If you, like me, live in the EU, Facebook is now entirely clamping down and forcing free users to make their personal data available for monetization.
Attempting to access any Facebook domain and perhaps also other meta products will redirect you to the following prompt with a choice between either accepting the monetization of your user data, or coughing up a region-dependent monthly subscription fee: base (for me ~10€) + an additional fee (~7€) for each additional facebook or instagram account you have.
Now, the hidden third option. At an initial glance, it seems like there is no other option but to click one of the buttons - however, certain links still work, and grant access to important pieces of functionality through your web browser.
If anyone has information to add regarding Facebook or Instagram, please do share it. I’ve only (begrudgingly) used the former up until now, but I know many others use Instagram and don’t feel like giving a single cent (nor their personal info) to Meta.
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https://www.facebook.com/dyi - perhaps most important of all, now is a good time to make a request to download your Facebook data. Don’t forget to switch to data for “all time” and “high quality” if you intend to permanently delete your account.
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https://www.facebook.com/your_information - here you can find and manage your information, but crucially also access Facebook messenger.
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The messenger app: Still hasn’t prompted me with anything, though I expect that will change in the not too far future.
Currently my plan is to use messenger to inform any important friends that I intend to leave FB, and where they’ll be able to reach me in the future.
You need to make a choice to continue using Facebook
This reminds me of the movie War Games, when WOPR says, “The only winning strategy is not to play.” The only correct choice to make here is to delete your Facebook account.
Indeed, I’d like to, and hopefully will be able to. Unfortunately it is basically the universal method of communication at my campus - unless you use instagram… or snapchat… :(
Hopefully it’ll be possible to get others to make the move, but I’m not really that important in social contexts, nor are most privacy-focused folks.
The evil of the lizard is too great to resist. The only way to win is to deny it battle.
How anyone still has a FB account I’ll never understand—or, I should say, anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the insane, “well I have nothing to hide!”/“anyone reading my information will be SO BOOORED LOLOLOL!” mindset and that actually gives 1/10000th of a shit about privacy.
Most of my sports and social activities are organized through various Facebook groups, and I’d lead a rather boring life without it.
That’s why.
For me it is still holding on, barely, as a messaging app. I have a few friends and groups that just refuse to message on other things and that’s keeping me around. I’m tired of evangelizing better options.
I have friends like that. They never get a response from me.
Or stop caring about data being used for ads. Most people don’t 🤷♂️
Third choice: Delete your account and never look back.
Imagine how many artificially inflated egos would be deflated all at once if facebook/social media went away.
probably be one the greatest things to happen to humanity.
Isn’t that incredible? Turns out that connecting people to one another in this way fosters some healthy interaction for those who choose it but also amplifies loads of unhealthy bs. I’m one of those idiots who 15 years ago thought the internet and social media would bring about something of a second enlightenment, a golden area of progressivism, being well-informed, connected to one another in new and beautiful ways.
It would have been that. Or at least a lot more like that…
If social media hadnt been invented, and if social media hadn’t gamified human interaction with upvotes/likes/etc, which ended up doing nothing but creating a dopamine feedback loop that is directly responsible for the extremity of online discourse today.
Social media is also responsible for using its algorithms to link isolated village idiots and conspiracy nuts, and giving them secure echochambers with which to bounce off of eachother free of outside criticism or view, until they ended up completely disconnected from any hint of reality.
I mean, it sort of did, it’s just not quite that simple. A lot of amazing things have come about because of social media. So many artists able to reach people directly without needing gatekeepers like publishers. Movements able to be organized where previously those people would have never interacted.
Commenting this on a post about one of the new gatekeepers is quite ironic.
The route to getting something posted on Facebook or other social media involves 1 gatekeeper who barely involves itself. The route to getting a book or news article published involves more, and they micromanage the content much much more. Just compare what percentage of people have posted something on Facebook vs have had an article published by a newspaper or magazine.
You can post all you want, if you actually want to reach an audience you must comply with silly rules (try putting an innocent non sexualized nipple on an albumcover and posting it to facebook) and you have to pay for visibility because algorithm heavily favours money. On top it’s vendor locked-in, there are only very few networks with a very large userbase, and even fewer corporations behind them.
None of that affects people’s ability to disseminate information anywhere close to the constraints put on people by traditional publishing. Again, how many people have ever posted to social media vs how many people have ever published a book?
Delete that garbage.
“It’s free and always will be”
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Recently uninstalled:
- Twitter/X
I feel free. My phone feels lighter, almost. My brain feels lighter.
Same! I am enjoying the fediverse as a largely nontoxic replacement.
