I am all done with Facebook. As previously announced, I won’t be posting there any more, because it is a corrupt medium, managed by bad people for evil ends. I can no longer support the company with the tacit approval of my presence, so I am shutting down — my account is still there, and I’ve got a few people on an active project that I’ll still engage with on Messenger, but I won’t post anything new there, and as people forget I exist on Facebook, I’ll eventually kill those as well.
I’m not totally disappearing. I’ll still have an active presence in these places:
Pharyngula on Freethoughtblogs
@PZMyers on Twitter
@[email protected] on Mastodon
PZMyers on MeWe
The Freethoughtblogs server on Discord
PZMyers on Instagram
The Pharyngula IRC channel
Before you tell me that those are flawed, imperfect media too, I agree — I’m just shedding the worst of the worst to start. Maybe eventually I’ll end up in a remote mountain cave, disconnected and unshackled from the bonds of the material world. But not yet!
I realize I won’t be the only one to scold, “Faceberg owns Instagram, too.” Why not dump that one?
I’m easing out, for one; for another, my daughter posts all kinds of photos of Iliana there.
I knew it from day one. Well almost. Certainly well before all the current controversy.
I signed up to see what all the buzz was about, took a look around, deleted account a few days later.
Having a strong background in computer security helped.
The expression I used when asked — “a security nightmare” — without any political rant other than not trusting the rich in a general way.
The latest outrages suddenly turned me from a paranoid to a genius in the eyes of my friends (leftist of course).
I don’t use Facebook much, but it’s also not clear to me I have much of an alternative. I’m not a superstar blogger and people won’t follow me to whatever platform I decide to use. Also, it seems the Facebook marketplace is now the best place to go for buying and selling used stuff. No one in my area is on LetGo anymore. I don’t know if I’d want to bother with Craigslist. Does anyone have other suggestions?
I am only surprised you are still on FaceBook PZ, and hadn’t given it the boot a few years ago. It has always been this bad, and it’s always been obvious.
Not only are Facetime, Twitter and all that other social bullshit evil, they’re a colossal waste of time. I quit all that crap years ago, and never looked back.
Likewise! I have been deleting many posts too.
Farcebork is still running on Pharyngula. I’m using Ghostery which shows two of its trackers here, and NoScript which shows their script. (Several other questionable items too.)
I mean, you presumably didn’t want to be conscripted into their army of spies, so you should probably stop donating your services to them at some point.
I realize that pictures of grandkids make people lose their minds. And I’m not judging. You do your thing.
But seriously now: Instagram is not the only way to share photos with relatives, so your “reasoning” here is a bit suspicious.
Given that the user of big social media is not only the product in that their attention is being sold to advertisers, they are also the labor in that they are producing content to attract other users. You could also argue that looking at advertising is labor, in a sense. In any case, big social media is a means of production in a manner of speaking.
Part of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign platform is breaking up big tech, I say we seize it.
@ cr
Maybe it’s about ease of posting for Skatje. Demanding she post pictures separately to her father would be an arsehole move.
Badland, nah. Much easier to post photos without having to log into FB and uploading an image.
(for example, in Windows, right-click, select “send to”)
In passing, I personally think it’s violating children’s privacy to publicly document them from a young age. It will be there forever.
I’ve never signed up for FaceButt and still have to clear out its cookies and cache files on a regular basis.
“…Farcebork is still running on Pharyngula….”
FWIW, the DuckDuckGo browser app on my device is giving Pharyngula an overall grade of C for tracking etc.
John Morales,
agreed about the photos.
Even when it comes to adults, people should really check before posting someone’s photos online.
PZ – LinkedIn?
Welcome to the club! I dumped Facebook before there was Facebook, thanks to my time machine.
Is twitter any better? I had the impression all the social media organizations were at least moderately evil, but I’m ready to change if twitter’s even marginally less evil.
@dianne, #17:
In terms of personal data use? I doubt it. In terms of user experience, I find Twitter to be akin to the overturned, burning wreck of a truck full of unserviced portable toilets with the driver rolling around naked on the pavement, laughing maniacally.
@2, know the problem, dealing inefficiently with FB BS.
Got banned on twitter, due to an attack that I stated would result in DNS blacklisting.
I’m disinterested in contesting their malware flogging client’s watering hole attack, just blackhole both for secure environments.