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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. :)