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.

mannycalavera ,
@mannycalavera@feddit.uk avatar

LOL why are people using Facebook?

antonim , (edited )

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.

BigDaddySlim ,
@BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world avatar

I use it for one single purpose, browsing marketplace. I look for local used game stuff and that’s really it. If something peaks my interest I have my girlfriend message them since she uses messenger, I refuse to have it on my phone.

Even then, I’m using Firefox with UBO so even if they do use my browsing data for ads, I ain’t seeing them anyway.

Turns out you can in fact, cuck the Zuck

scytale ,

Don’t forget to use a facebook container on FF as well.

ubermeisters ,
@ubermeisters@lemmy.world avatar

Piques* your interest

Just a friendly FYI, could be voice text issue idk no shade

BigDaddySlim ,
@BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world avatar

Actually no I’m just horribly illiterate 😂

ubermeisters ,
@ubermeisters@lemmy.world avatar

Well, now you’re a touch closer to where it sounds like you’re trying to be!

hayes_ ,

It’s okay. I’ve misspelled “peek” as “peak” multiple times in the last week.

English just be like that.

Lamb ,

You’re an icon. 🥰

Ilgaz ,

Firefox with the right extension can do wonders but for Facebook, it is like trying to save yourself from an atomic bomb with a shield made from led. They hire the best developers out there including OSS people to get your personal data one way or another. The day I learned advertisers abuse html5 canvas using miniscule differences between CPUs, I understood the money and development involved.

militaryintelligence ,

Memes

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

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.

Jezebelley ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    There aren’t if they don’t use those other ways. Shocking, I know.

    sndrtj ,

    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.

    Benaaasaaas ,

    Also said law doesn’t allow blocking access if you don’t agree to the tracking rules, so let’s see where this goes.

    archon , (edited )

    Law opens for supplier to charge money, if necessary to support the service, which is what Meta is doing.

    However, fuck Meta.

    chiliedogg ,

    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.

    rchive ,

    Shh, people don’t wanna hear that. Lol

    Aceticon ,

    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.

    holdthecheese ,

    That’s not a loophole, it’s a key provision of the law.

    archon ,

    True, edited.

    reverendsteveii ,

    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.

    BrowseMan ,

    Yeah that what I tought: if I pay, what is my guarantee you won’t collect and sell my info on top of that?

    hubobes ,

    Isn’t this just an additional paid option and the ad option is what everyone already had and everyone outside the EU still has?

    Ilovethebomb ,

    Yup. Basically, you need to enable ads to use the free, ad supported platform.

    Iceblade02 OP ,

    No. Where I live it has previously been possible to opt-out of personalized advertisements in favor of generic ones. That has now been removed.

    hubobes ,

    That option is still there for me (in addition to the new option to pay) in the Instagram app, in the settings there is an ad settings option which sends you to the website where you can configure that.

    The circled setting, the other one is the one at the top of the list

    lostmypasswordanew ,

    The text is also incredible misleading. The data will still be harvested and monetized, just not for ads.

    hightrix ,

    Even that claim I find dubious. Yes, your data won’t inform targeted ads on Facebook, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be used for targeted ads elsewhere on the internet.

    Honytawk ,

    And it most certainly will still be used to make general prediction for the rest of the population

    bort ,

    Laws are changing in your region, so we’re introducinga new choice about how we use your info for ads.

    Which law?

    sndrtj ,

    None. The statement is false. The law didn’t change. What did change was the enforcement thereof.

    cley_faye ,

    You know, the law. That one. That law that changed. The law that changed in your region. That law. That recently changed.

    gian ,

    No law changed, they simply are now obligated to respect the GDPR (at least formally).

    smotherlove ,

    Third choice: Delete your account and never look back.

    A_Random_Idiot ,

    Imagine how many artificially inflated egos would be deflated all at once if facebook/social media went away.

    probably be one the greatest things to happen to humanity.

    schnapsman ,

    Isn’t that incredible? Turns out that connecting people to one another in this way fosters some healthy interaction for those who choose it but also amplifies loads of unhealthy bs. I’m one of those idiots who 15 years ago thought the internet and social media would bring about something of a second enlightenment, a golden area of progressivism, being well-informed, connected to one another in new and beautiful ways.

    Mongostein ,

    25ish years ago we all thought the internet would be a wonderful marketplace of ideas where people wouldn’t be judged by their age, gender, race or whatever, but on the merit of their ideas.

    And it did feel that way for a while back when it took a bit of intelligence to get online. However, now that anyone can get online with just a few clicks the morons have learned how to amplify their moronity.

    PieMePlenty ,

    Its both a marketplace of ideas and the cesspool of moronity.

    A_Random_Idiot ,

    100% because of social media. see my reply to schnapsman

    A_Random_Idiot ,

    It would have been that. Or at least a lot more like that…

    If social media hadnt been invented, and if social media hadn’t gamified human interaction with upvotes/likes/etc, which ended up doing nothing but creating a dopamine feedback loop that is directly responsible for the extremity of online discourse today.

