For anyone who wants to actually delete their FB account, here’s how:
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For all the good information here, things are in a process of great turmoil at the moment. The revelations are rather dire. Positive is that people are becoming more aware of the situation.
Another perspective that I’ve been noting, even before the current hullabaloo, has to do with the historical precedents and current clues relative to the arising and passing, so to speak, of economic/policital/social “bubbles”.
Some bits of relevant news (clues):
1: Venture capital for social-media start-ups has dried-up, much like funding for .COM startups ceased in the year or two prior to the .COM bust of 2000.
2: Some heavy-weight advertisers are already having second thoughts about putting all their eggs in the social-media basket. Proctor and Gamble – a s/w old-fashioned but still sizable and viable industry – had started to withdraw from that kind of advertising.
3: In the last quarter of 2017, Facebook started to experience a net loss of participants, and indications are that the trend, though as yet small, has accelerated in the 1st quarter of 2018 (even before the current rash of delete-account activity. What if teenagers suddenly decide Facebook is no longer the “in” thing?
.COM seemed unstoppable 20 years ago. The housing finance bubble seemed so also 11 years ago, as too the tulip craze in the Netherlands and the Dutch East India Company a couple of centuries ago. The history of such phenomena is s/w amazing in that few people appreciate the lessons when the next big bubble comes along. Perhaps a kind of lesson on the power of delusion / moha (and how it drives craving / lobbha and conflict / dosa).
When the time is ripe, someone shouts “the emperor has no clothes!”, the realization sinks in, and a major shift takes place.
Another news item well known around here (Silicon Valley) but probably not much elsewhere, is how Facebook (and Google, etc.) have been committing to ever greater expansion. In the city of Menlo Park (California), where FB has it’s headquarters (an affluent town of some 34,000 inhabitants), Zuckerberg and company have been negotiating with the city over plans to increase their workforce in the area by some 35,000 workers over the next 5 years. Similarly Google, in the nearby city of Mountain View (population ca. 80,000 and a bit less affluent). Both seeking to expand by millions of square-feet of office space in huge complexes replete with hotels and housing (but much less housing than the number of new workers – exacerbating the already critical issues of housing scarcity, traffic, etc.).
The point being, that if in fact the social-media bubble bursts, and/or the shape of the industry gets radically changed (regulation, anti-trust, “disruption” by yet newer technologies, etc.), those plans could well evaporate into “thin, thin air” – to quote Shakespeare’s epilogue to “The Tempest”, Prospero’s reflection on the nature of humankind’s castles of imagination (sankhara / fabrications).
And “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” !
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There is definitely a well trod path from social media prominence to obscurity: MySpace.
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The biggest strongest bubbles we ever encounter in my experience are our beliefs in the thought constructs we might identify as how things work. But if we really understood how things worked, we could not be surprised, alarmed, clever, etc. Because we would just know, all that arises, ceases.
I am wondering why I was addressed in particular.
In threads of the last few months I count at least 4 distinction classes of facebook problems. The unauthorized released of user profile information being # 4. The use of social media suggested by the OP in this thread is another.
That makes at least 2 of the 4 classes of abuse also of concern for most social media platforms including suttacentral.net.
Commentary on this thread seems to jump from one class of problem or issue to another that in my opinion confuses and perhaps misleads.
On the political stage the concerning part for me is that the information allegedly used by Cambridge Analytica was not equally available to all interested parties.
The chance that such potentially useful profile data (such as held by Facebook) would leak out is quite high.
The obvious legal and governmental cure is to protect such data in a manner similar to personal medical records.
If you want to keep such information private then don’t use a real name, including your Buddhist or monastic name, on suttacentral.net either. And don’t put any information in your profile. Either that or never post anything that gives a hint about society, government or politics.
It makes sense to use facebook only for very limited functions.
Publicly for people who your name to be able to contact you. .
@Feynman has anyone mentioned as a problem that vast wealth transfer from individuals to corporarions and 1% includes telecom profits from deliberately addicted and manipulated and misinformed/lied to billions of persons?
The suck-yness is huuuuuge.
At the systemic level, maybe not. But on an individual level, it is an easy decision: if you have a FB account, delete it.
I did that several days ago - and can attest that it is very easy.
Systems (such as FB) are not easily changed to prevent manipulation and misuse, but I as an individual within that system can simply say,
“Enough.”
It feels wonderful.
