Leaving Meta

After 20 years...I'm leaving Facebook.

Over 20 years ago, I made my first post to this new platform called "Facebook" that at the time was only for college kids. My university - Kettering University, in Flint, Michigan - was a couple waves after the big schools. But, we still got it in, I’d like to say late 2004? It was everything MySpace was and more: text and photo updates, easy to find friends, and cool.

As time went on, we left college, and Facebook exploded into the rest of the world. Friends, colleagues, family, businesses - everyone was using it. It went through cycles of no longer being cool with the kids, being cool with the kids, and well, you know the rest.

But, all things must come to an end, and I believe my time on Meta’s platforms has - at least for the foreseeable future.

Earlier this year, news emerged that Mark Zuckerberg was in talks with Trump, and we all suspected that this would be the beginning of a new relationship based in fealty - and it turned out we were correct. This week, Facebook announced a reduction/elimination of its fact checking department. While certainly they didn’t get everything right, it was an attempt to reduce misinformation and protect consumers.

Now, over the past few days, it’s come out that they have gone one step further and carved an exception to their content moderation policies. They’re now explicitly allowing anti-LGBT content which calls lgbt people mentally ill, unnatural, etc. - things long considered harassment by most reasonable people.

For 20 years, Facebook has largely been a safe place for me to express myself - my sexuality, my faith, my nerdiness, my opinions, etc. And it is clear to me now that it is no longer going to be that going forward.

So, most of my longform content is going to migrate here. I’ve long used Facebook as places to write more extensively about what’s going on with society, politics, etc. This will now be that place.

I’m also going to use BlueSky for my social - it’s more twitter-like than I prefer, but, in combination with Substack for longford content, I think it will do just fine.

Finally, to replace Facebook Messenger, I’m going to fully move to using Signal. If you haven’t used Signal, it is one of the most secure messaging platforms (if not the most). I’ve been using it for a year or so with my closest family and friends, and it’s time to expand its use.

It is bittersweet, I don’t -like- having to leave a platform I’ve been loyal to for so long. But, it’s clear to me that with the changes we are seeing on society, and the rich and powerful falling in line, the only thing I can do is leave these platforms.

Perhaps things will improve in the future… but until then, here I am!