Home Tech Why I Finally Quit Facebook (It’s Not Just Fact Checking) | Zoe Williams

Why I Finally Quit Facebook (It’s Not Just Fact Checking) | Zoe Williams

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Why I Finally Quit Facebook (It's Not Just Fact Checking) | Zoe Williams

jAaron Lanier was the chief scientist of the Internet2 engineering office back in the day, which is to say, definitely one of the godfathers of the Internet. In 2018, he laid out the reasons for getting rid of social media in his book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. When I read it, I narrowed it down to: “Facebook. “I really should close my Facebook account.” There was no way I would have gotten rid of Twitter back then. It was where I went to complain about Brexit and that was all I did. Plus, seven years ago, Twitter wasn’t all porn and chatbots.

As for Facebook, however, all of Lanier’s proposals were presented at a buffet: in politics, it creates a bias “not to the left or to the right, but downward.” Any position that could be the least obvious, the most stupid, would be the one that would fly.

Manipulative algorithms, the spread of misinformation, the generation of strange hostilities, the amplification of divisive narratives: it was all there, but Facebook was already very boring. Your feeds were full of acquaintances you didn’t know were this angry, furious about potholes, underwire bras, or one of their children. There was a lot of boasting and boasting, a lot of conceited position taking. And this was before AI, so all those silly made-up interiors of exquisitely tiny hobbit houses, all those stories of triumph over adversity, hadn’t arrived yet. And it was still garbage.

I never pressed the “delete my account” button, because there was always some little thing. Where else could I find out who in my elementary school was wrong now? How long would it take to find photos from a decade ago and save them? (Five minutes.) How else could I wish a happy birthday to people I’ve never met?

Between a deep, well-founded, case for change and the lure of absolutely minute expediency and the comfort of inertia, there was a clear winner. I was just waiting for one more little nudge, which, when it finally came, wasn’t just Mark Zuckerberg stopping fact-checking. That was when, in a petty but telling move, tampons and sanitary pads for trans and non-binary men were removed from Meta’s men’s bathrooms. In fact, I will fight the billionaire overlords on the beaches, or in the bathrooms, or wherever they bring it; And first I have to stop watching those melted cheese videos.

Zoe Williams is a columnist for The Guardian.

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