There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

If you live in the EU - you may also be faced with this Meta prompt. Info in text.

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.

  1. 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.
  2. www.facebook.com/your_information - here you can find and manage your information, but crucially also access Facebook messenger.
  3. 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.

0x0 ,

I’m surprised the EU hasn’t pounced on them for GRPR infringement, maybe there’s a loophole Meta’s exploiting. Being total assholes ain’t a crime.

ours ,

This is their reaction to new privacy laws in the EU. I’m not sure I’ll fly.

gian , (edited )

Maybe, but there are whispers that EU is not happy with this since it seems to violate the GDPR.

Honytawk ,

The button colours alone are in violation.

brsrklf ,

I don’t know about the rest of EU, but in France for some reason it was decided that this type of choice, i.e. “pay a subscription or accept all trackers”, was in the spirit of GDPR.

I think it’s bullshit, but hey, it helped me choose whose services I will never use any more (really, most of those were already shit before they tried to pull that one, no big surprise here).

ominouslemon ,

In Italy lots of online newspapers do the same: either you subscribe, or you accept the tracking

logicbomb ,

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.

Iceblade02 OP ,

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.

rtxn ,

The evil of the lizard is too great to resist. The only way to win is to deny it battle.

TheFriar ,

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.

ItsMeSpez ,

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.

Sir_Kevin ,
@Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I have friends like that. They never get a response from me.

lemmyvore ,

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.

Ilovethebomb ,

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.

BellaDonna ,

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.

Honytawk ,

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”.

TheFriar ,

“Anyone that wants to watch me pee is god be SOO BORRED LOLOL!”

Honytawk ,

police gets called

LemmyIsFantastic ,

Or stop caring about data being used for ads. Most people don’t 🤷‍♂️

PeleSpirit ,

They’re actually holding your friends and family hostage, make plans to get them to safety.

iAmTheTot ,
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

That's, uh, a little bit hyperbolic.

admin ,
@admin@lemmy.my-box.dev avatar

I’m just glad they didn’t use the term Literally.

iAmTheTot ,
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

"actually" serves the same purpose in their sentence.

admin ,
@admin@lemmy.my-box.dev avatar

Damnit, you’re right.

PeleSpirit ,

Is it? You have to pay or give up all of your rights to stay in contact with your friends and family. What would you call it? Glad to see pro-facebook people here on lemmy, there’s dozens of you.

iAmTheTot ,
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

Lol for the record pal, Facebook can get fucked. I haven't used it in years. Maybe don't assume someone's stance just because they said you were being hyperbolic - which you're still being.

admin ,
@admin@lemmy.my-box.dev avatar

give up all of your rights to stay in contact with your friends and family

You’re making it sound line Zuckerberg has your family locked in a basement. If that’s the case, maybe you should go to the police, rather than complain about it on Lemmy.

On a more serious note: if you’re one of the family members that is “only” reachable on meta, you’re part of the problem. If you want to be part of the solution, tell people where else they can reach you, then delete Facebook.

petrol_sniff_king ,

So, just excommunicate everyone who won’t go through the trouble of emigrating elsewhere. This is practical to you?

admin ,
@admin@lemmy.my-box.dev avatar

What is practical is that they don’t need to “emigrate”. They can stay on Facebook for all I care. But if they want to stay in touch, they just have to add me in 1 out of several apps.

Like I said, you can stay on Facebook and be part of the problem, or you can leave and be part of the solution. The more people who do it, the easier it will be be for the remainders.

kamenlady ,

Not really, like, you can’t communicate with your family. In my case, i live in Germany, but my family lives in Brazil. It’s the only thing keeping me on Facebook, until now.

Thank God my family switched to WhatsApp for all family stuff. Since there are also family members in Colombia & USA, we have to keep a fixed online place, so we can communicate quickly.

WhatsApp is owned, by meta, just like Instagram. So it is rather when and not if we’ll start seeing ads everywhere.

iAmTheTot ,
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

Yes, really. Your family can find any number of other ways to communicate. Facebook does not have a monopoly on international communication.

kamenlady ,

I know, but the problem is to convince everyone to use something different. 70, 60, 50 ,40, 30 year olds ( i think anyone up to 30 is much more open and used to deal with software ) a plenty, living in different countries.

