Those of you who can uninstall Meta apps, you have my blessing. But right now Facebook is the only way I know that my neighbors are alive and Instagram is the only way I know which of my local organizations survived.
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Yes it is very hard due to groups or associations to leave. And life and death I appreciate with groups saving people. Having said that we need to help make more groups on other platforms and help the 'helpers' move. Those not up to date on IT, I feel that a lot. But we need volunteers to move.
I'm sorry the old ladies who run the food pantry aren't more up to date on internet controversies, but they are the ones putting in the actual legwork of recovering from a major natural disaster and haranguing them about migrating to a less problematic app is not helpful.
I deleted FB, messenger and threads from my phone. I only access them from my computer now. Instagram is harder with my job and that’s where my entire following was built so I’m working on that one. We all do what we can and every bit helps. 💖
I had to delete my art from my insta on account of them deciding anything posted on their site will feed their AI, so I left a single post saying people can find me here and have been slowly building an art account up from the bottom 😔
FB unfortunately has the best pet care and physical ailment discussion groups online. Of course, people should see their drs/take their pets to the vet. But asking others for their opinions is still an invaluable thing to be able to do. I've deactivated my fb for years at a time before but can't now
Yeah, if your use case is "we need to be able to create private communities for specific groups," your alternatives are basically Reddit and Discord, and both of those have big downsides.
I’ve been deactivated on FB for about a week and I’m realizing a similar problem. I’m thinking about going back and just keeping it off my phone and just going on the site for an hour or so a week to do what I need to do.
I deleted all Meta accounts & apps. My wife uses FB & IG to stay connected to her family in Europe. I think I will be fine. I stopped using FB after 2016 anyway.
We have a nonprofit and it’s how we have the biggest reach. But we’re building infrastructure to hopefully move away. For now we’re there and the shame we’re getting is fucking tiring.
For those doing the shaming, I'd like them to answer: What is the actual plan that your FB deletion/deactivation is supposed to be part of? How many people would need to deactivate/delete Facebook in order to make an impact? What is the plan to reach that number of people?
I also needed to keep my accounts open for now. If it is helpful, I bookmarked my groups and notifications for FB on my computer and uninstalled both apps from my phone. I wanted to minimize the time I spent there and minimize being served ads (and making $ for MZ)
Don't have to be perfect, just do what you can. I'm still able to message and see posts on IG using my phone's browser, so the app isn't necessary and I deleted it. Checking it less often that way too.
I cant move off meta entirely right now because I use them for income but I have
- swapped to different apps where possible
- un-installed apps in favor of using in browser
- set timers on usage
They can still claim me as a monthly user, but they aren't getting much other benefit from me
I started a private, password protected blog on Tumblr and email anyone who is interested in staying up to date with my household. There are other ways to stay in touch. It's less convenient, sure, but also way more focused.
(it's also a term for ejaculation in other contexts - but in this context, it refers to her posting on this site. not sure you can be trusted to understand the difference)
the point being that her entire town burned down and it's not the time or place to tell her which social media she can use to make sure her loved ones are still alive
Bluesky is a good replacement for Twitter but not for Facebook; problem is that there isn’t really any good alternative for the kind of social media you use mainly to connect with IRL friends, family and neighbors. You can’t even make „friends only” posts here.
Yeah, it's a major shortcoming. Neighborhood groups need to be able to post "can someone stop by my house and feed my dog" without the entire internet seeing it and some rando popping in to tell you that owning dogs is problematic, actually.
I mean, yeah, the feed is also full of ragebait trash from random pages but I ignore or block them and follow either posts by my friends or posts in specific groups, for which there’s not really a good replacement
No one here is saying that Facebook as it is now with its shitty algorithms is *good*, just that the isn’t really a good alternative for the actually useful services that it nonetheless does still provide especially at local level
No one has even seriously *tried* to make an alternative to Facebook since Google+ was closed down, nearly all new major social media since then are based on globally public short form posting, regardless of what type of media it involves
That was my experience. I gave up FB for one day and then missed my friends and editorial colleagues. Some of them have joined Bsky, but finding their posts in this howling chaos is hard.
I think even just resolving to use Meta less / only for essential activities makes a difference, too.
I can’t wholesale delete my account because my job requires my personal account to manage company Facebook pages, but the less I look at the platform, the less ad revenue they receive.
FB is the only way to find out who’s running in super local elections, and a lot of small businesses around me still use it as their website, so, here we are for now
It feels like we’ve had to develop our own internal filters for all the internet. Facebook is like Google for me, I ignore 90 percent of the nonsense for the 10 percent I need. I was ok with deleting Twitter for me because everything I followed moved/duplicated here, but that’s not true for all.
I was gung-ho to delete them but I’m on the board of an animal advocacy group, so I can’t get rid of Meta entirely however there are things you can do to make sure that human big toe isn’t making money off you!
Cut off their money. I use Facebook Purity, Social Fixer, and have installed Privacy Badger. Did you know that Meta collects info on your online actions on other popular sites, without your permission.
I found a site that tells you how to set your FB account so that they cannot use your tracking data, did what it said, and then lost track of the page. I'll post it when I find it again.
If you're able, consider using a web browser with ad-blockers to use these services. Also, an extension for Facebook that only shows you people you follow. I think that's a decent compromise for now...
Its hard. So many small businesses and nonprofits use Facebook and Instagram as a primary communication. While they can begin to use and research other spaces, how can these groups leave these sources and survive.
Upon reflection, I'm realizing the ability to delete Facebook is a privilege that not everyone has. Especially people trying to reconstruct a burned-out neighborhood/town.
The thing is, *I* could, because I, personally, have enough privilege to end up in a place of relative stability. Deleting Facebook wouldn't hurt *me.*
But it would cut off my ability to help my community.
Our local meteroligist with the largest presence in AL always comments on other apps that he has to be where the people are (fb) when it comes to tornado warnings. My daughters family in Pasadena came back to their apartment, but the moms fb group was so important. 💔
Edgar McGregor's Altadena Weather and Climate Facebook group saved hundreds of lives by alerting them of the fire before official warnings went out, same deal.
I didn't mention it here, but I had Watch Duty alerts going off for days. Like all natural disasters, people can't understand unless it's close and they drive by the damage.
One thing that might work for you as a compromise is to set your settings on your browser and in Meta AND specifically on FB to make sure advertisers can't track your activity+don't click on in-site ads. That way you aren't giving Meta $€£ but you can still connect with groups
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Do you know this about insta?
and i just don't feel like reddit is a good enough alternative. 😅
- swapped to different apps where possible
- un-installed apps in favor of using in browser
- set timers on usage
They can still claim me as a monthly user, but they aren't getting much other benefit from me
(it's also a term for ejaculation in other contexts - but in this context, it refers to her posting on this site. not sure you can be trusted to understand the difference)
https://bsky.app/profile/ausir.bsky.social/post/3lggxpajxv22g
like are y'all deliberately missing very clear keywords here?
I can’t wholesale delete my account because my job requires my personal account to manage company Facebook pages, but the less I look at the platform, the less ad revenue they receive.
I’m wondering if I unfriend everyone but strictly necessary if it will help.
From the start,
I dedicated Facebook
to distant family,
Twitter for everything else.
Twitter to X to Bluer Skies,
under which we commune.
We are all fooled and put all out broadcast channels into one basket.
But it would cut off my ability to help my community.
I'm very glad your daughter's apartment survived!