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Bye Bye Meta | |
January 22nd, 2025 | |
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I nuked most of the content from my Facebook account today, and | |
completely destroyed my Instagram account. But tomasino, why were | |
you on Facebook? Great question, nerds. | |
Iceland runs on Facebook. It's really weird. Well, not really if | |
you consider that Iceland has been at the top of the charts of the | |
most online citizens in the world almost nonstop since gopher came | |
on the scene. It was number one for most of that time, but never | |
really lower than 4th on the list. People here are really, really | |
connected, and the circles are quite homogeneous. It's estimated | |
that 91% of all Icelanders are on Facebook. And that causes some | |
problems (obviously). | |
Since they can assume you're on there, most businesses don't | |
bother with websites. Restaurants, coffee shops, all of them, just | |
a Facebook page. I can order Indian food over Facebook messenger. | |
I signed my kid up for the summer farm camp over messenger. Worse, | |
my son's school communications come via Facebook group. It's | |
really not a practical option to not participate. | |
So when we moved here I got sucked back in. My wife avoided it, | |
and I took one for the team. | |
But here we are in this darkest of timelines, and I can't justify | |
giving Meta any more than they've already stolen. So what do I do? | |
I become a ghost. | |
I've deleted every bit of content I have on Facebook except a post | |
telling people why and where else to find me. But I kept the | |
account. I can see those school groups. I can book a table. I'll | |
use end-to-end encryption when I need to use messenger, and then | |
delete the chats anyway. Minimum viable engagement. | |
Instagram though... there's no reason to have it. Boom, gone. | |
I figured telling gopher was the best way to share. :) |