I cancelled my Facebook account today.

[Raven]

The reason I did it is because I was outraged that they took down Elizabeth Warren's post about them but left up the fake videos of Nancy Pelosi. I guess that I just got to the point where I had had enough of this bullshit It is not easy to cancel Facebook and I got some help from the good folks in the DU Lounge to do it. What I did not realize is that the only way to access anyone else's Facebook page is if you, yourself, have an account. Somehow or another, I thought Facebook was open to everyone. Silly me. So now, I can't follow any of my friends or family on Facebook. It's like being banished.

I think Facebook has become a sewer. I think we could find better ways to communicate with each other. Facebook is dangerous, and addictive, like opioids. It will be hard to quit it.

[abqtommy]

1. Good for you! Facebook and I parted ways many years ago.

I've never gotten involved in any other similar website and I'm glad for that! I'm sure that DU is my substitute!

[blueinredohio]

7. Good for you

I never joined Facebook and never will.

[hlthe2b]

2. I registered my dog years ago--never filled out profile, used throw-away email,

never posted, never "liked", never responded to a "friend" request. I only did so to be able to see videos people would link to and I was not about to register myself. LOL

But, I was fed up after what happened in 2016 (actually well before that) and deleted the whole damned thing, closed the email I used to open it and never looked back. I'm told it was a sewer back then, but I never used it enough to know.

But, this is why I get really frustrated when DUers link to facebook.

[ResistantAmerican17]

3. Congrats on successfully navigating the seemingly

Endless steps it takes to delete your account. Anything that makes it so complicated to quit is a red flag. Hated them more with each passing breach and spy scandal and glad to be rid of that pox.

[erronis]

23. And we all know that deleting your account does not remove you from their databases

They'll never let go of the information they have from you or your friends and friends' friends. They may say you can't see it any more but they can.

And they also capture your online browsing activities even though you aren't an open account.

Any page with a F symbol is tracked with lots of information that is very hard to circumvent.

[912gdm]

29. this.

your digital footprint never leaves facebook.

[mitch96]

41. "deleting your account does not remove you "

It's like knocking down your mailbox and saying your house is not there...
I guess I'm old school.. no face, no tweet.
m

[ResistantAmerican17]

52. Hells no they won't let go. It was the friends friends taking those inane

“Tell me your whole life story” surveys and my page getting bombed as a result of their stupidity that was the final straw. Hell, I can find animal stories on reddit. Fuck Facebook

[BlueJac]

4. K&R

[UniteFightBack]

5. The 2016 election made it real easy for me to quit that shit. nt

[Dennis Donovan]

6. Rec Rec Reckity Rec!

[CousinIT]

8. Dumped mine months ago. Downloaded the content and deleted it.

They're nothing but a social media version of Fox.

[erronis]

25. What you "deleted" is still on their servers. For them to use.

I wouldn't believe a single word that their corporate suite/lawyers say.

[Different Drummer]

28. "They're nothing but a social media version of Fox."

This is true. It's not a good site for liberal Democrats.

[defacto7]

9. Bravo!

A smart and devoted move. We vote with our pocket books, we vote with our internet clicks and we vote by the social media we devote our time to. Our votes count... all of them.

Facebook is a cesspool.

[Raven]

12. Beautifully said! Thank you.

[malaise]

10. I never signed up and many of my folks are still annoyed that I refuse

to hand over my life to some greedy millennials

[Skittles]

27. I didn't either, malaise

it astounds me how many people willingly join the Facebook Borg

[SWBTATTReg]

11. Smart. Need to protect your privacy and yourself from this toxic mess. I agree w/ you, in...

using other platforms to communicate w/ regulars (friends, family, etc.) instead of FB. FB is basically a numbers game, w/ the creator of FB, so they can push their ad revenue. I don't think they really care about the individual person per say on their platform, but instead, deal w/ millions of posts/entries, to push their sales.

[Kurt V.]

13. Cambridge analytica and fb were joined at the hip. i use fb but not for anything political. nt

[japple]

16. Right...I use FB for animal rescue. Many DUers also use it for that purpose.

We can communicate much more quickly with our supporters, transporters, and the other groups who help get help for animals in need everywhere.

[A HERETIC I AM]

14. Too many ex-DU'ers on FB that I associate with.

Lots of really good people who no longer post here.

I don't want to lose touch. Some sewer systems are so interesting they offer tours.

Like most things, your experience on Facebook is what you make of it.

[japple]

19. What you said! That is my experience. I use it for animal rescue and

for keeping up with family/friends near and far.

