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Last week, $4.45M worth of Meta stock was sold by Chief Business Officer Marne Levine.

Then after 13 years of working at Meta, she abruptly leaves.

This after another round of lay-offs is anticipated.

I wonder if the exit was voluntary 🤔

cnbc.com/2023/02/13/meta-chief

Chris Trottier

What Zuckerberg should actually cut is Reality Labs. That, right there, would save them $13.7B a year.

But he won't do it because Meta is now chasing losses in an industry that might not be viable for another 10 years.

If the Metaverse is ever viable.

newsobserver.com/news/business

To be sure, I want Meta to die.

I don't like it when people lose jobs, not one bit.

But I also think Meta is one of the most toxic and evil corporations to exist: one that has enabled genocides.

So I hope Meta keeps making this mistake, and Facebook, Instagram, etc. keep dying a slow death.

It’s wild that people are willing to enable a genocidal tech monopoly that makes money from watching everything you do, and then manipulating you with the data they collect because… cat videos!

To be sure, I’m not trying to be smug or dismissive. This is what people literally tell me. Check comments elsewhere in this thread.

Obviously, if it was just cat videos, Meta would be a thing of the past.

What makes Meta particularly dangerous is how it keeps our friends and family locked away in their walled gardens.

It’s horrifying how Meta has built a sense of trust while violating that trust at every turn.

Challenging Twitter is easy. They’re low-hanging fruit.

It’s easy to take users from Twitter because the Fediverse reached feature parity with Twitter in all the ways that matter.

It’s harder to challenge Meta because their product evolves at a faster clip. But that’s not the only problem.

They’ve trained an entire generation of people that the rest of the Internet is scary, and that everything they could ever want or need is hosted by Meta.

That’s insidious!

I talk to several of my relatives, many who aren’t tech literate, and they see Meta in an entirely different light.

They see Facebook as a safe haven from the rest of the Internet.

For example, my mom doesn’t even trust Amazon. But she trusts Facebook.

Why? Because she actively sees her friends using Facebook, but not Amazon. She doesn’t need a credit card to use Facebook. And everything “bad” about Facebook is easy to dismiss as someone abusing the service.

This outlook may be common.

Everything considered, I think an excellent Facebook replacement can be had if Friendica built more tight integration with email and XMPP.

Use email for newsletters, and XMPP for messaging.

Won't result in mass adoption, but any adoption is worthwhile.

@atomicpoet Talking about WhatsApp dying a slow death: I was very excited to learn recently that Element already has a bridge with both Signal and WhatsApp, so I can use a single app for both chat apps. Allows me to easier switch away from WhatsApp. Its definitely not perfect yet, but its cool. Also uses Matrix, which is federated, so yay

@atomicpoet That’s the thing, innit? The network effect enables the real world effect. Streisand can complain till the cows come home, but if the home is on fire when they arrive…

@atomicpoet Ironically, the Meta "empire" & Twitter seem to be right now in the position that MySpace occupied in 2008: accumulating bad ethic & strategic decisions, and seeing as a result the Fediverse gain traction over them.

Thrilling times to be active! 😃

@atomicpoet Facebook, and thus Meta, was built to stalk girls Zuckerberg thought were attractive, nor? Kinda "toxic and evil" from the very start...

@atomicpoet I mean, I feel Meta is avoidable, as a company. Google embodies all of the same behavior, all of the same toxicity and apathy for humanity, but is also virtually inescapable in normal life.

May they both collapse in on their own hubris, but I'll be putting more of my direct effort into pushing Google over the edge.

@ocdtrekkie @atomicpoet sure Meta is avoidable, but only if you don't care about anyone that uses Facebook. Or Instagram, for that matter.

@cuchaz @atomicpoet I mean, that's like saying you can't avoid Twitter if you don't care about people who use Twitter. Sure, but it's kinda silly as an argument.

Block your network from talking to Google servers and see how often you fail to accomplish basic tasks. Amazon and Microsoft are the only two that even come close to Google's pervasiveness.

@ocdtrekkie @atomicpoet I mean, most people have close friends and family members that use Facebook. That's not nearly the same thing as Twitter, where the relationships are mostly professional, or interest-related. Not the same thing at all. I mean "care" in the deep personal sense here. Not interacting with them because "hurrr, mah privacy" has a high personal cost in a way that the other services just don't.

@ocdtrekkie This is true. I no longer use any Meta product. Alphabet is harder to avoid.

@atomicpoet @ocdtrekkie What am I missing? I can only count one Alphabet product that I can’t easily replace: youtube

Plenty of (often better) options for:
Search, Mail, Docs, Chrome, Maps (or as I prefer to think of it “corporate physical tracking”)

Now if you want all FREE options, that’s harder … but as they say if it’s free then you (or more precisely selling your data and profile to companies / advertisers) is the product.

@amart @atomicpoet The issue isn't just your use of them, it's everyone else's. Google sees most of your email even if you don't use Gmail. And if your business doesn't rank well in Google Search, you do not have an operational business. Meanwhile, a third of all the sites you go to/businesses you deal with are hosted in Google datacenters.

@atomicpoet I was with you on this up until the #Instagram bit 😅 It's like the best source for daily #cat videos and photos.
And there's no way in hell I'd ever join #Tiktok.
I know #Pixelfed is a thing but the creators just aren't there. The #memes.

With #Mastodon I feel like I'm not missing much when I don't use #Twitter instead. But giving up on Instagram would just feel like a QoL downgrade unless something else comes along.

@chertograd No cat video will ever make up for the numerous fidget and downright evil things that Meta does.

Nevertheless, development on the Fediverse continues.

