The time is rapidly coming when I’m quitting Facebook for good

By David McElroy · December 23, 2019

I joined Facebook in 2007 only because a girlfriend asked me to. Until early 2009, though, I posted nothing. I didn’t see why I needed this social media platform as part of my life.

After I started using Facebook, though, I became a heavy user as I connected with those who shared my political interests and then as I used it to promote the articles I wrote here. I fairly quickly reached the 5,000 limit on “friends,” but I eventually decided things were out of control with the angry arguments on my page.

Over the last few years, I’ve aggressively cut my number of contacts. (Let’s be honest. Most of them aren’t really friends.) I’ve cut it to just a few more than 500. I thought that might be enough for me to think it was worth sticking around.

I’ve recently realized, though, that I need to leave Facebook completely.

It won’t be today or next week. I doubt it will be next month. But sometime — in six months or a year, maybe — I will delete my Facebook account and move on. I want to explain why.

First, I don’t trust Facebook as a company. If you’re interested in the reasons why, you probably already know the details, so I’m not going to go too deeply into this.

Facebook has shown an incredible lack of interest in privacy or honesty. Company executives have made statements attacking the idea that we need privacy and they have been cavalier in their attitudes about the security of information they have about us.

User information is routinely leaked from Facebook and the company has done nothing to change its bad habits. I have to accept that this isn’t going to change, so I don’t want to stick around and get burned when things get worse.

In addition, the company has ambitions to take even more control over our lives. Not only does the company control multiple platforms (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp), it has just launched a project to design a new mobile operating system which will integrate its platforms and compete with iOS and Android.

Facebook already requires users to use its chosen browser for certain functions — such as going live — and I can see the day when it will make its own phone virtually required for the best experience. I simply don’t want a company which I don’t trust having that much control over my data and my online experience. So I’m going to disentangle myself before things can get worse.

Second, I don’t like what Facebook is doing to my mind and my attention span. This is a broader problem with the web in general and with all social media to some extent, but Facebook has become an incredible “time suck” for me and it has also trained me to spend every bit of downtime scrolling through shallow information which is essentially useless to me.

I might or might not withdraw from Instagram at the same time. I enjoy having a place to share my photos, but I’m not sure Instagram works as it was originally intended. Changes since Facebook bought the company have meant that interaction with other users is rewarded by showing your photos more often.

I don’t really want to make friends on Instagram. I just want to share photos for those who are interested — without having to pretend to be buddies with them. The algorithms on the service currently penalize someone who just wants to display photos for the world to see (without wasting time interacting with people he doesn’t know).

I will continue to speak online, although I can’t pretend to be sure what form that will take. As I’ve told you recently, I’m having a crisis in that regard, because I no longer have anyone to whom I’m speaking — in the broad sense — and I don’t know what I need to say.

I had high hopes for the effect the online world could have on public discourse — back when I participated in online message boards in the early 1990s — but those hopes have all been dashed. These tools don’t do what I had hoped they would. Somehow, I’m going to have to find ways to use different tools to connect more deeply with the people who I need to reach.

I’m not looking for a new social media platform, so please don’t write to me to tell me about whatever upstart Facebook competitor you’ve found. I’m simply not interested. It’s the shallow nature of the social media world which I’m escaping, not just the behemoth that Facebook has become.

There have definitely been positives to Facebook for me. I’ve connected with some people with whom I’ll stay connected and I’ve reconnected with people who I might have lost entirely otherwise. But the downsides have finally overwhelmed the upsides for me.

When the time comes, I will make an orderly exit. I’ll leave contact information posted there for awhile before I actually delete the account. I’ll ask for email addresses for people who would like to stay connected. I’ll give you plenty of warning before this all happens, once I have a plan and timeline in place.

But I’ve made the decision to disconnect completely from the digital clutches of Zuckerberg and Co. I’ll be happier when I quit wasting time in a virtual world and spend it working on things I want in the real world instead.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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