Goodbye Facebook

Yesterday when I tried to log in to Facebook (in order to use Messenger in my web browser), I got the message that my account had been suspended for "suspicious activity". No further explanation was given but I'm sure the suspension arose because of my frequent changes of country brought about by the use of my VPN.

Clearly the powers-that-be don't like VPNs because they mask a user's actual location and so this might be the start of crack-down on Facebook users who make use of a VPN. Who knows? I tried to follow the unlock steps but received an error message and couldn't proceed further. This was enough to make me decide to abandon Facebook and Messenger completely. The Messenger app on my iPhone was also disabled.

I won't miss the platform and am glad to be done with it. Anybody who needs to contact me can do so via WhatsApp or, less appealingly, Instagram (that's also owned by Meta).

Of course, Google is just as bad as Meta and I make extensive use of the former but I don't use it in connection with any social media. The applications I use (Blogger, Chrome browser, Keep, Google Docs, Gemini etc.) are free and facilitate productivity. Even though I didn't view Facebook often, I found that I'd be sucked in from time to time because in order to use Messenger in the brower, I had to open Facebook. It was generally a depressing experience but it's one that I'll no longer have to endure.

Facebook Censorship

Figure 1

I watched this video on BitChute that featured a range of medical professionals warning against the dangers of the Covid-19 vaccine. I posted a link to it on my Facebook site, mainly to see what action Facebook would take against it. Figure 1 shows a screenshot.

The post was quickly flagged as containing false information but the link was preserved so my Facebook friends could click on it if they chose. I was expecting some response but nothing came and it seems clear that I've been shadow banned described by Wikipedia as:

Shadow banning, also called stealth banning, ghost banning or comment ghosting, is the act of blocking or partially blocking a user or their content from an online community so that it will not be readily apparent to the user that they have been banned.

I'm not sure if that's what's happened. Facebook may simply not be promoting my post because the company's algorithm decides who sees what posts. Thus if someone visited my site they could still see my post, so I've not been banned.

One of my Facebook friends confirmed that my post had not appeared in his feed as it usually does but it was accessible if he went to my site. Thus if I wanted people to see it, I would have to message them and tell them to visit my site. One has to be more subtle if information is to be disseminated. For example, one could perhaps disguise the link as:

wwwdotbitchutedotcomslashvideoslashTlxWZHk5yhFM

However, I don't think I'll bother. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube are other such sites are of little use in presenting alternative viewpoints. The censorship will only intensify and it is better to migrate to alternative platforms sooner rather than later.