Oh, Frances

Yesterday Facehook, Instagram and WhattsUp were all down for hours, and the world did not end. It all happened very coincidentally, right after Ms. Haugen went on Sixty Minutes and brought the receipts about the abominable behavior of the tech giant. They're already spinning the damage caused by her telling the truth about how the social network giant is basically killing people, promoting white supremacy and dumbing down the whole world while exploiting their information for money. Damaging misinformation, political fuckery and privacy breaches are their daily bread. All for money. But you already knew that. And still, some of you still are on Facebook.

I think you should delete your Facebook account. Not deactivate it, delete it. That's it, in a nutshell. It's not a free platform. You are paying with your soul, more or less. Well, more than less, because you are giving Facebook all your time and personal information. And those, my friend, are very, very valuable to them. But that is not all. Facebook is a cesspool of ignorance and misinformation: it's a mix of the lowest common denominator in intelligence and the most rabid sense of entitlement laced with racism and hatred, and capable of going around the world in sixty seconds.  And you are enabling it. Your being on that platform is what makes it powerful. Yes, you're one of the three billion people who are addicted to its never ending stream of stupidity, but you can quit cold turkey.

I know, I know, your family/dear friends/ whomever the fuck you want to know about/ is on that platform and you wanna keep in touch, yadda, yadda. I've heard it all before. But what did you do in 2004, when there was NO facebook open to the public? How did you keep in touch with your family/friends/assorted people you don't care about? Oh, that's right. You called them. Or emailed them. Or simply lived without knowing the minutia of their lives and how deeply stupid and ignorant they were. Oh, and if you were not yet born in 2004, you have no business being on this blog. Skedaddle! I post pictures of naked men and swear a lot.

“There were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money,”

FRANCES HAUGEN

And that's not even the worst. According to Ms. Haugen, Facebook lowered standards after Uncle Joe was elected and basically (and knowingly) became a hub for the January 6 terrorist act. It promotes racism and misinformation about the COVID vaccines and is the go-to 'research' tool of the tools. If you are on Facebook, you have probably witnessed this firsthand. Your sweet aunt Doris, who used to make cookies and had two kitties, now shares memes blasting AOC for socialism, she insists on the daily that Uncle Joe is not the president and she refuses to get vaccinated because her 'research' makes her scared of the vaccines. The cavalcade of crazy never stops. And you are aiding it.

People ask me what you would gain if you leave Facebook and I will tell you that you'll gain peace of mind and a clean conscience. And the feeling of having done something good. Your leaving Instagram or Facebook is not gonna do anything to Zuckerberg, we know that. He's already richer than rich. He'll lose one hundred million dollars and it'll be a drop in the bucket. But you may feel better with yourself after you've left that wretched social network. It's a matter of morals, I think. I'm not on Facebook or Instagram because I put my money where my mouth is. And I don't miss them. At all.

The outage yesterday could be taken three different ways according to me: one, Facebook freaked out with the evidence the whistleblower was bringing (it means it's true, of course, nobody is going against a giant like Facebook with lies) and it shut itself down to avoid its own algorithm to be its own biggest enemy. The news that Facebook is abusive would spread with the help of Facebook. Poetic justice. Two, somebody (Anonymous?) brought it down and they don't know what happened, which means your information (your address, your phone number, your mother's maiden name, your affiliations, your credit card number, your high school secrets) is compromised. There may be a third, though. Facebook is threatening its users with a denial of service. Zuckerberg knows he's powerful and he's flexing. Yep. it's your typical abusive relationship: do as I say or this social network gets it. None of those reasons are good. 

So, as Dan Savage says, dump the motherfucker already. It's not good for you and it is a tool for authoritarianism. For a change, keep your pictures in storage online, or better, in a photo album.  Text your loved ones or better yet, call them on the phone. Write a letter. Send a postcard. Do facetime or fucking Google Meet (you're already on Google, if you have an account here). I'm sure there are alternatives. You don't NEED Facebook and its pernicious influence. Let your aunt Doris drown in misinformation and fuckery. It's her choice. But don't enable it.

XOXO