[Skittles]

31. there are ways outside of that piece of shit site to keep in touch with people

[A HERETIC I AM]

34. Sure there are....

But the perceived slights others tend to find extreme, political or otherwise are things I generally tend to not take so seriously.

It will bother me when it bothers me. Before that point, not so much.

[Skittles]

37. LOL

alrighty then

[CrispyQ]

46. "Some sewer systems are so interesting they offer tours."

You win the internet today!

[patphil]

15. facebook has always been a sewer

[japple]

17. As is television. I don't watch it, but I don't criticize those who do...

EOM

[grantcart]

48. Never joined

[sinkingfeeling]

18. Congrats. I dumped them in 2016. You can see some pages for

businesses and organizations but have to plug in one of those cryptic code thingies.

[mnhtnbb]

20. Facebook is what you make of it.

I use it to stay in touch with family and friends all over the country and around the world as well as to support animal rescue groups.

[defacto7]

44. When you say facebook is what you make of it you assume you are in control.

You most certainly are not in control. Don't believe for a minute they haven't far out maneuvered common usage practices. They know exactly how to retrieve and use information you don't even know you're giving them. They're not the only ones either, just the most capable.

[Irishxs]

21. Going on 2 yrs now. There is life (a good one) after FB.

[extvbroadcaster]

22. Facebook popularity is fading

Facebook popularity is fading. At first, it was just college kids exchanging keg parties and hookups. Then anybody could join, and suddenly it was fun! Everybody was your "friend" and you were contacted by old acquaintances from school and past jobs. Once you saw how old everybody looked, and how fat, and caught up on their lives and their 2.5 kids and their crap - well, you kind of figured out why you lost touch with them in the first place.

[Hekate]

50. I see no signs of that. Grandparents are known to adore FB as family albums for their grandkids...

They unwarily post all kinds of info bad actors can use -- you know, fake ransom calls on the teenage grandson who's on Spring break. The kid is not in the Tijuana Jail needing bail, he's not in the trunk of some car, but the guy in the other end of the phone telling grandma to just send money or the kid gets it sure has a lot of personal info to work with. As a local cop told me: grandmas are notorious for posting their brag-books to the whole world with no filters.

Other than that, the positive uses of FB connection are real. During a regional natural disaster, my specific town didn't get much tv coverage once the raging fire crossed the county line into the more important county which incidentally has a tv station. The maps they showed of the danger zone literally stopped at the county line. I went onlne: same thing. Interviews with our Fire Chief -- couldn't find any. But some citizen set up a Facebook page, and it was amazing. Through the fire and the flood and the rescue efforts that followed, he covered the region.

That's one big reason I didn't actually try to unwind my account, aside from knowing that Zuck already has my info and isn't going to delete anything anyway.

[Evolve Dammit]

24. Good for you.

It's too ripe for the manipulation of so many things. Your "friends" can call, email or text you. If they are really your friends.

[Freethinker65]

26. Deactivated mine last night.

[still_one]

30. I never signed up. When Zuckerberg defended Holocaust deniers, told me exactgly what this POS is,

and the type of business he runs

[erronis]

32. I'm guessing most of us don't know how deeply fb and other social media giants have embedded their

tentacles into the internet ecosystem.

Any page that displays a fb "like" is probably sending information back to them about your browsing habits. Even if you don't click on the "like". Same for twitter and google and microsoft, etc.

The web technology is advancing to allow beacons/signals/pings to be broadcast back to them just by hovering over parts of the page or scrolling down. They are monitoring almost all actions we take.

If we are very tech savvy we can disable some of this but even with "private/icognito" browsing these people can link you to other web activities.

Many say they don't care - they have nothing to hide.

I don't know about you but I am frequently looking up medical conditions and cures, scientific and religious articles, tax advice, articles about friends and associates. You'd be surprised how all of these seemingly innocuous searches can be used to formulate a very close idea of who you are as well as who your friends and relatives are.

[CDerekGo]

33. I deactivated there for about 5 months

But because of Elderly Parents, who just about insisted I reactivate, I'm back on. Probably post a 'funny' meme once a day, just to let them know I'm alive. Otherwise, unless I go visit my folks, and we go to Bok Tower Gardens and I shoot some neat Gardens photos for Mom to see, that's it.

It was tough at first, amazing how much time you'll spend in front of this screen. Of course, almost same can be said for DU...

[Honeycombe8]

35. I have an account ONLY so that I can participate in some groups, like lost pets.

It's how most people around here communicate to a wide area group.

