John Oliver Set Up a Guide to Make Your Data Less Valuable to Mark Zuckerberg
It's one time it's okay to cheapen yourself.
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Back in 2021, major advertisers pulled their money off the platform, and even that barely stopped the money machine from printing infinite cash. User boycotts come and go and in most cases have very little lasting impact, largely due to the sheer size and monopolistic grasp on its audience that Meta has
Maybe everyone should just delete their accounts and move on?
Seems pretty simple to me. I did it all the way back in 2015 and I'm just fine.
I deleted my Facebook account once, then went back. All my stuff was still there. You can try all you want, they have it, and your data is more valuable to them than regulatory compliance can ever touch. Your data is out there, and it will never be deleted.
The only way damage you could possibly do would be to download your own copy of your profile data. Then (and this would only work en masse), place it under something like a creative commons license. This might seem counterintuitive, but facebook is selling your data. This way, they lose the profit of selling it in addition to any advantage they would have from hosting it.
I very much doubt that makes literally even the smallest difference. The problem is that Facebook isn't selling your data--as in, not specifically yours. They sell everyone's data. And the companies which buy that data aren't going out and looking for anyone who's licenced their data under whatever license, either. They buy a gigantic pile of data from Facebook and whatever parts of it are yours are gonna be in there either way.
Obviously they're not really going to delete it
The point being they won't get any more data to make money off of
That's not going to stop them. Facebook builds profiles on people regardless of if they signed up or not. Just like any other online ad company, collecting 'analytics' about users even anonymous ones
Even if you're not blocking all the external trackers, not giving the engagement and data on Facebook's sites themselves still matters.
I did for good after the tiktok ban. It's difficult as someone who moved to a different state than most of my friends and family but they have my phone number if they really want to talk.
That was my favorite part about quitting Facebook
Removing the people who aren't actually in my life
If they're actually in my life, we can call or text
One of the best things I have done. I don’t even miss it and the thought of going back is sickening in a way.
I often forget it even exists until it's in the news or a family member texts me a link to something on Facebook
I have had to tell people in my life multiple times that send me reels through text that I can't watch them.
I don't really know how to talk about this, but when I broke up with my partner, it was very painful. I didn't want to block her on Facebook, so I stopped using Facebook gradually, and haven't now for years.
And I think I really did lose a lot of friends and social connection. I'm basically a loner now, years later, but I didn't used to be.
I'm not very good at staying in touch with friends; remembering birthdays, reaching out, organizing hangouts, and stuff like that. Facebook helped me with all of that. And when I took it out of my life, something is missing now.
