Leaving Facebook
ALT Text: Marc Zuckerberg kneeling in front of Donald Trump, and kissing his ring, while Elon Musk stands by his side, quite smugly
It has been some time since I last used Facebook, probably two years now. Even before deleting the app from my phone, it was only because I could not find any use for it anymore. I was never posting anything on it, and nobody I cared about was either. For me Facebook was only endless scrolling, and the algorithm feeding me things it thinks I might be interested in, or ads. Stopping using Facebook was easy, and really I barely even missed it at all. More exactly, what I missed was how it felt like to use it ten or fifteen years ago. This was long gone anyway.
Now what was harder was to quit Messenger. This is an important discussion channel with many people or groups, and it is difficult to just leave without notice. It is also difficult to force everybody to move elsewhere with you. I did asked a few people I cared about to move to Signal, but then did not felt confident enough to make a more public move. So I stayed, and thought it was not too much of a problem anyway.
Now with the new election of Donald Trump as president of the USA, with everything he is doing against democracy in his country, and more importantly his influence on the outside world, I do not see myself as just standing by. Many billionaires came to Donald Trump in what looked like a pledge of allegiance. Marc Zuckerberg does not seem as far-right and fascist oriented as Elon Musk, but he nevertheless started to promote some very questionable internal policies, like ending fact checking, and promoting what he calls ”masculine energy”. I do not think this is what the world needs right now.
In the end, I decided to make the leap. I am just one, and from what I read, probably not the only one. Let’s leave Facebook, Instagram, X, and other platforms to far-right extremists, and try to cultivate a better Internet elsewhere.