As I write this, I’m downloading my Facebook profile before deleting my account. In the process I chose to collect and download the entire archive, which dates back to 2005. Twenty years of spontaneous thoughts, jokes, rants and photos, so it will take a while. I’ve tried to stay off of Facebook before a few times but it didn’t last long– couple of days, if that. This time it’s for good.
Facebook was my first foray into social media and a lifeline to my past when I moved to Spain with my new wife and son, but it’s been slowly, painfully going to shit ever since. Original functionality removed, the addition of algorithmic advertising, then sponsored posts, and finally the overabundance of AI-generated content like there’s nobody home. I’ve met some good people and tried to ignore the peripheral bullshit polluting my feed, but recently it’s gotten so that I practically don’t even see their actual posts anymore– which is the antithesis of social media. There’s no shortage of right-wing misinformation and chest beating, though. It was so bad during the first reign of Donald Trump that I nearly lost my fucking mind. Seriously, I questioned my sanity. My faith in people’s sensibility and patriotism for my country suffered greatly and unexpectedly. I simply can’t go through that again. I can’t endure the sheer insanity and daily chaos.
Back in about 1996 or so I started a blog not unlike this one, thinking no one would see it but me. An online diary where I could overshare if I felt like it and not care if some stranger read it. If they did, then welcome to the nightmare that lives inside my head, internet person. Whoever you are. I still feel the same.
I’m not giving up on social media completely, of course. There are still a lot of good people out there so I’m trying various alternatives. So far, Blue Sky and Mastodon seem to be good contenders. Friends I know and want to stay in touch with are already established on one or the other which makes the decision easy.
So it’s possible to move away from the data monster Facebook has become. The cycle of regular people connecting remotely and socially will move on to other platforms where their personal connections will be the priority instead of targeted sales, political proselytizing, and giving away their intel to teach AI, thus making some billionaire richer and more powerful automatically. I’m looking at you, Zuckerberg, you dysfunctional, socially tone-deaf twat.
