I haven't yet finished the entire investigative story about FB in today's NY Times, but have read the articles in the Guardian and recently watched a documentary about the company's troubles. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg come off as even worse than I thought. And I wonder how, in good conscience, any of us can stay here on this platform that touts liberal rhetoric about openness and connecting the world, while actually being capitalist and self-serving to the point of hiring conservative firms to spread fake news against its detractors, let alone ignoring information about Russian hackers and fake-news farms and hacking of their own users' "secure" information, and failing to take action until after the damage was done. They have turned into what they say they hate, and are using all of us for one primary purpose: to make billions of dollars.
My activity on FB has never been great, but it's decreased, quite deliberately. I rarely write direct posts there, and only occasionally "like" something my friends have posted. Its main usefulness to me, other than allowing me to see some family and friends who don't keep in touch any other way, is in publicizing events for the cathedral (which, if we really looked at it theologically, has no business being on FB at all) and cross-posting links to new blog posts. As I've written before, most of the comments I get at The Cassandra Pages, and a lot of the traffic, now comes via social media. I have fewer problems with the way Instagram works, which FB owns, and with the community there, because I am not constantly peppered with ads (they can be blocked), news, and opinions and the community where I interact is much quieter and more concerned with the same values as I am.
But the bottom line is this: what FB is doing is wrong. George Soros is right when he says it's a threat to democracy. Yet we have all become hostage to it because it preys on all our deepest insecurities and desires. I don't want to lose the blog traffic I have. I don't want to lose the ability to publicize events, or a new book from Phoenicia -- though buying paid advertising is a business transaction, and I am more OK with that. And I don't want to lose touch with certain friends -- but, you know, email still exists. It just takes a little more effort.
It's like so much else that's wrong with our world. We choose convenience and connection and take the easy way out, even when it makes us complicit in data-mining schemes or the spread of fake news, even when it enriches unscrupulous people, even when our actions harm the planet. We are sheep. Human beings don't seem to have the will to do what is right in large enough numbers to make the differences that needs to be made, or to send the message to both government and business that we won't tolerate their behavior any longer. If I delete my FB account, it will be a useless gesture that will have no effect other than making a statement like this one; I'll only be hurting myself. But it still may be the right thing to do.
Well put, Beth. I deleted my Facebook account on May 1 and the only thing I miss are the updates from a my cousins about what their kids are doing, but two of them are on Instagram now...
Reading the New York Times story last night kind of bore out the extreme cynicism of an essay I'd read earlier yesterday, by an old friend of mine who's become a fierce critic of social media, Rob Horning. You might appreciate this as well: https://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazines/broken-social-scene/
Posted by: Dave | November 15, 2018 at 11:50 AM
I think I disagree, not that FB is evil - of course I think it is - but that it's worse than Instagram, Google, Amazon, all the names that we don't always realise the big ones own, aspects of nearly everything we touch in our societies...
I think we need to be aware of how much energy goes into good-hearted people guilt-tripping ourselves and each other. Be thoughtful, try not to be naive, discuss but not fight.
And I still greatly miss Dave on Facebook.
Posted by: Jean | November 15, 2018 at 12:14 PM
There's this (via Rebecca Solnit): https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/opinion/sunday/delete-facebook-does-not-fix-problem.html?fbclid=IwAR2kF2xakfwUNqRBERZ19CiG8eurgFC4igtc-z-v1lloLinvIo1w2xK5AMU
I'm not certain that he's right, but his argument makes some sense to me.
Posted by: Jean | November 16, 2018 at 04:16 AM
Thanks, Dave. I don't miss you on FB because we're in touch in other ways - it was never primary for me in our relationship. So I'm glad you've managed to leave without regrets.
Jean, I hear you, and I'm very sorry if what I wrote felt like guilt-tripping; it was meant mroe as soul-searching, and questioning how we can connect in better ways, and how we can hold these giant companies responsible to higher ideals. I read the link you sent and I think the author makes some totally valid points, as do you -- nothing we touch is free of the problems of capitalism, and I don't want to go live off the grid somewhere, rubbing sticks together -- I want to live in this world, together with modern society. Perhaps what we need most are ways to talk about this without making each other feel worse, since I think most of us are on the same basic page. Thanks for writing and for sending that article.
Posted by: Beth | November 16, 2018 at 10:26 AM
Deleting a FB account is not a useless gesture; Zuckerberg and FB execs see that that millions had de-activated. The stock price has fallen.
Perhaps a new social media platform will arise, which will charge people to post, and protect their information. People were willfully blind; did they really think all that infrastructure was "free"?
I too am in that dilemma, because FB is where my family and far-flung friends post photos and news. I do not want to request they send me the same material by e-mail.
I have fiends and colleagues who go to great lengths and some expense to achieve Internet privacy; my strategy is to realize there is no privacy there, and act accordingly.
Posted by: Duchesse | November 17, 2018 at 09:48 AM
Four or five years ago I created an FB account, perhaps for commercial reasons (publicising my books?) I can't remember. Then I opened it and the faces of people I didn't want to know slid past in ghastly parade. I shuddered at the prospect and closed the account. Twenty minutes start to finish. If this were fiction I'd have curled up foetally and composed a sonnet. As it was I shuddered again and probably played a round of Solitaire.
Posted by: Roderick Robinson | November 18, 2018 at 02:57 AM
I find Facebook is a way to keep up with certain of my friends whom I would lose all connection to otherwise, as an almost endless source of curated news from the left, and of over-the-top memes on the right. The last I think of as a guide to things my less liberal friends would never say to me in person, and I ignore them except to remonstrate, very occasionally, when one is out-of-this-world offensive. A high school classmate I remember for her rather blunt assessments of people classifies the things I do post as "a quirky humor" thing, which is fair enough. I try not to overdo it.
Posted by: Peter | November 21, 2018 at 02:23 PM
I suppose the issue is that Facebook is so ubiquitous as a friend of mine said when we discussed this. I post the links to my blog posts as well as about my book and my services on a number of pages on it as well as on LinkedIn and Women Only Connected. I know that there are other platforms out there, but I have enough trouble making myself post at all. I try to be on them only once or twice a week - too much time suck otherwise. And, that's how I keep in touch with some relatives and friends. I agree that I'm not sure the other platforms are any better.
I don't pay for ads on FB, so at least I'm not helping fund their shenanigans directly. I have ad blocker on so I don't see most of the ads either.
It is a bit of a dilemma but I don't see closing my account as something that I can do at this time, unless there's another platform out there that will help me with all of this.
Posted by: Kathryn | November 25, 2018 at 08:33 AM
Go on, delete the FB account. I opened one to see what my 91 year old cousin was posting thousands of miles away but we can keep in touch by email so i am going to close mine. I loathe FB - it's ghastly aesthetics and confusing layout - and I live in fear I'll get linked to people who are firmly in my past :-/.
Posted by: Anna | November 25, 2018 at 03:04 PM
Kia Ora Beth,
I de-activated my account in early October. I was surprised to be notified by a friend that my profile is now back. I didn't realise that FB now re-activates profiles after 7 days. I too,have family and friends back in the states I need to stay in contact with, or be able to be contacted by. I have been amazed at how the little chunks of time I wasted on FB add up to constructively doing other things with real people. I'm just going to keep writing on my blog. Kia Kaha e hoa.
Arohanui,
Robb
Posted by: Robb | November 25, 2018 at 05:47 PM