Boycott Facebook? Ha! (But What About Other Social Media…?) -The iPINIONS Journal

Calls to boycott Facebook are becoming pandemic among businesses worldwide.

Numerous businesses are pausing their advertising campaigns on Facebook (FB) – and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook – to boycott the company’s policies around what content it moderates and how.

The campaign, called ‘Stop Hate for Profit,’ and organized by the NAACP, Color for Change, the Anti-Defamation League, Sleeping Giants, Free Press, and Common Sense Media, already has some big names involved, including a large swath of the outdoor apparel industry.

‘From the monetization of hate speech to discrimination in their algorithms to the proliferation of voter suppression to the silencing of Black voices, Facebook has refused to take responsibility for hate, bias, and discrimination growing on their platforms,’ writes the Color for Change website.

(Yahoo! Finance, June 25, 2020)

Like Covid-19, however, you probably won’t give a damn unless the boycott affects you personally. But, truth be told, it never will.

As it happens, though, I was in the vanguard of those who had the foresight to see years ago what is just becoming clear to these businesses today. But, frankly, I stood alone when it came to sacrificing for this cause.

Because you’d be hard-pressed to find another blogger who in 2005 refused to join Google and Facebook, hoping to make easy money by featuring their indiscriminate ads. In other words, I had the good sense even back then to shun their “adsense.”

This is why it’s arguable that mine is the only and oldest blog on the Internet that has never run a commercial ad. I’ve been publishing continually for over 15 years.

Still, I welcome the Johnnies-come-lately in the business world now calling for a boycott of Facebook. But it’s plainly dubious that they are only “pausing” their ads. Moreover, they should expand their scope to include all social-media companies.

In any event, mine has been no passive-aggressive protest. As is so often the case, I’ve decried the perverse and insidious nature of Facebook’s business model in too many commentaries to count.

Therefore, to honor the 15th anniversary of this blog, I shall list the titles to 15 commentaries I’ve written for this cause. No doubt they will speak far greater truth than the Madison-Avenue slogans these businesses are clearly planning to drop on you.

Accordingly:

“Beware Google Declares Nothing’s Private!” December 8, 2009
“Why I Hate Twitter,” February 1, 2013
“Facebook ‘Like’ an Infectious Disease,” January 24, 2014
“Facebook Complaining about NSA Spying? Ha!” March 15, 2014
“Facebook Friends?! Try Facebook’s Guinea Pigs,” July 8, 2014
“Hey Moron, Personal Tweet Is … an Oxymoron,” March 6, 2015
“Chomsky Slams Google Spying, Useless Twitter,” April 16, 2015
“The ‘False Reality’ of Social Media. Duh,” November 4, 2015
“‘UnLike’ Facebook for Facilitating Trump’s ‘Post-Truth’ Run to the White House,” November 18, 2016
“Tech Companies Worse than Snowden’s Bogeyman NSA,” March 3, 2017
“Zuckerberg Designed Facebook ‘Like’ an Opioid,” November 13, 2017
“PSA: Your Next Selfie Could Kill You,” December 17, 2018
“Facebook Exploiting You Like a Pimp Exploits Prostitutes…,” December 20, 2018
“Facebook, Too Good (a Friend) to Break Up…?” May 9, 2019
“Testing Social Networks Without ‘Likes’ … Because a ‘Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste,’” September 26, 2019
“Social-Media Anonymity Just Gives License to Menace,” February 20, 2020

Perhaps now you understand why I have never joined any social media network, let alone tried to make money on any of them. But if, unlike Donald Trump’s, your narcissism isn’t already irredeemable, I urge you to take this clarion call to boycott Facebook as a timeout to reconsider your social media activities.

Because, trust me, I suspect even your own “friends” ridicule your thirst for “Likes”; you know, the way everyone from world leaders to members of his own cabinet ridicule Trump behind his back – as John Bolton reveals in his just-released book. #Laughingstock!