As I write this, my status on Facebook is deactivated. I have been a

Facebook user for a number of years. However, Facebook allowed a continuous campaign of disinformation and fake news stories to proliferate during the 2016 election.  Their advanced algorithms should have been able to catch these false news sources.  Failure to recognize a problem means a failure to fix it.

Maybe it was seeing people I knew IRL liking and sharing obvious disinformation and flat out lies that finally put the nail in the coffin. I de-friended those people and then deactivated my account. I find Mark Zuckerberg’s denial of the facts very disturbing.

I’ve never considered Facebook a news source, but way too many people do.  For news, I look to NPR, PBS, New Yorker, Washington Post, Guardian, and other reputable outlets. I listen to podcasts from a variety of sources. Facebook won’t be making any ad dollars off of my “views” or “clicks”.

A day in the life of my typical timeline includes:

  • Recipes I don’t want to see.
  • Sharing false news.
  • Seeing your “friends” make obnoxious comments on other people’s timeline
  • People sharing past memories, when I saw them the first time.
  • Friend requests from people who aren’t my friends. They could be friends of family members, but they aren’t my friends.

It seems like I spend more time un-following people or hiding various news sources. But more fake news sources are created as soon as those are blocked. What’s the point?

Somehow, Twitter is able to do a far better job at managing this than Facebook.  So for now, I’ll stick to Twitter, Instagram (yes, owned by Facebook), and Snapchat.  This election has put many things into perspective.