I can no longer support Facebook. Until Facebook undergoes a wholesale leadership change, or better yet, has been regulated, I need to minimize or eliminate my Facebook account.
What pushed me to take action? Let’s look at some recent news:
- Facebook allowed partners to see the names of nearly all Facebook friends and read PRIVATE MESSAGES without user consent. Did you know your private messages were being shared with Facebook partners?
- Facebook executive Joel Kaplan, who sat behind Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearings, has stopped efforts to fight polarization on Facebook and to reduce propaganda on the site.
- The United Nations Human Rights Council blasted Facebook for the role it played in Myanmar genocide.
- Facebook misled the public about the amount it had been used by Russian propaganda during the 2016 election.
And there are many more examples. Since Facebook’s earliest days, Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly broke the trust of his users. Each time Facebook is caught, they apologize and promise it won’t happen again. But it does repeatedly. After 14 years of this cycle, we should know better.
So I’m leaving Facebook and all of the properties that Facebook owns. I’m not sure what form that will take yet—whether I will delete my accounts or just leave them unattended.
I do know that I’m going to resurrect my personal website and go back to owning my content and platform. I’m finally going to upgrade my site to participate on the modern IndieWeb. I’m also excited by what my friends Nishant and Pita are building at Digest—a social network built with privacy and user control built into it from the beginning.
I’ve given myself until the end of January to figure out the details. I’ll share what I learn in hopes it helps others leave Facebook as well.
WhatsApp too then?
Yep. I don’t use it much though. Instagram is the bigger loss for me.
Good call! I’m in the process myself but it’s … a process. I don’t post anything to them but the accounts are still there and I’m slowly migrating all the services I foolishly used ‘log in with Facebook’ for. Would one day love to block all fb-owned domains at the router level! :) Anyway, curious to see where you end up after a month!
The genesis of Digest occurred long before Facebook’s privacy scandals. Our hope was/is to give users more control in not just managing their time, relationships, and interests, but also their own psychology. What started with the question, “Why does Twitter/Facebook make me sad?” has transformed into a drive to make this new form of human communication more humane and enjoyable across several axes. Respecting the privacy and dignity of our community members is the minimum bar. Thanks for the shout out, Jason.