The time has come: I’m leaving you, Facebook.
It’s been a pretty bad year (and longer) for you. To the point that there are several taxonomies of your (2018) scandals. From continued negative coverage of how Russia manipulated you during the 2016 election, to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to your evasive answers in response to questions from US Congress and UK Parliament, it’s clear you’ve lost your way.
Trust is central to this relationship, as you’ve claimed many times. But after so many scandals and poorly thought-out ideas and actions, I’ve finally lost trust in this relationship. There’s only so many times I can handle you making a blunder and then going on an apology tour, as if that makes things better. Thus, I must leave you.
The worst thing you did in recent memory was your attempt to discredit my friends and colleagues at Color of Change, a respectable and influential civil rights organization with which my organization partners frequently. A November New York Times story showed that you hired PR firms to research George Soros and his connections with groups like Color of Change. As a result of this work, Color of Change staff received death threats. But these are people I see regularly, attend meetings with and talk to all the time, and am often on panels with and plan panels with them. They are all upstanding advocates and people who do not deserve to be targeted with such bigotry, which you helped fuel. I am very disappointed in that decision, which has severely undercut any trust we may have once had.
Second, you have shown yourself to be untrustworthy of knowing so much about me and my friends. Between the data breaches, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and of course the clusterjam around Russia’s influence on you in the 2016 election, I do not feel comfortable giving you any more data on me. The rate at which you share, or allow to leak, information about me with other people shows that you do not actually care about keeping my confidence. (I recognize that you will continue to collect data on me even after I leave, but at least I will not be voluntarily giving it to you.)
Third, the benefits to staying with you are simply not worth the costs. I do not find myself tending much to you anymore. I certainly do not rely on you to stay informed, as you’ve shown a propensity to allow disinformation and manipulation of me and my friends without attempting to fix those issues. I realize I say this from a place of privilege. I have other friends and other ways to communicate with those friends, I do not need to rely on you for that. Of course, not everyone can say that, but I am lucky that I can.
I’ve lost trust and value in the relationship with you, Facebook. These issues are deal breakers. The damage has been done. I hope you can come back from these setbacks. But I will not be.
#DeleteFacebook
