I left social media a few years ago and haven't ever really looked back. Facebook was the first to go. I became huge into the topic of online privacy years ago. When Snowden was all over the news, I got obsessed even more. And after downloading my own data from Facebook and found all the audio recordings they had of me, when I wasn't even using the app, or my phone (they had recorded conversations of me and my son in my car while we were driving around, and many other similar events) I had enough, and gave it the boot. I changed to encrypted emails, use VPN's at all times, use TOR, updated all my passwords to intense passphrases using Bitwarden, and turned on 2-step authentication for everything, and more.

If you haven't ever looked into Edward Snowden and what he revealed to the world, I suggest you do. I also suggest you get off any social media platform, make yourself a cup of coffee, and go sit outside (like I am doing right now).

It's been so many years since I've been on Facebook that I often forget it's even a thing, until someone brings it up. And then I get confused and go, “oh wait, that's still a thing? People still use that?” It doesn't make sense to me.

For my work, we do have social media accounts, but the overall mood towards them is one of disgust. We've debated several times if we should just erase them and not even participate in the social media game, which many companies are starting to do. But, through a transfer between a marketing company we used to use for that, and our internal staff, something happened with our Facebook account, and it seemed like we were locked out. My boss kind of freaked out a little and asked me to get it resolved, which, I was hesitant on because I had deactivated my account years ago. Long story short, I did all I could to make sure our staff were the admins, but my boss asked me if I would get on – even if I made a dummy account – just as a reserve/backup in case something happened in the future. I regretfully decided to log back into my account, just so she could add me as an admin in the case of some tragic facebook account emergency. As if that really mattered.

I didn't know if it was going to work or not, as it had been years since I've logged in. But, I went for it. It all looks entirely different now than I remember it looking. My old photo was there, which was weird. It was like an instant step back in time, 6 years ago. I figured that while I was in, I might as well click around a bit. I looked at some of my posts and rolled my eyes. Stupid me. For the most part, I only posted quotes and comments on peace and love and unity and consciousness, meditation, etc. But I did have some stupid memes and silly ego-based comments about the ways of society.

I took a peek at the timeline to see what everyone was posting. Within seconds, I realized that everyone and everything was still the same as when I left. The same people complaining about the same type of things. The same garbage memes and arguments. I instantly regretted getting on. Plus, it seems Facebook has some pretty intense censorship going on, which was obvious. Even to the point of shaming people and calling them extremists for their posts, and warning others that may or may not know the person. I checked my notifications, and some of the memes I had posted years ago were flagged as inappropriate or offensive and removed. But the removal date only seemed to be within the last year or so, while they were apparently fine for 5 years before that? Interesting. I guess I've been marked as a threat to Facebook society. The 'Big Brother' of the internet...

I connected the business account as a backup, and then immediately disabled my account again. What a joke.

Even though I was only on there for a few minutes, I could instantly feel myself sinking lower. I'll use the hippie term, 'my vibration', only because I believe that really is a wonderful way to explain it. Just being on there and seeing everything and absorbing ads and people's arguments and stupid comments and memes, just left me feeling lower than I did before. It's kind of the same feeling I got after getting sucked into the Reddit forum of trashy people doing trashy things. I'm glad to be off of there. (Facebook and that Reddit forum)

It's only perfect that I've been reading the book, 1984 by George Orwell. If you haven't read it, I suggest you do, or at least get through a good summary of it. I mention Facebook being Big Brother above, as that's the main reference for the 'controlling power' in that book. I'm in the middle of it now and wanting to get back to it, which I will shortly, getting through a few more chapters before I need to go into work.

I think it was tmo that was writing about how he was so glad he left social media as well, and I guess I'm just chiming in to say the same. The privacy stuff is rather interesting, and sadly, it's nearly impossible to get away from being tracked and monitored now, no matter how 'extreme' you get on the scale of things. Even if you left society and went into the forest alone without any technology, they still have drones flying above us at all times that can see and hear just about everything. Not to mention along your journey they have cameras everywhere, and facial recognition is becoming a standardized thing. They could build a pathway and timeline of your events and identity in no time. Plus, maybe they would take your actions as some sort of offense, label you an extremist and a threat, and deal with you appropriately. If someone wanted to find you badly enough, and had enough resources and time, it will happen.

And of course I just see this headline pop up today online...

NYPD Adding Children as Young as 11 to Facial Recognition Database

Anyway, shoutout to tmo and inquiry.

Time for more coffee and reading...

Back later.

/mg