If you, like me, live in the EU, Facebook is now entirely clamping down and forcing free users to make their personal data available for monetization.
Attempting to access any Facebook domain and perhaps also other meta products will redirect you to the following prompt with a choice between either accepting the monetization of your user data, or coughing up a region-dependent monthly subscription fee: base (for me ~10€) + an additional fee (~7€) for each additional facebook or instagram account you have.
Now, the hidden third option. At an initial glance, it seems like there is no other option but to click one of the buttons - however, certain links still work, and grant access to important pieces of functionality through your web browser.
If anyone has information to add regarding Facebook or Instagram, please do share it. I’ve only (begrudgingly) used the former up until now, but I know many others use Instagram and don’t feel like giving a single cent (nor their personal info) to Meta.
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https://www.facebook.com/dyi - perhaps most important of all, now is a good time to make a request to download your Facebook data. Don’t forget to switch to data for “all time” and “high quality” if you intend to permanently delete your account.
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https://www.facebook.com/your_information - here you can find and manage your information, but crucially also access Facebook messenger.
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The messenger app: Still hasn’t prompted me with anything, though I expect that will change in the not too far future.
Currently my plan is to use messenger to inform any important friends that I intend to leave FB, and where they’ll be able to reach me in the future.
The text is also incredible misleading. The data will still be harvested and monetized, just not for ads.
Sounds like a lot of hassle, when the real answer is to just get rid of Facebook
What’s absolutely scummy is that “laws are changing in your region” is not what happened. The law hasn’t significantly changed. What has changes is that the regulator is finally enforcing the law.
Also said law doesn’t allow blocking access if you don’t agree to the tracking rules, so let’s see where this goes.
Law opens for supplier to charge money, if necessary to support the service, which is what Meta is doing.
However, fuck Meta.
Honestly I don’t disagree with that bit.
A website shouldn’t be forced to operate at a loss, which is what Facebook would be doing if they couldn’t strip mine data OR charge access to use the service.
The Law doesn’t care if any one company’s business model is viable and, Facebook being an American company which avoids taxes like crazy, EU politicians don’t care enough about them specifically to change said Law.
So ultimatelly and once they exhausted all legal recourse, Facebook have only two options: “comply” or “leave” (i.e. stop operating in the EU).
Somehow I suspect that selling non-personalized adverts will still make the EU market appealing enough for Facebook to operate in an that would allow them to comply with the local laws.
To me this looks like a play by Facebook to keep their higher revenue model going as long as possibly by breaking the rules and then relying on the slowness of regulators to keep going and any two-strikes policies to avoid big fines.
Shh, people don’t wanna hear that. Lol
That’s not a loophole, it’s a key provision of the law.
True, edited.
There’s a missing third option: Don’t use it at all.
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Same. Although I have a few services where I use it to log in, sooo…
There should be a “neither, close my account now” option.
Easy fix. Stop using crap like meta, or Reddit, or TikTok, or Twitter or another degenerated social media platform…
That includes lemmy, right?
Right?
Nah, Lemmy can somtimes be a little cringe and insulting but has no narcisitic sociopaths in charge like the others have 😅
Great. Now tell that to my uni please.
your uni is using facebook?
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They were already monetizing your data, just like websites were already using cookies to track you before the EU made it mandatory to inform visitors about this.
LOL why are people using Facebook?
Because my friends and family, unfortunately use Facebook. Moreso IG these days actually. And if I’m not on there I get left out of fun activities.
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There aren’t if they don’t use those other ways. Shocking, I know.
To communicate with people, to follow various pages and groups that notify me of the current events regarding the topics that interest me, to buy and sell stuff in some groups, etc. At least in my case.
I recently discovered Pixelfed and Friendica on the Fediverse. They are the equivalent to Instagram and Facebook, respectively. Perhaps now would be a good time to migrate over to those platforms?
Just give them a try!
will mainstream public make a move though? it will be great if my friends make a move to pixelfed but they just won’t.
Any time sooner than later is a fantastic time to have nothing at all to do with facebook.
Except they’re both kinda trash and no one you actually know IRL is on there. Just a bunch of strangers.
That’s true, and as with any networking platform, whether that be a social media site or a messaging app, who you know and how many of them are on the platform is a strong determining factor in whether you join that platform or not. For now, I just have an account set up on both of those sites, just in case, but I’m not holding my breath for any of my close friends to join anytime soon.
y’all I think that we might finally be leaving the era of the internet where everything is free. overall, I think this is a good thing. the problem is that unless there’s legislation preventing them these companies are absolutely gonna double dip; they’ll charge you a fee and then sell your data anyway.
Yeah that what I tought: if I pay, what is my guarantee you won’t collect and sell my info on top of that?
Laws are changing in your region, so we’re introducinga new choice about how we use your info for ads.
Which law?
None. The statement is false. The law didn’t change. What did change was the enforcement thereof.
No law changed, they simply are now obligated to respect the GDPR (at least formally).
“Your info won’t be used for ads” - but it will be used in other ways
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You need to make a choice to continue using Facebook
This reminds me of the movie War Games, when WOPR says, “The only winning strategy is not to play.” The only correct choice to make here is to delete your Facebook account.
Indeed, I’d like to, and hopefully will be able to. Unfortunately it is basically the universal method of communication at my campus - unless you use instagram… or snapchat… :(
Hopefully it’ll be possible to get others to make the move, but I’m not really that important in social contexts, nor are most privacy-focused folks.
How anyone still has a FB account I’ll never understand—or, I should say, anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the insane, “well I have nothing to hide!”/“anyone reading my information will be SO BOOORED LOLOLOL!” mindset and that actually gives 1/10000th of a shit about privacy.
Most of my sports and social activities are organized through various Facebook groups, and I’d lead a rather boring life without it.
That’s why.
I literally had a job that distributed our schedule via a Facebook group exclusively and required an account for requesting changes or interaction about the schedule.
You can easily counter that sentiment by asking them if they also leave their door open when they use a public toilet. Since they got “nothing to hide”.
“Anyone that wants to watch me pee is god be SOO BORRED LOLOL!”
police gets called
For me it is still holding on, barely, as a messaging app. I have a few friends and groups that just refuse to message on other things and that’s keeping me around. I’m tired of evangelizing better options.
I have friends like that. They never get a response from me.
It pops up every once in a while for things like old classmates getting together. If I weren’t on it I wouldn’t know about it.
It’s also useful for local events like neighborhood festivals that don’t get posted on any other media.
The evil of the lizard is too great to resist. The only way to win is to deny it battle.
Or stop caring about data being used for ads. Most people don’t 🤷♂️
Yep I saw that a few days ago (I live in rep. of Ireland), I then deleted my account because fb for me is just a time waster. My mother decided to opt for the free version and so now she sees more ads than friend activities. She’ll probably deactivate her fb account so she can continue to use messenger.
Unrelated but we just crossed to northern Ireland today after road tripping the wild Atlantic way and some other bits in ROI, dear god your country is gorgeous 😍 and everyone was so nice too.
