Everyone should deactivate their Facebook accounteven if not permanently

[blake2012]

Facebook is a unique threat to our democracy and should be driven into a corner. I just deactivated my FB. I am debating whether to delete my Instagram since I would lose my posted photos if I delete.

Facebook has become more and more of a bore to me anyway. It doesn’t provide me any real value and has a number of downsides including the proven ability to bring on bouts of depression. Add the data profiles on each user being sold and the. Exploited for nefarious political effect, and it has become a ha it rather like smoking.

I hope tens of millions of users will delete in the next few days.

Editors Ng to add a link to Stuart G’s post with instructions about how to delete FB forever.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210382724

#deletefacebook

[Skittles]

1. LOL

but then how will the poor dears "keep up with friends and family"? OMG, they might actually have to put some EFFORT into it.

[scarletwoman]

2. I've never been on Facebook and never intend to be, so I'm good. nt

[central scrutinizer]

3. Done

Felt good

[Maraya1969]

4. I have relatives in another country that I see on there AND I post negative

news about #45. I don't share personal information except through private messaging.

[blake2012]

5. Not trying to argue. If you choose to stayno one should blame you

I just bet there are equal or even superior ways to stay in touch with your relatives.

[Blue_Adept]

23. By all means, please let us all know these equal or superior ways

I'm serious. Everyone says that there are other ways but nobody is stepping up with anything that actually works in replicating how people keep in touch through what FB presents.

[Tipperary]

6. I am curious. How does fb bring on depression?

I have not used fb, and I really would like to know.

[blake2012]

8. There have been hundreds of studies on the subject. Heres a couple

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2016/04/30/study-links-heavy-facebook-and-social-media-usage-to-depression/amp/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5143470/

[Tipperary]

19. I thought you were speaking from personal experience. Not so interested in studies.

[blake2012]

21. No. Just describing why on balance FB is not good for society

[flibbitygiblets]

29. It depresses the hell out of me when I find out my "friends" are gun-humping Trumptards

Then I spend weeks/months/years trying to "understand" them, only to finally realize they are truly uninterested in things like hypocrisy, authoritarianism, loss of actual freedom to elect our own representatives, etc. Then I block them for a while, then I go look again out of morbid curiosity...only to discover that now, there's strong whiff of racism as well, and then I have to unfriend people. Very fucking depressing.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. Nah, I'm good.

[FreepFryer]

10. +1. n/t

[Lucinda]

20. +1

[FreepFryer]

9. Someone has to offer informed correctives. Dont cede the field, seize it. (n/t)

[blake2012]

22. My belief is the platform has become too corrupted

We need more person to person real world exchanges of ideas. There’s too many bots and trolls and your message has a hard time getting through all the paid posts.

On top of that, online exchanges tend to harden people’s positions—not change minds.

[FreepFryer]

25. While a real concern, those are general trends. My immediate goal is to represent. (n/t)

[Kirk Lover]

11. I agree...just to send a message that this is not OK. Seems like they could give one shit

and yeah cover up cover up cover up. That I'm very upset with. Come clean and I understand. Boo hoo with your billions. I will deactivate my account, I'm never on it anyway. I got turned off from FB because of the election with the lies and seeing 'friends' eat it up.

It is a shame because I was networking and trying to help with homeless animals. There is and can be a lot of good come from something like FB - but not now.

[blake2012]

12. I am currently researching other connection methods

Maybe going back to listservs, etc. to communicate and stay in touch.

[Sunsky]

15. There's hi5.com nt

[blake2012]

16. Lol. Or Friendster?

[Sunsky]

24. Haven't heard about friendster lol

[pnwmom]

13. I have to laugh at the people who say they're going to de-activate and they're never on it anyway.

That's a big sacrifice.



I go on there and when it says, "what's on your mind" I don't post pictures of me smiling at parties or displaying my latest culinary creation.

I post the same kinds of articles I post here -- because they're what's on my mind. And when I see a relative posting a lie from youtube or some right-wing fake news site, I reply with facts from a MSM site.

[blake2012]

18. Im on it frequently but post less and less

When I became admin of a couple of pages and saw the monetizing of what show up and n peole’s Feeds, it turned my stomach.

You probably reach a wider audience posting here than on your Facebook feed. There are undoubterldly many on your friend lists who don’t see your posts because Facebook doesn’t show them. It’s a racket.

[pnwmom]

28. I reach more people who are predisposed to agree with me here. But there

I encounter more people who might not have ever read what I posted unless they saw it there.

And I've had some surprise emails from people thanking me for posting, including one from a wife of one of my son's friends, who said she felt supported by what I've been posting. (Her husband is more conservative.)

So I'm not going to leave FB to the DT people. People like us should be speaking out there.

[superpatriotman]

14. Respectfully

Maintaining an intellectual center is more important to me.

[blake2012]

17. How does that relate to Facebook

[Best_man23]

26. Yes, people need to unplug from the Faceborg collective.

Beginning to think its as subversive as RT and Faux.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

27. I have an account I seldom use and to which I never posted a profile

but I keep it open just to stick my head in once in awhile to see what a few other people and groups are up to. It hasn't been a problem for me; I just lurk and don't post. If it goes under it won't matter much to me, but it will certainly be replaced by some other social media thing - which I hope is monitored and controlled a whole lot better than FB.

[rockfordfile]

30. Yeah that would be a good idea

[blake2012]

31. Kicking. I still believe its important

I got rid of mine this week. I feel much better already.