Why I'm breaking up with Facebook

When I first signed on to the Facebook, it required an .edu email address. It was still a site for students, staff, and faculty of academic institutions, and a place to share resources, debate current topics, and manage a virtual soapbox/identity, connected to international networks. It was such a step up from Myspace for me. My circle of scholars, activists, and friends grew and we could share innovative classroom practices, performances, conferences, festivals, articles and essays. We could add a personal and social element to our public academic identities. I learned about the personal lives of people I engaged professionally and developed real-world friendships with people who I initially interacted with online.

Then FB became mainstream. Family, friends, and people from high school were requesting my friendship. It was awkward. Really awkward at first. I know a diverse array of people and I knew that adding this cousin or that aunt, this high school friend or that friend of a friend, meant that they would be joining or at least observing the conversations, and often politically radical or charged debates I have with colleagues.

I started sharing more personal and social information. Bringing people into my world a little more. Tried to find a balance with pedagogical, political, personal, and professional posts and shares. Tried to stomach seeing some of their posts and shares; knowing that mediated communication is so limited in nuance and that my criticisms would be taken as malicious, rather than constructive or invitational. Unfriended a few, and forced myself to keep others, to see into their worldview as much as I could. Accepted many former students and former classmates as friends, just to delete their friendships the next day. I knew that they would get my accept, cruise over to see my pics and posts, and then I could just disappear into the night. The requests only occasionally came back. Most just wanted to see into my world for a moment. And Facebook gave them the opportunity to do that.

Then the ads came. There were so many. And eventually they became omnipresent. Knowing what I had been searching on Google and Amazon, things I had already bought oftentimes, were continuing to be marketed to me. Sponsored posts came across my feed and I was offered the ability to promote my own pages, if I paid for it. It was often hard to tell the difference between ads and things my friends were sharing. And then the pages promoted AND telling me which of my friends liked them. Geesh.

A great platform and user-friendly interface made FB what it is. But the corporate consumption of our lives has grown insidiously...have you really noticed how much it has changed? Does it bug you that it knows what you do when you're not on the site? Does it bug you that FB makes a crap-ton of money selling your personal information?

My relationship with FB has become an emotionally abusive relationship.

FB tells me what I should like.
It decides who I get to see and how I get to see them.
It decides who I can be friends with, by denying people, especially trans folks and others who may use aliases, access to my friendship. (Kicked a good friend off this week per their name policy)
It sells my information and tastes to people I've never met and I am not allowed to say who gets my info, and who doesn't. I have to agree to go with whomever they want, or I can't be there.

It didn't used to be this way.

It used to be a very inviting space, full of real people and real shares. Now it's a big social experiment and I don't like feeling like a lab rat anymore.

I don't need a paternalistic website telling me who I can be friends with and who I can't; which of my friends can be here, and which can't.

I don't need my web searches and posts building a consumer identity that is sold to many bidders, while I don't earn a penny.

I've had enough. I'm stepping out in solidarity with those who FB denies access to.

I'll miss seeing and sharing. I'll miss liking and loving. I'll miss the ways each of you have challenged me and affirmed me. One typically stays in abusive relationships because there ARE good days. And often those can outweigh the bad. And they have for a long time. But this name policy thing hit a little too close to home, and it's just not ok. None of it.

Find me here http://cdubnews.blogspot.com/ or text/email me.