Eventually, you’ll have your cat videos here.

@atomicpoet @chertograd I've not used any Meta services, but the Fediverse is full of pet cat photos/videos from the entire World and I've also seen puma, leopards, lions and ocelots too from folk where these are native in their country 😺

@atomicpoet @chertograd what do you mean "eventually"? It already feels like half the posts here are cat pics/videos :ablobcatwink:

@ar @chertograd On the Fediverse, video is not there yet.

@ar @atomicpoet I think you may be referring to different sorts of videos and pictures then.
I do follow the appropriate hashtags yet I'm not seeing it.
Just "regular" stuff like a cat lying on a sofa.
I mean I'm looking for content that makes me laugh.
Has to be high effort.

@ar @atomicpoet
Or stuff like this (I watch this sort of stuff on a daily basis) 😄

@chertograd @atomicpoet I once thought this, too, but I managed to stop doing Instagram regularly after 2019 (though I weaned myself off and used it less and less frequently till I stopped altogether). How I did it: I began asking myself, 'Why am I making that **** rich?'
It might not work for everyone but thought Iʼd share.
Facebook I left in 2017 though I gradually did less and less there, too, leading up to my last post.

@atomicpoet Totally agree, and the sooner the better. Apart from exposing their malware operation (which Wired covered based on my tip and research, after two years of looking for a tech journalist with guts), I was quite happy to call Zuckerberg a compulsive liar on National Radio.
No complaints other than from one tech bro with his head in the sand.
Weʼd all find substitutes for networking and keeping in touch so easily.

@atomicpoet On the upside, that generation is sliding consistently out of the general population, and Meta has roundly failed to get anyone excited about Facebook in the past couple generations. Instagram and Whatsapp have a bit younger crowd, but even then, I suspect it'll age out too.

@atomicpoet Fair point. To add to your point, I think it's is meaningful to mention the lens at which the different places are viewed.

Facebook is/was considered a "Family Hub" connection point. There are people today who maintain a Facebook presence only to engage with family members. It's a 'blind faith' connection point for a lot of people. Twitter was never considered that connected.

Places like Facebook are a different beast entirely, and need to be addressed as such in order to be rolled back.

@reiver @mentallyalex @atomicpoet Conserving the privacy of people: access control, groups, visibility of posts to friends lists, or other concepts.

#diaspora has circles, which might do that. Probably #friendica and #hubzilla do, too.

@atomicpoet I think also the main strength of facebook is that it gathers a lot of real known contacts. It replaced their email address books.

And of course they own WhatsApp ... I almost forgot that.

@atomicpoet That's the whole selling point of the walled garden, right there. AOL made millions off the same vibe: "Like the internet, but organised and sanitised for your convenience!"

@atomicpoet Does Friendica support Events or Marketplaces? I think a lot of people stay on FB for those alone. Not to stay in contact with acqu... oohh no. Not even trying to write that word.

Acquaitances
Acquaiaitances
Acquaintances
Acqqfuckthisword

@chertograd It supports events, not marketplace.

@atomicpoet
I hate writing this word with every living bone in my body.
Seems less possible than hexekosioihexekontahexaphobia

@tsadilas I mean, HHVM is kind of like PHP 🤷‍♂️

@atomicpoet Still. I think a JS system would be much better

@atomicpoet Someone should fund @mike to develop some of his ideas full-time. Build up either Friendica or Streams and we'd have a better Facebook than Meta could dream of....

@glenn @mike From a functional standpoint, Hubzilla is excellent.

I think if a UI/UX expert got a hold of it, it would blow everyone away.

@atomicpoet I hope we do not settle "Trapezoidal form" of federation (like XMPP) for RTC. Then we have to worry about version comp between servers and clients; user verification. It is much preferable for the caller directly access called's server get authenticated and get connected is a better way.

@atomicpoet Email is my least favorite communication from a technical point of view, I could not handle more drivel in my inbox that I mostly ignore.

I’d say RSS instead. Plus groups is what I miss about FB.

@atomicpoet Yeah, I still have a couple dozen people I don't see anyplace else. I set up a friends and family discord and got some people to come there, but it doesn't generate a lot of engagement. I also have a discord family channel just to talk to my kids, who don't really use much other social media. (older one telegram, younger reddit) but are both on discord for gaming. But getting the old people off FB is tough.

@atomicpoet Can confirm relatives with a similar outlook. Except what I hear re: abuses is, "Well, it's not illegal, that's just business"

@atomicpoet it’s very common in my part of the world (#Thailand). Facebook is for all intents and purposes unavoidable here. Local and national government uses it to communicate. Big and small business don’t have websites but use Facebook pages instead.
For many people here, Facebook *is* the internet.
I hate it and I wish it was different, but if I would ditch my Facebook account I would effectively cut myself off from a lot of practical things I need on a regular basis.
Sad but true.

@atomicpoet For my mother who is 79, Facebook is the only way she gets to see pictures of her great granddaughter, and how she knows what others in the extended family are doing.

It’s hard to get away from those social connections, especially as you get older and your world shrinks.

@leopardboy @atomicpoet I used to work for an organization that served primarily older people. This is how they see it. It’s where their friends and family are. It’s where they see news from their church, their favorite restaurant, or the local animal shelter. They aren’t going to get that anywhere else.

@atomicpoet Helped along by old media, too. In the 1990s and for a good part of the 2000s, I noticed some legacy media constantly run negative stories about the evils of the internet (or not promote internet success stories at all). By the time even older readers realized that was alarmist, Facebook came along.
In our family, there sure are a lot of older members on there. Probably mirrors your own experience.