Agreed. It’s not too mainstream (yet) so not too much drivel has started seeping through lol. Here’s hoping it’ll stay this way. Feels very wholesome so far! Feeling at home already.
Easy fix. Stop using crap like meta, or Reddit, or TikTok, or Twitter or another degenerated social media platform…
The real question, in EU, is not Facebook (or even Instagram). It’s WhatsApp. Business talk with WhatsApp, family talk with WhatsApp, meet a person in a bar? Yep WhatsApp or you are the weirdo
As soon I got the banners, I uninstalled the app and switched to friendly. Not sure if I have such luxury with WhatsApp…. Maybe time to explore matrix? 🤷
WA is also owned by Meta, and was only being used by my privacy-oriented friends. We swapped it for Signal pretty much instantly when the news came, but getting others to move over has been a slow fight.
Yeah… the result is that now I have WhatsApp, signal, telegram. 99% of my contacts are on WhatsApp, maybe 20% are on telegram (and a number of group chat are there) and 1% take it or leave it has signal (and no group chat).
In practice the only one I can get rid of is signal (that is also the one I would like better 🙄🙄)
“Your info won’t be used for ads” - but it will be used in other ways
I always choose ‘fuck whoever is giving me an ultimatum’. That’s the control freak. That’s the source of problems.
lol, that’s just not true. If I give my alcoholic friend the ultimatum of “you need to get sober or we can’t be friends” I am not a control freak or the source of problems. Also, every online service gives you an ultimatum. It’s called the Terms of Service. Either you agree, or you don’t use it. Yes, even here. Guess you can’t use anything, or go anywhere. Don’t get me wrong, Meta is the scum of the earth that we as people desperately need to get rid of, but you’re really picking the wrong fight with the “ultimatum”.
My relatives are using FB as crazy. Like too much. I was telling them how Facebook is tracking and selling users data, thats why i dont use FB and all i have seen in their eyes was wanting me to shut the f*ck up
Same. That look that says:"I don’t care, I dont want to know, I just want to use (insert any social media). They have no idea what’s collected and used without their knowledge.
Same for TikTok. I tried to warn them about the Chinese government watching with TikTok over their preferences and I still get that same “I don’t care” look. But then they receive a promotional mail and complain they get spammed.
They figure looking at funny cat videos is worth the spam. Of course, I like the idea of paying users for their data. If data is the new oil, and we are the oil wells, it’s time they paid for it.
They say “I have nothing to hide” but talks sh*t about China and comunism 😁
I took a five year break for this reason. As I embraced being an artist it seemed the only way to know what is going on locally in my stupid medium-sized Texas town is Facebook. Even local government news was only on Facebook. So if I wanted to find calls for art locally to submit for galleries then I had to join. Luckily with two fences and uBlock Origin the only information they get is by logging any text I put in. It’s a lot of work to try to maintain my privacy though and no official app ever. I use a couple container apps from F-Droid, but they barely work most of the time so it mostly has to be on Desktop. I’ve tried to get a few friends to switch to federated apps and they look at me the same way. Even my partner’s casino job requires a Facebook account because if you want someone to take a shift for you it’s the only way. Also any company news. It should be regulated as a utility.
Exactly. I was looking for renting an appartment. I was looking on specific real estate websites how it should be but my girlfriend found the best one to rent on Facebook. Shouldn’t be like that
The real dark, unexplainable and one of the most complex software after Google services is Facebook.apk. No baseless privacy claim that Google promises is valid if one installs and runs Facebook as it isn’t in its nature. Anyone, organisation pushes or even requires an application in today’s age is spyware. The Guardian even says “less ads” and they are supposed to be a bit better guys. How does it show less ads? Because it accesses these https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.guardian It isn’t just an Android thing, Apple tried their best to stop Facebook from leeching but there isn’t anything to do when you “check in” at home.
It’s actually much much worse to use the preload version that came with your phone versus the Play store version. The play store has many rules they force devs to comply with that aren’t true for preloads.
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Same. Although I have a few services where I use it to log in, sooo…
There should be a “neither, close my account now” option.
Yup. Got it last week. Found this shit so disingemuous it almost pissed me off more than the privacy violation itself. I dont use any of Meta’s stuff except for WhatsApp out of necessity (some groups from the kids’ school), but i keep getting dumped into FB by busineses that dont have a proper webpage…
Isn’t this just an additional paid option and the ad option is what everyone already had and everyone outside the EU still has?
No. Where I live it has previously been possible to opt-out of personalized advertisements in favor of generic ones. That has now been removed.
That option is still there for me (in addition to the new option to pay) in the Instagram app, in the settings there is an ad settings option which sends you to the website where you can configure that.
Yup. Basically, you need to enable ads to use the free, ad supported platform.
