I'm involved in various things through FB that don't really allow me to separate myself from it, but I'm also extremely savvy about how my account is setup from a privacy perspective, and what I post and share there.
A lot of the issues people have on Facebook is when they just blindly click on every stupid app and game and give them all sorts of permissions to view every piece of their personal information - they are their own worst enemy in this scenario. Those stupid "What's your IQ?" surveys and junk like that are little more than data mining your account 95% of the time - ever wonder why so much of the junk on Facebook asks for every permission from A to Z just to do some stupid survey, or see a video clip? Yeah, you're willfully giving up your data, that's why.
Personally, I get a laugh out of a lot of people on Facebook that cry about certain things:
- "Free speech". Facebook is a business, and free speech isn't guaranteed there, so stop bitching when FB (or whatever page you're posting on) deletes your comments when you're being a tool. If you want to practice free speech you are presented every opportunity to do so in the appropriate places, but you are not guaranteed it most places online.
- "Oh noes, my privacy is being breached!?!" Then stop sharing private things, stupid, especially publicly.
- People who complain about people "Creeping" their profiles and looking at their "private" content. No, if someone who's not your friend is seeing photos and posts you consider "private", you're a dumbass and haven't setup your account properly and just stupidly posting content as "public" instead of "Friends only".
- People who again complain about privacy, but you look at their friends list and they have 5,000 people on it, most of whom they probably have little or no personal contact with (or they've never met in their life) but just decided it's cool to friend anyone they've ever interacted with anywhere. Then they post all sorts of intimate details of their personal life and wonder why it doesn't stay private.
- People who post drama online, and then complain about the drama that ensues. Don't be stupid, problem solved.
My friends list is about 100 people and consists of only people who I actually see face to face every few weeks (about 50% of my list right there), old school friends, and more distant family. I don't have strangers on it at all, end of story. I am careful with what I share (nothing innately personal, no drama, no vaguebooking, and no politics), and what I do share is carefully selected to be private to friends only, with the occasionally typically neutral/boring public post that might serve some other purpose.
Accordingly, FB works well for me without much concern.