.
  3. FB can be compelled to hand over private data in civil suits. You may not anticipate that use of your data when posting.
  4. FB is regularly compelled to hand over data to governments in various jurisdictions. Again, an unanticipated use of your data.
  5. The more data per user FB can ingest and store, the more value they extract from their users. This is in conflict with my desire to select what I share.
  6. Good operational security (opsec) is a healthy practice for anyone wanting to avoid attacks like spear phishing or fraud. FB wants you to share and share publicly which is in direct conflict.
  7. By using FB I’m requiring anyone who wants to ‘stay in touch’ with me to also use FB. I don’t want to make my family use FB.
  8. Government agencies are increasingly accessing social media profiles in their decision making process. E.g. USA CBP accessing cellphones for US and non-US citizens. FB can’t control that access and many users aren’t aware of this use of their data.
  9. As @naval put it, notifications are just alarm clocks that someone else is setting for you. I’m tired of FB alarms and being part of the attention economy.
  10. I think it’s healthy to lose touch with people you no longer have a relationship with. FB breaks that.

Finally, Facebook is supposed to be a fun and safe way to keep in touch with people and share your life with them. It continues to try to be that, but is, in my opinion, mired in a wide range of security and privacy problems. In other words, it stopped being fun. So I’m out.