    Social media is also responsible for using its algorithms to link isolated village idiots and conspiracy nuts, and giving them secure echochambers with which to bounce off of eachother free of outside criticism or view, until they ended up completely disconnected from any hint of reality.

    rchive ,

    I mean, it sort of did, it’s just not quite that simple. A lot of amazing things have come about because of social media. So many artists able to reach people directly without needing gatekeepers like publishers. Movements able to be organized where previously those people would have never interacted.

    freebee ,

    Commenting this on a post about one of the new gatekeepers is quite ironic.

    rchive ,

    The route to getting something posted on Facebook or other social media involves 1 gatekeeper who barely involves itself. The route to getting a book or news article published involves more, and they micromanage the content much much more. Just compare what percentage of people have posted something on Facebook vs have had an article published by a newspaper or magazine.

    freebee ,

    You can post all you want, if you actually want to reach an audience you must comply with silly rules (try putting an innocent non sexualized nipple on an albumcover and posting it to facebook) and you have to pay for visibility because algorithm heavily favours money. On top it’s vendor locked-in, there are only very few networks with a very large userbase, and even fewer corporations behind them.

    rchive ,

    None of that affects people’s ability to disseminate information anywhere close to the constraints put on people by traditional publishing. Again, how many people have ever posted to social media vs how many people have ever published a book?

    freebee ,

    you’re disseminating into the void and this conversation we’re having is a fine example. The gatekeeper (in this case: facebook) determines who gets a very wide audience and who gets to scream into the void.

    LiamMayfair ,

    I welcome this change. It makes it clear to the user in realistic terms how they want to engage with the site.

    • Pay up with your money
    • Pay up with your data
    • Don’t use Facebook

    I despise Meta and all their products but they are entitled to charge people for them. Shit ain’t free to run, you know.

    I’d much sooner they showed this banner and force people to make a decision than what they’ve been doing up until now, which is to “assume” everyone’s fine with their personal data being harvested and exploited without their knowledge or consent.

    fuzzzerd ,

    That assumes that because they’re paying they aren’t also tracking. They might not use it for ads directly but they’ll still sell it to others that will show you ads off Facebook.

    FishFace ,

    Facebook’s data is way more valuable to Facebook; it doesn’t sell data to third parties. If you think they’re going to sell the non-monetisable data to third parties, you have to believe they’re willing to introduce this (which is likely to be unpopular) in apparent compliance with data protection laws, while still flagrantly violating them in secret, without any of their many employees nor any of their partners’ employees blowing the whistle (and Meta as a company leaks all the time). If they were doing that, why would they bother setting up the fake “pay to not be tracked” flow, when they could pretend to honour people’s free requests not to be tracked?

    spraynpray ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    FishFace ,

    That information is not Personally Identifiable Information and so it’s out of scope of privacy protecting law like the GDPR and is probably not what anyone should be worrying about when it comes to data companies.

    For those not familiar with the terminology, this means that an advertiser may receive information like, “there exists a person who is 25-30 years old, likes animals, is politically left wing, lives in Michigan” etc - they don’t get that person’s name or other details that allows the advertiser to go away and advertise to you separately. Nor does it allow the government to find out that you like animals by grabbing the traffic.

    spraynpray ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    FishFace ,

    Thanks for this detail - I didn’t know it included IP address and accurate Lat/Long (though I guess only if you enable location services)

    I agree that that would be very de-anonymisable and probably does fall under the remit of GDPR etc.

    In the present context, I think whether or not Meta is using such granular data for real time bidding currently, they’d be arguing that all the RTB data is sufficiently covered by their privacy policy. But this new dialog says “your data won’t be used for ads” which categorically rules out this possibility. I don’t doubt that Meta could be breaking the law where they have a legal argument they can use to claim they aren’t - what I do doubt is that they are breaking the law when all it would take is a single leak to demonstrate that they are lying in their privacy policy. 4% of global revenue is not to be trifled with!

    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    why would they bother setting up the fake “pay to not be tracked” flow

    They didn’t. That was not an option.

    LWD , (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    thanks_shakey_snake ,

    Did you omit option 3 for brevity, or because you think it’s not a valid option?

    LWD , (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Bazoogle ,

    Offline activity stays offline if it never goes online. If you don’t have a facebook account, then your probably have thousands of facebook accounts. It will generate an identity for each unique advertising ID you use, and you can always generate new ones in most devices.

    Honytawk ,

    Those accounts get combined through fingerprinting and other dark systems.

    tabular , (edited )
    @tabular@lemmy.world avatar

    Don’t use Facebook is the best answer but if you must then the next best option is:

    • Choose a better Adblock

    You don’t owe your enemy anything. Stop using spyware as a business model.

    Thorny_Insight ,

    Yeah, even getting them to display this banner is a victory in itself.

    cley_faye ,
    • Pay up with your money

    More like give us money, while also paying up with your data, that we won’t use for tracking, only for resell to people that will sell us back tracking details in a maybe not currently illegal way. Also we also are the “people” that will buy the info and sell back the tracking.

    CrapConnoisseur ,

    Fun fact: In Illinois we actually got pretty nice checks from Facebook over them violating a biometric law the state has. I believe most of us in the class action lawsuit got around $300 each.

    PoseidonsWake ,
    @PoseidonsWake@lemmy.world avatar

    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.

    Obi ,
    @Obi@sopuli.xyz avatar

    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.

    lolcatnip ,

    The boasts of having already left Facebook and the calls for others to abandon it are predictable and tedious. Everyone already knows Lemmy is full of people who wouldn’t touch Facebook with a 10 foot pole. Y’all are not contributing anything by crowing about it; you’re just making noise.

    sergih ,

    It is good to know what’s going on out there, I haven’t touched facebook in years and I didn’t know there was now the possibility to oay for it and you’d get a screen like this.

    This info can alwaya be valuable and I’m thankful this guy posted it

    lolcatnip ,

    I was complaining about the comments, not the post itself.

    akilou ,

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

    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”.

    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)

    kokesh ,
    @kokesh@lemmy.world avatar

    Same on IG

    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.

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