I used Facebook quite a lot. I posted lots of things, I got to know a lot of people, I learned about things that I wouldn’t learn anywhere else, I shared experiences.
But the feeling that I am the product and Facebook is the user got stronger and stronger as time passed. It happens with many other companies and products, but with Facebook it’s especially strong.
In February 2015 I stopped posting, sharing and liking, and I deleted Facebook apps from all my other devices. I continued occasionally reading and exchanging private messages in a private browser window.
Then I noticed that a few times things were shared in my name, and people liked them and commented on them. I am sure that I didn’t share them, and I am also quite sure that it wasn’t a virus (are there viruses that do such things on GNU/Linux?). Also, a few people told me that they received messages from me, and I’m sure that I didn’t send them; It’s possible that they saw something else under my name and thought that it’s a message even though it was something else, but in any case, nobody is supposed to think such a thing. That’s not how people are supposed to interact.
I am not a bug, not an A/B test, not a robot, not an integer in a database. I am Amir Aharoni and from today Facebook doesn’t use me. There are other and better ways to communicate with people.
Stop saying that “everybody is on Facebook”. I am not. I don’t feel exceptionally proud or special. I am not the only one who does this; a few of my friends did the same and didn’t write any blog posts or make any fuss about it.
You should delete your Facebook account, too.
Aharoni in Unicode 