It is NOT a source of news. Even if there's a reference to a news article, I get irritated that people don't take the time to go to the original source. That's how Trumpers get duped. They read a "story" in a secondary source, and never read the original or question it.

I did start following my state's reps (all Trumpers). That may have been a mistake.

[Cozmo]

36. I cancelled my Facebook account today

I did so as well. Didn't know I could do it. First I just shared that FB was dead to me and now I can really stand by my words. I urge everyone on DU to take this stand and show zuckerberg what is right and what is wrong. Bye ~ Bye FB, I will not miss you!

[Skittles]

38. good luck with that

too many people find convenience trumps any outrage....and yes, it is sheer hypocrisy

welcome to DU

[gopiscrap]

54. welcome to DU

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

39. "Facebook - The Musical"

By the brothers at AVByte

[Beringia]

40. I have never seen any bad news fed to me on facebook other than diet ads or facial lotions, etc

I do get turned on to lots of good articles about Trump and republicans and democrats and all kinds of different voices on facebook by friends and friends of friends. Things I don't see on DU. Plus as others have pointed out, it is good for animal rights feeds.

[Beringia]

42. Twitter is worse, they would not even respond to reporters on taking down the fake Pelosi vid

[Hekate]

43. I just stopped going a year and a half ago and have not been back.

The proximate cause was my anti-vaxxer issues-with-her-mother daughter blocked me. Since looking at my grandkids that way made me feel like the Little Match Girl in a Hans Christian Andersen story, pressing my nose against a window, I figured I'd just let my SIL give me the news since she is connected to everyone. Hey, I got a phone call for Mother's Day and we had two of the boys for an overnight during their Spring vacation, so not all is lost.

Aside from that, I was dissatisfied with FB already. It's an incredible time-suck. The "news" goes by so fast I can never find a way to get back where I was -- I feel like a rock in a rushing stream watching the leaves whirl by. I would much much rather read the Los Angeles Times or come on DU. The pace is slower, the news more thorough and more reliable.

I was invited to join Pantsuit Nation, and was overwhelmed with the incoming messages, few of which seemed to have anything to do with fixing the political mess we are in, with a preponderance of feel-good stuff. A lot of us thought since it was named for Hillary Clinton.... Hm?

Some old colleagues got in touch, sort of, but when I told them to please email me as I did not trust FB with really personal info ("How are you, Hekate?" -- "Well, since you ask, I am deeply mired in regret and depression, but I don't feel like telling the whole effing world about it. So please email me, you have the address." No I didn't broadcast that negative info. So far, crickets.)

That's the personal stuff. But FB has done zero since 2016 to inspire me with trust. It's infested with trolls from one end to the other. The last most personal straw for me was learning that the anti-vaxxer mommy groups are being targeted by Russian trolls -- because why the hell not, it's a wedge issue.

The thing with Nancy Pelosi is just the frosting on the crap cake. Jeff Zuckerberg is not our friend. He created a product that people just adore and get really hooked on. But he takes no responsibility for the results. None. He's a genius in his field, but he's just another effing sociopath.

[Captain Stern]

45. People's Facebook experience is what they make it.

I've been on Facebook for over ten years.

I have about a hundred 'friends' on Facebook. I've never added people to my friends list just because we went to high school together, or college together, or that we once worked at the same place, or used to live on the same street. I've never made anyone on Facebook a 'friend' that I wouldn't happily invite into my actual home.

Each, and every, one the people on my friends list is someone that I actually want to be in contact with. We share photos of our grandkids, or landscaping, or something we find humorous.

It's been a good experience for me. On the few occasions that I've had someone that shared a lot of political links, I simply hid those sources. Problem solved.

And as far as Facebook being "open to everyone"...it generally is. But, surely, you couldn't have expected to be able to see everyone else's posts and pictures without sharing your own.

I suppose quitting Facebook is sort of like being banished. But it's not exactly the same as being banished at all. Being banished means you got kicked out. Quitting means you left on our own. So, essentially, you have chosen not to follow your friends or family on Facebook. That's not necessarily a good thing, or bad thing, but the choice was yours.

[TheBlackAdder]

47. I just deleted mine too. They are no friend of democracy.

.

Thanks for giving me the nudge.

I was thinking about this for a while. Sent my update that I am deleted it, and poof.

.

[Opel_Justwax]

49. I deleted my face book account years ago.

Who wants to be monitored 24/7 with your phone and computer by a creepy looking kid.

[2naSalit]

51. Congrats and welcome back!

You have us, and... and...


Well, you have us!

[bonkers221]

53. I cancelled mine in 2012. nt