I really tried.

iAmTheTot ,
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

That's not Facebook's fault. You can't say that a service is holding people hostage when the actual situation is that those people aren't interested in trying other services.

schnapsman ,

It may not be fb’s fault directly, but they hold the keys to an enormous resource which should be properly regulated. Telling op to just make the choice ignores the structural issue at hand. It’s a bit like saying if you don’t like all the problems of your country, just emigrate. That’s everyone’s choice, but it isn’t practical as a general solution. Emigrating in a digital sense is far easier, but do we wait for these common goods to be enshittificated and reinvented or can we skip some suffering and seize control already.

iAmTheTot , (edited )
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

Lol my guy, I have actually completed an emigration process. Comparing it to finding a different free communication service is fucking bonkers. Facebook doesn't hold the keys to anything. If the users leave, they have nothing. Finding a replacement is practical and its not anything like emigrating to another country, holy shit.

schnapsman ,

My brother in Christ, finding a different service isn’t the difficultly. It’s moving everyone else. Fb holds the keys to a network of literally billions of ppl, which for many is the only feasible way of keeping in contact with their loved ones. Yes if everyone just left the enshittificated network suddenly and all went to the same place… but you need incentives, alternatives and coordination. “if everyone would just…” could solve a lot of problems, but we need to find realistic pathways to get there. Also your tone sucks, maybe open a window and let some fresh air in. I’ll do the same.

iAmTheTot ,
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

moving everyone else.

I will direct you to the point at which you entered this convo.

That's not Facebook's fault. You can't say that a service is holding people hostage when the actual situation is that those people aren't interested in trying other services.

It is asinine to blame Facebook for checks notes your cousin's tech illiteracy.

petrol_sniff_king ,

Are you uncomfortable with metaphors or what?

  • If I have a Facebook account,
  • but I don’t want a Facebook account.

How would you describe this?

iAmTheTot ,
@iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

I don't know, maybe silly? Why do you have an account that you do not want?

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Not really, like, you can’t communicate with your family.

LOL that is the fault of your family, not Meta

Phanatik ,

If only I still had a Facebook account that required me to use this awful website.

terminhell ,

There’s a missing third option: Don’t use it at all.

Sterile_Technique ,
@Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world avatar

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e05c7a80-d3a9-460e-bc93-47587cbfb96c.jpeg

Delete that garbage.

Bishma ,
@Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I swore off all Meta products before they were called Meta. One of the better decisions I’ve ever made.

Bazoogle ,

lol, saying “before they were called meta” as if that was a long time ago. That was 2 years ago.

bayank ,

Pepperidge farms remembers

NumbersCanBeFun ,
@NumbersCanBeFun@kbin.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    iAmTheTot ,
    @iAmTheTot@kbin.social avatar

    People said the same thing about twitter. People paid.

    TheEntity ,

    It's not about getting people to pay. It's about coercing them into giving their explicit consent. Yes, "coercing" and "consent" in the same sentence, let that sink in.

    confusedbytheBasics ,

    You choose to visit Facebook. They’ve always provided services funded by your data. Now you get to choose between that model or compensating them directly.

    Where does the coercion come in?

    PS, I hate Facebook and don’t use it in case that matters somehow.

    TheEntity ,

    EU recently accused them of not asking for data processing consent properly. This seems to be their response.

    And same here, mate. No FB in sight for me either.

    sitzathlet ,

    This exactly. Facebook can only advertise to EU users with targeted ads if they explicitly opt in. The paid version only exists to give us a “choice”, making targeted ads legally acceptable as we now have an alternative by paying for the service. German newspaper sites have been applying this practice for quite a while now. Those that get fined are only those that ise the wrong legalese.

    confusedbytheBasics ,

    I’m still curious where coercion comes into it?

    TheEntity ,

    Let me rephrase to avoid this hyperbole. I mean that the users are presented with two options: one being pretty much bonkers and one being agreeing to the terms. FB was seemingly unwilling to make it a clear yes/no question it is (or should be according to GDPR) everywhere else and decided this manipulation is much more likely to get them the "yes" answers.

    confusedbytheBasics ,

    ++ Totally. 10€ a month can’t be close to the value of the data. If the cost was actually based on the value of the data it might be a valid choice.

