Dear Friends,

When I joined Facebook about eight years ago, the more tragic consequences of social networks had not arrived yet. There were no Russian trolls, there was no US voter manipulation, rigging the system for a complete madman, no Cambridge Analytica, no support of the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, and no tolerating of other hate groups since political echo chambers had not visibly arrived yet. Mark Zuckerberg never realized how he had been living in a cyber-paradise for all these years until he got thrown out of it. Like us.

Facebook was, at least in its early stages, still a cozy global village, to use Marshall McLuhan’s metaphor, that kept me connected to friends from all over the world. If you ever watched an episode of ‚Friends‘, to spin a metaphor, Facebook would be the sofa arrangement in the middle of the living room. Functionally, it was my international couch. To give up these long-grown connections is a sad process, in particular since my biography has evolved in a fairly cosmopolitan manner over the decades (Germany-Singapore-Shanghai-Bangkok). So why leave your comfort zone?

We get sold out – the user is the product. Facebook’s latest scandals go beyond a series of unfortunate events. For starters, Facebook is harvesting user data to generate income for advertising which, by itself, would bother me a little as advertising flyers ending up in my letterbox. A necessary inconvenience. What does bother me, however, is the use of my photos and data to e.g., create 3D videos on ‚Friends Day‘ – without my explicit consent. But I forgot… this consent was already given by me implicitly by agreeing to the Terms and Conditions. Who reads those? Sloppy me! Likewise, my personal data is used to create a consumer profile. Which other profiles get distilled, I wouldn’t know. In terms of available data from over two billion users, Facebook dwarfs the NSA.

We get cataloged and profiled for harvesting our data. The actual profiling algorithms, or an adequate explanation of how they work and what they do, remain hidden from us. They are trade secrets and company property. After all, Facebook is a private company and not responsible for public welfare or transparency. We are kept in a virtual pink bubble world of happy friends. The mathematical truth is, similar to an ant colony, that the single user is expendable. It is the network effect of more than two billion active users that renders Facebook valuable. Similar to Gmail, it could be argued that user data for profiling gets anonymized. Still, I am not willing to give my consent to an unregulated online economy any longer.

Silicon Valley giants evade contributing to society. I am not ok with an economic model built on the surveillance of consumers, to use Shoshana Zuboff’s argument. The long-term effect of online monetarization via dominating players such as Facebook and other digital overlords leads to the unregulated monopolization of capital, the convergence of trendsetting ideas, and the centralization of technology in the hands of a few. And yes, Facebook, like other Silicon Valley mega-players, hardly pays taxes to contribute to society. Its do-gooder PR is all smokescreen.

Social media is addictive and, quite frankly, a waste of time. The second reason for abandoning Facebook is the conditioning of social behavior. How much time do I waste these days on Facebook or Netflix? I was talking to friends last Christmas and we realized how glad we were to have spent our childhood and youth offline. Digital media can be great, but only when balanced with productive offline life. Facebook has been designed to keep users hooked, not to encourage significant online breaks.

I doubt that I would have developed any of my knowledge, skills, and competencies if I have had access to electronic drugs during adolescence. If Mozart was born today, he would have probably posted some impressive videos on YouTube, collecting more than a million likes. There would certainly be hype, but there wouldn’t be a Köchel catalog. I much doubt the Beatles or Bowie would have succeeded either, perhaps as trendsetters in obscure Online indie-radio channels. Given today’s cultural climate, Freddie Mercury would have received a never-ending stream of homophobic hate mails. Well, long live the Bohemian Rhapsody, and long live our Starman.

We neglect our analog development. Developing one’s full potential requires self-discipline (the exact opposite of instant gratification) and focus (the opposite of consuming hundreds of images and snippets of information every day). To this extent, Facebook belongs to the category of distracting tech. If I was close to retirement or had all day to follow nothing but my hobbies, Facebook would be a great way to connect. If Facebook ever gets regulated, we may talk again.

We become vulnerable. The third reason is, of course, privacy. Try to google for ‘Hacking Facebook accounts’ and you get the drift. Software that offered ‘victim management popped up in an instant. One does not have to dive into the depths of the darknet to find a plethora of such options. I was just plain lucky to never get hacked but many close friends have. Still, I told myself ‘I never angered anybody personally in my life and I am not a person of interest, such as public figures, so why to bother?’. This was, waking myself up here, exactly the wrong assumption that gets users into trouble.

In 2019, we cannot be naïve (‘This will never happen to me’). Anybody who speaks out for emancipatory values and open society, especially intellectuals, social reformers, scientists, journalists, and public speakers, is already a potential target for right-wing hackers and haters. As a consequence, there is no Facebook, no Instagram, or Tumblr for me.

The Online God sees everything and won’t ever forget your sins. Everything we ever post can be used against us. Snippets of text (and video, deep fakes will become more accurate fairly soon) can be easily quoted out of context to suit somebody else’s agenda. Private photographs are most easily exploited. Once we speak up openly, we become a target on troll radar or a malicious pattern-searching algorithm – if not our data, then our metadata and digital breadcrumbs. I am taking precautions to not end up like some German politicians and celebrities this week, who found their confidential data hacked and published on Twitter. Besides, why would people need to know my whereabouts in the first place? What I eat or my relationship status? Give me a break! Post-Facebook, you will meet me next, somewhere save (in Morrissey’s words) in Far Off Places.

We are prevented from re-inventing ourselves freely. Facebook’s timeline can easily turn into a corset for anyone who changes their life, be it a young man who suddenly discovers that he is gay, a woman after a divorce, a successful manager who starts as a competitor, but still has his entire social circle on Facebook – in fact, anyone who starts a new life and deserves a fresh start without historical baggage.

Facebook can destroy relationships. Facebook is prone to cause irritations and misunderstandings when it comes to personal relationships. One has to constantly monitor his or her online public persona, every photo, tag, comment, and publication setting, which is by itself an exercise in self-censorship and virtual stress. Facebook use renders us paranoid, touchy and puts us into a perpetual mode of social distrust. Virtual life can eat away real life, and I am not even talking about online mobbing.

On the upside, good friends stay beyond Facebook. When we meet again in person, we will have stories to tell. There will be no more online-published previews of developments that suck the magic out of social events, allowing for genuine surprises and experiences to accumulate. Offline life yields its merits. The quality of deep human connections supersedes the need for a continuous online presence.         

I will dearly miss your originality, humor, and wit. Stay in touch through secure channels.

Joana

(I left Facebook for good on 6.01.2019)

Postscriptum:  Efforts are underway to counter the centralization of the web. If you are more of a geek, have a look at the latest works of Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web https://www.fastcompany.com/90243936/exclusive-tim-berners-lee-tells-us-his-radical-new-plan-to-upend-the-world-wide-web   or Cambridge-based startup https://fetch.ai/Facebook has just announced to merge Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.