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I think people are underestimating how large 2 billion people is. Facebook is now an ordinary and essential part of everyday life for much of the world. It allows small businesses to communicate without paying for advertizing, and allows people to stay in touch with friends and family all over the world. If the service it provided weren’t great, it wouldn’t have grown so large. Rather than deleting Facebook accounts in a panic, all of those users should pressure their governments to seize control of Facebook and its network, and turn it into a global public utility.
Deleting an account is something concrete that one can easily do. Trying to pressure a government to socialize Facebook, and, on top of that, to get the rest of the world to cooperate – that’s rather more of an undertaking for an individual.
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Social networking tools have been essential to the rapid growth of the recent March for our Lives movement, as well as other grass roots movements. The voices calling for dismantling powerful social networks, and handing power back to more traditional non-social media, are terrified of that grass roots power. Many of the prominent critics, in their tone of oh-so- philanthropic concern about addiction and abuse, speak for elites struggling to hang on to the power to define acceptable party lists, control the thinking of the masses, and frustrate grass roots movements. Some of them also represent competing media companies.
Letting the government(s) “run” Facebook presumes their benevolence. In many parts of the world (maybe all of it), governments use FB to spy on their citizens and crush dissent.
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Yes, that’s why it needs to be run by an international consortium wit representatives from many countries with competing interests. Nothing is perfect. But Facebook is a natural monopoly. The problems with it can’t be solved by breaking the online social network space up into multiple fragments, because what people want is at least one place where thy can connect with everybody.
It seems objections can expand until we have included most sentient beings.
Noting the emphasis above on wealth transfer, is it less “sucky” when there is a transfer, not of wealth, but of power, social standing, etc when one attempts to deliberately addict, manipulated and/or misinformed/lie to others? I say it is not.
Most of the objections raised by @sujato would still be salient if Facebook was a non-profit or government entity.
The sole emphasis on obvious material wealth seems out-of-balance to me, especially when the dharma is much more about non-material influences and costs (suffering).
These four – deliberately addicted, manipulated, misinformed or lied – often call for a lot of “judgement calls”/discernment; especially in the abstract. I say that in the context of looking first “at home”. For, in my opinion a certain amount of misinformation and addiction-like influence comes out under the name of Buddhism; sometimes from well know groups or dharma teachers. In your phrase, the suck-yness of that is also huuuuuge.
And, on balance, I’d rather have the manipulation and misinformation in the form of simple profit rather than from those interested in power and influence. Much of socially-engaged writing (Buddhist or otherwise) is arguably about influence, often with the intention of gaining social/governmental power. And IMO a sucky large percentage of “social Buddhism” writing is manipulative, misleading if only because it privileges a secular viewpoint over a Buddhist viewpoint. Your mileage on those opinions may of course vary.
It’s import to point out that agreeing on a problem is not the same as agreeing on a solution or response. Note the various responses suggested in this thread.
The caution is to avoid the trap of sharing a problem with anything but a keen awareness and expectation that every hearer will have their own, distinct preferred response or solution.
The Buddha was a good model here. State a problem – “lots of suffering in life”, a cause and finally a proposed solution. The solution offered explicitly as a theory/assertion to be tested by the listener. With a relatively low risk test procedure.
That is an example of skillful communication that minimizes dis-harmony in a group and maximizes a free and informed choice on the part of the hearer.
We are open to advertising and let them develop our cravings for things we don’t need. When someone does it to change our minds about our political preferences…
With metta
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I agree, good redirect. If i focussed on material effects, it is partly conditioned awareness that the legal system cares about that and requires it as a ground for taking action, it seems.
The addiction aspect is documented in market and socio research i think but i cannot cite, and am not physically capable today of research.
Not sharing a problem is also a trap, neh? It empowers tyranny.
But yeah, the Dhamma works, i know this. 
Actually, i consciously have reduced and at times eliminated seeing or listening to advertising. A secluded life is almost indispensible for this tho. And it involves avoiding almost all entertainment. Or going outside.
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wow, defensiveness; clearly, this body is more ill than i thought.
So good night, lovely disgusting beings, may all be happy.
One of the links from this,
Was censored on Facebook(the irony). I was “being used” by Facebook, and posting in a group - the only reason I ever use Facebook. Anyway, a discussion similar to this one popped up, and I posted that link while talking about censorship. Facebook deleted my post with the link. I was amazed. I posted it again, and it was deleted. Repeat.
So, I took a video, because it might have looked that I was playing a joke, to prove a point, or something.
That’s the first encounter I’ve had like that. Scary.
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Bravo!
This can be helpful antidote if feeling low, I think.
with metta
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