    Bazoogle ,

    The value of the data gets tricky fast. If they made everyone pay $10 for the service, they would make less money. They would make less money because fewer people would use the service. To offer it for free means more people would use it. While each person may provide less than the subscriber, the masses of the free users makes more money than the subscriber.

    To profit more from free users, you just have to have enough people willing to use it for free, and wouldn’t pay for it, to where their revenue exceeds that of the $10 plus the added cost to run the service with more users using it.

    Just for easy numbers, let’s say a free users makes Meta $1.00 a month. If there is a group of 20 people who use meta, and only 1 of those 20 people is willing to pay $10, then the paid service would make them $10 where the unpaid service would make them $19. Obviously super simplified math, but honestly the number of people that would pay for Facebook is probably a lot less than 1 in 20.

    I am not saying $10 is a fair price, but rather it’s not a simple task to pick a fair price. Not that meta wants a fair price anyway.

    FrederikNJS ,

    You’re absolutely correct… However it will be very interesting to see how this doesn’t violate the GDPR… recital 42 says:

    “Consent should not be regarded as freely given if the data subject has no genuine or free choice or is unable to refuse or withdraw consent without detriment.”

    Link with more details: gdpr.eu/gdpr-consent-requirements/

    Withdrawing consent in this case causes the detriment of having to either pay or lose access to the service… So this clearly isn’t “freely given” consent.

    Bazoogle ,

    They cannot force meta to give their service for free. If they did that, then they could do it to every online service ever. Services cost money, so either it comes from data collection and ad revenue, or a subscription (or in Meta’s case, data collection and subscription). To force them to let users use the service without data collection or ads would mean forcing them to give away their service for free. Regardless of if you like meta, you cannot deny the fact it costs a shit ton of money to keep the service running. Obviously they make a shit ton of money^2^, but to attempt to force them to provide it for free makes no sense.

    FrederikNJS ,

    The GDPR does not in any way disallow Facebook from running ads, regardless of the users consent. But if the user doesn’t consent, Facebook can’t run targeted ads on the user.

    Grabbels ,

    It’s never been free. We’ve always paid with our data but now they’re being extremely forward about it in hopes to comply with EU laws.

    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    He doesn’t think that, and he doesn’t want them to do that. He wants them to keep the ads.

    doeknius_gloek ,

    Oh no! Anyway…

    verysoft ,

    Why even use facebook products

    NegativeLookBehind ,
    @NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social avatar

    Sounds like a lot of hassle, when the real answer is to just get rid of Facebook

    heygooberman ,
    @heygooberman@lemmy.today avatar

    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?

    ahriboy ,
    @ahriboy@kbin.social avatar

    Just give them a try!

    spiderman ,

    will mainstream public make a move though? it will be great if my friends make a move to pixelfed but they just won’t.

    don ,

    Any time sooner than later is a fantastic time to have nothing at all to do with facebook.

    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    Except they’re both kinda trash and no one you actually know IRL is on there. Just a bunch of strangers.

    heygooberman ,
    @heygooberman@lemmy.today avatar

    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.

    kokesh ,
    @kokesh@lemmy.world avatar

    Same on IG

    diffusive ,

    The real question, in EU, is not Facebook (or even Instagram). It’s WhatsApp. Business talk with WhatsApp, family talk with WhatsApp, meet a person in a bar? Yep WhatsApp or you are the weirdo

    As soon I got the banners, I uninstalled the app and switched to friendly. Not sure if I have such luxury with WhatsApp…. Maybe time to explore matrix? 🤷

    Iceblade02 OP ,

    WA is also owned by Meta, and was only being used by my privacy-oriented friends. We swapped it for Signal pretty much instantly when the news came, but getting others to move over has been a slow fight.

    diffusive ,

    Yeah… the result is that now I have WhatsApp, signal, telegram. 99% of my contacts are on WhatsApp, maybe 20% are on telegram (and a number of group chat are there) and 1% take it or leave it has signal (and no group chat).

