Opting Out of the Meta-verse

I un-metaed this week. Should that be de-metaed?

I deleted Facebook from my phone. I still have an account, just not mobile access. And I’m resisting the urge to log on from my desktop computer. My sole exception is limited to book club business for now. Soon, that too will be gone.

I did the same with Instagram, Messenger, Threads and WhatsApp.

I installed Signal for messaging and Bluesky for a social media alternative. I disabled location services.

Why?

I can tell some of my friends and family think I might be overreacting or making things inconvenient. Let me share why I think it’s important. And it’s not because of my overuse or even the fake TikTok drama.

It is because of Mark Zuckerberg.

1. Evidently he believes the US corporate culture has become overly neutered and needs more “masculine energy.”

According to Sigal Samuel’s recent article in Vox, “Zuckerberg, who credits mixed martial arts and hunting wild boars with helping him rediscover his masculinity, recently told Joe Rogan that the corporate world is too ‘culturally neutered’ — it should become a culture that has more ‘masculine energy’ and that ‘celebrates the aggression’.”

As a female customer and former corporate employee, I don’t want more aggression in the workplace. I don’t want to deal with men who are embracing their feral side at the expense of those they work with. I’ve been there. I survived the 1980s. I bought into the whole inclusion package that followed. I want a world where all people have the ability to bring their full selves to work and not to be victimized or minimalized when they are different from the male CEO and executive board.

I got to thinking about Facebook users and what percentage are female. According to Statista, females are 43.2% of the worldwide users as of Jan. 2024. Less than I thought, but almost half. Wouldn’t a business want its culture to resemble its customer base?

Then it occurred to me that as users, he doesn’t really consider us Meta customers, does he? He’s not accountable to us. We don’t pay a dime to share our thoughts, connect with friends and shop on the platform. We are data, pure and simple. We are served up to advertisers who generated $134.9 billion in revenue for Meta in 2023, according to Investopedia.

2. The algorithms are too much.

I used to think it was convenient to search for something in Google, knowing that it would instantly serve up targeted Facebook ads for those products until long after I made my purchase. I could then easily find the perfect rug, coat or pet toy while scrolling through my feed.

I’ve marveled at how Facebook uses location services, my browsing history, my friends’ interests and my application usage so skillfully that I believe Facebook is surreptitiously listening into my conversations.

Days into a new administration where our tech bro is cozied up to the recently inaugurated president, having someone know that much about me feels, well, creepy. I suppose it always should have.

That reminds me, I also ditched the Microsoft/Google browser and search engine combo in favor of what I hope is the less tracked Duck Duck Go. In the last five days, Google alone has been blocked from following me around the internet 361 times. More than twelve hundred other stalkers have also been given the cease and desist. Now to find a suitable replacement for Microsoft Office/ Google docs.

3. Last week, Zuckerberg announced Meta would eliminate its US-based fact-checkers, even while noting more harmful content will appear.

We are in an environment where the truth is challenged at every turn, when scientists are challenged by couch-surfers who barely made it through their high school chemistry class. Gaslighting has turned into political strategy. More than 30% of U.S. adults report regularly getting their news from Facebook and another 20% from Instagram. Mix those up with a host of foreign actors deliberately pushing misinformation and we have a situation that suggests a commitment to basic fact checking would be, at a minimum, the responsible course of action.

The newly inaugurated president disagrees with me, praising the change after getting an advance heads up from Meta.

We’re not just data. It’s worse than that. We are now intentionally being served inaccurate information. We are data sold for profit and an impressionable audience compromised for power and influence.

No, thank you.

So I’m done. I’ll miss your photos. I’ll try to keep up with birthdays the old-fashioned way. I’ll get my news from independent sources.

I get it if you stay in Meta-land. Just please stay safe. Protect yourself in the data-verse. Fact check. And maybe listen to Mike Campin, VP of engineering at Wandera (a mobile cyber-security company).

“The more useful your phone is, the more attractive it is to advertisers, hackers, or anyone who wants your data.

Facebook can find you on whatever device you’ve ever checked Facebook on. It can exploit everything that retailers know about you, and even sometimes track your in-store, cash-only purchases; that loyalty discount card is tied to a phone number or email for a reason.

Not only does the system know exactly where you are at every moment, it knows who your friends are, what they are interested in, and who you are spending time with. It can track you across all your devices, log call and text metadata on Android phones, and even watch you write something that you end up deleting and never actually send.”

Buckle up, friends. This is going to be interesting.