#deletefacebook and social media effects on me

This week #deletefacebook was a trending topic everywhere after all the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Lots of people deleted their accounts, including Elon Musk ↗︎ and the WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton ↗︎. I didn't delete my account but one thing that I did in the middle of February was deleting the app from my iPhone – which is a good step anyway.

I am not deleting my account because I still need Facebook to reach a few people from my previous companies/schools. I used Facebook groups a lot in the past when I was dealing with immigration and unfortunately, it is difficult to find a replacement for this functionality. Forums and lists are not a thing since Facebook absorbed everything on its island.

What can I do?

If I can't delete my Facebook account, I may have some way to undo my friendship with them.

  • Download a copy of my Facebook data: I can see now how deep Facebook knows me. I am not sure if this is useful, but is still worth remove data from there? Maybe.
  • Review apps: 10 years of Facebook and I have 325 apps connected with Facebook. Social login was a good thing until one week ago but now, I don't know how many Cambridge Analytica are around.
  • Stayfocused: this extension blocks websites that I listed after X minutes. Useful not only for Facebook but for all time-consuming pages.
  • Delete the app: I deleted the app already and it is not clear what Facebook knows from your phone however SHARE LAB, a research team based in Yugoslavia, claims those are the permissions used by Facebook:


Initially saw on Caribé's Linkedin

Instagram

Owned by Facebook, Instagram is another social network to worry about it ↗︎. We get stuck in its like/followers game and since they copied Snapchat released Stories is even more difficult to do not follow your friends.

I have decided to use Instagram as a photo album. When I was a child, I didn't have Instagram and my family only took pictures during special times. We had a film camera and a few albums of pictures of weddings and school events. Let me exclude the like factor and FOMO here and share online only what my mom would show in her albums. And also, no more stories. I don't want to make my life a soap opera.

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