    In practice the only one I can get rid of is signal (that is also the one I would like better 🙄🙄)

    catarina ,
    @catarina@kbin.social avatar

    I would love to ditch WhatsApp, but then I wouldn't be in touch with my family half as much, and it would be a lot more difficult to get anything done.
    I am in Spain where people simply assume you have WA, and the majority of small business use it extensively.

    sergih ,

    What can facebook really gather from whatsapp? Asfaik messages are encrypted, and other than that I’m not really giving info to whatsapp, like my estado and date of birth but that’s pretty much it.

    Like I get it from facebook, you are constantly looking things up that can tell what u like, hobbies, or political affiliation, but whatsapp?

    lemmyvore ,

    They’re “encrypted” meaning they claim so and nobody was able to prove otherwise.

    Even assuming they really are encrypted end-to-end, the app can still spy on you directly on your phone. It has access to all your conversation history and everything you type. 😊

    Now, I’m not saying they’re sending that verbatim to Facebook but it’s enough to get the gist of a conversation. Like, that you were talking about hair products. That’s enough to be able to sell some ads to you and your conversation partner.

    sergih ,

    hmmm got it, might be intrtrsting to do an experiment where u look up your facebook feed, see what products u get ads for, yhrn talk with a friend over on whatsapp about a certain product or typr of product u want to buy, and then check if u start getting ads for said product

    ABCDE ,

    It has happened to me.

    sergih ,

    r u sure u only talked/mentioned it through whatsapp, and didn’t do any prior or post searches of related things in a browser?

    just saying cause it’ easy to miss

    ABCDE ,

    Positive.

    Bazoogle ,

    WhatsApp is truly end-to-end encrypted using the signal protocol. The same protocol Signal uses (believe it or not). Meta truly cannot read your messages. But they CAN see who you are messaging, how often you message them, when you are messaging them, where you are when you message them, and plenty more. They can collect metadata. Metadata is the data they actually care about. Honestly, it doesn’t matter as much if you’re asking your friend if they want to hang or sending nudes. The metadata is what they want, and it’s exactly what they’re collecting.

    Honytawk ,

    Just because it is end to end encryption, doesn’t mean one of those ends can’t send those messages to Facebook (also end-to-end encrypted).

    Bazoogle ,

    Assuming they didn’t pervert the signal protocol, then they really really cannot access your messages, even if they wanted to. The encryption key would only be stored on the local device. Though, it would honestly benefit them to actually do this. They then cannot provide user data to law enforcement no matter how many warrants there are, they cannot be susceptible to rogue employees stealing the information, and the list goes on. And like I said, they really don’t need to know what your messages say. They get all the information they want from the metadata.

    miss_brainfart , (edited )
    @miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml avatar

    Remind those businesses that if they don’t have explicit consent from the people saved in their contacts, they are violating article 44 of the GDPR.

    Same if their websites use Google Analytics without asking for consent first.

    thanks_shakey_snake ,

    Matrix is pretty good! I use Element. It’s pretty much as usable as anything else I’ve used for similar purposes: Discord, Slack, Messenger, etc.

    Hard part is obviously getting people to switch over. But it’s ready for normies!

    smileyhead ,

    The ElementX developemnt is looking really really good!

    diffusive ,

    I was more thinking about using the matrix <> WhatsApp bridge for avoiding the pop up. It’s impossible to migrate people (especially strangers)

    Mango ,

    I always choose ‘fuck whoever is giving me an ultimatum’. That’s the control freak. That’s the source of problems.

    Bazoogle ,

    lol, that’s just not true. If I give my alcoholic friend the ultimatum of “you need to get sober or we can’t be friends” I am not a control freak or the source of problems. Also, every online service gives you an ultimatum. It’s called the Terms of Service. Either you agree, or you don’t use it. Yes, even here. Guess you can’t use anything, or go anywhere. Don’t get me wrong, Meta is the scum of the earth that we as people desperately need to get rid of, but you’re really picking the wrong fight with the “ultimatum”.

    akilou ,

    There should be a “neither, close my account now” option.

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