RT @sivavaid@twitter.com Quitting Facebook lets Google and Twitter off the hook. It lets AT&T off the hook. It lets Comcast off the hook. And it does nothing to hurt Facebook. Facebook does not care about one among 2.2 billion users. Act as a citizen, not a Facebook user. Demand regulation.
I honestly think all of these arguments come from people who for some reason can't bring themselves to leave Facebook. Yes, large structural change is needed, but you should also close your account. The site has one purpose: collect and sell your data and show you ads. That's it.
Does your own household recycling matter? No. We do it anyway and hope that as a society we'll all do it. Does your boycotting of corporations that support evil politicians matter alone? No. We do it anyway and hope many will join us. Boycotts work as a tactic. Boycott Facebook.
Most importantly, stop putting institutional events on Facebook, stop using it at universities, stop making participation in Facebook mandatory through your institutional, organization, and activist roles. You can be online, and social, and connected without supporting Facebook.
University of Twente has a Mastodon instance run by @hiemstra
The IR community has a Mastodon instance run by me arjen@idf.social
MIT also runs an instance.
Let's see how they fare - non-techies tend to care about the end user functionality only, that is sharing info; so if that offered is sufficient, they may switch over!
