Disentangling

So yeah, I'm leaving facebook.

I think their name policy is bullshit and demonstrative of the general disdain for the user-base they operate on. Sure it's legal but I don't think it's ethical and it absolutely isn't considerate. Who says they get to demand vulnerability from people without accepting any kind of accountability?

I think the service they provide is internet on training wheels: there is nothing facebook does that isn't done better elsewhere.

But most of all I've been noticing that the person I am on facebook isn't the person I am in my day-to-day life, and is even further from the person I aspire to be. He's angry, belligerent, arrogant, sometimes petty and mean. I'd get worked-up and it'd bleed into my time with people in the real-world.

...and then I found out they were doing it on purpose.
I've been thinking about the reveal of their illegal and completely unethical research, and their response to being exposed. I've been thinking about how when I use facebook, I am the product they are selling to advertisers and the data they gather from me is monetized six ways from Sunday and then some. I've been thinking about all of that and I've decided that whatever I've been getting out of using facebook, whatever charge I get from arguing with people and seeing my comments and posts garner ephemeral approval from friends, family, and acquaintances, it's just not worth being manipulated into being an asshole so I can make someone else rich.

So fuck Facebook, I'm out.

Over the next week or so, I will be moving all of the content I want to keep from facebook to other media and making myself more actively available to people in other forms. This need not be goodbye, I'm still on the internet every day. I'll just be leaving this gross little section of it and heading out to somewhere where I can be a little more grown up and positive.

You can find me here, on my blog. I will be posting a myriad of things as often as I can.
You can find me on Google+ which is my preferred social media.
You can find me on Twitter
You can find me on Ello if you're in the beta

Thanks! I'll see you around.