Facebook 2025 Announces End of Fact-Checking. This post seems almost prescient. 

Want to know how hard it is to disable your FB account? Try it.

For my birthday this year (tomorrow) wanted to suspend my FB account for the day. I’ll miss all the FB birthday wishes. Dang!

I can’t get it done. I’ve tried three different devices. I’ve checked my Password Manager. It all seems fine, but that last step, “Please Enter Your Password” AGAIN. Nope. Try a different way. Nope. Generate a one-time access code. Nope. Send reset code to the email we have on file. Nope. Use your phone to unlock your password. Nope. Nothing.

I’m going to figure it out in the next 2.5 hours. But I’m gonna vent for a second first.

1. Zuckerberg and Co are not your friend.
2. Facebook is one of the WORST offenders in terms of privacy and selling your data.
3. Zuck is close and welcomes the billionaire-friendly administration coming to power.
4. Facebook’s moderators get it WRONG on my posts a lot. I’m a content creator. (90% of the content on social media is generated by 5% of the people. I’m one of those.)
5. The moderators use terms like “spam” and “against community standards” but they couldn’t articulate it if you talked to them on the phone. *BS*
6. 60-Minutes did a show last Sunday on Humans in the Loop about the human fallout of these moderators. The things they see. The shit they block from bad actors. Most of them suffer PTSD for years after working the grind. 8-hour days, relentless quotas. And other than porn, violence, and suicide, they don’t understand the language of most of the things they are trying to moderate.
7. All of the 2-party authentication and password resets are supposed to make you feel safe about your data.
8. They are SELLING all of your data and all of your connected data to all of your “friends.”
9. Do you know the quizzes on FB? Spam and ID theft programs from Pakistan and abroad. Don’t ever fill them out, giving permission to market to you forever. And, as one of your friends, to me forever as well.

Time to step back from Facebook for a bit. Not a fan of Bluesky at the moment. (10 followers.) Not all that fond of Threads. See *BS* list above. Mastodon seems to be interesting, but again, a ghost town. Where are we going to get SOCIAL MEDIA that’s actually social?

Google+ was the first and only challenge to FB. And Google blinked. The system was better. The linking and networking were better. But, like many experiments from Google Labs, poof, didn’t make enough money.

Facebook is not trying to keep your account secure. They are trying to lull you into thinking your private posts and personal data are safe from hackers and Russian/Chinese terrorist outfits. It’s funny, only because FB is selling your private data. Even with all the sharing and tracking turned off. They are Massive Privacy Violators. Zuck doesn’t care. And he’s not going to hesitate to get the new RED STATE POWER the ability to have whatever backdoor they ask for.

FACEBOOK is one of the biggest privacy leaks in your life. I drive a lot of business off my four FB pages. I do not say “happy birthday” on FB, it’s lazy and does not show empathy or interest. It’s the lowest possible twitch response. Like a POKE or a LIKE. Let’s go watch the Social Network again and ask ourselves, what good are the billionaires, or the Winklevoss Twins, doing with all their wealth? Elon could’ve done so much for the HUMANS on the planet with 44 Billion dollars. He wanted to influence the election for his wealthy friends. Case closed.

What would 44 Billion buy in humanitarian aid? In cancer research? In updating the railway system in the US. Things that would actually help humans? That’s not Mr. Musk’s goal. He could care less about you, about the planet, about helping people. Billionaires are free from the constraints of humanity to a point. Musk will die like the rest of us, unless he can figure out a way to create the “cloning system” and “meths” from the series Altered Carbon for real.

Fk Zuck. Join the EFF. Install privacy measures. Opt-out of all marketing. They’re still going to get most of your data, your gmail, google search, and ad preferences, but you can slow them down a little. Practice SAFE HEX. Always use digital/browser protection.

NYTimes on Facebook’s Fact-Checking Halt. (free article)

John McElhenney — LinkedIn