Friday 9 March 2018

Leaving Facebook


A few weeks ago I left Fakebook permanently and forever.

This was not a spur of the moment decision. This was a decision I had been mulling for a long time, and delayed, I believe, for far too long already.

Here is why I left.

I had had enough.

I had had enough of the drama queens, who think every moment of their existence is worth shouting out to the world. I had had enough of the liberals and their “Russiagate”, their anti-Putin rants, and their rainbow flagwagging. I had had enough of the “transgender activists”, the “gay rights” rubbish, and the neurotics who validate their existence by how obsessively they use Zuckerberg’s site.

I had had enough of pretending, even by my silence, that I give a damn about homosexuals or “transgender” people, or breeders who pretend that not spawning is somehow selfish and anti-human. I had had enough of Jew-hating Holocaust deniers, zionazi-supporting fascist vermin, Islamomisiac racists, Modifellating Bhaktonazis, and the rest of them.

And I had had enough of Amerikastanis. Back in 2003, when Bush invaded Iraq, I had made a statement that went like this: “If you are an American citizen, and you do not go out of your way to explicitly prove that you are opposed to the warmongering policies of your government, you are a war crimes enabler and a war criminal as far as I am concerned.” That was after 90% of American citizens had approved Bush’s declared “crusade” against the world in 2001.

Think about that a moment. 90% of American citizens supported a war of aggression without end, against people who had done them no harm.

There is no forgiveness for this.

Oh, I tried. Over the next few years I deluded myself into the mistaken belief that only the government and the media of America are corrupt and evil, and that the basic American has the same redeeming qualities as anyone else. That idea began to die when the blood soaked war criminal George W Bush left office to be replaced by the even more vile blood-soaked war criminal Barack Hussein Obama – and the very same Americans (people whom I had known for years) suddenly traded their opposition to war carried out by the Shrub for enthusiastic approbation of war carried out by the Mulatto Messiah with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Still, I hung on. I hung on until the Amerikastani 2016 election and its aftermath (which is still dragging on to this day). I hung on to see the same Amerikastani liberals who allegedly opposed American wars proudly pose with their spawn in uniform; I saw them become cheerleaders for the same FBI and CIA which they had been shrilly condemning a decade earlier. I saw people who spent their time hating everything about Trump either stay completely and deafeningly silent on his wars abroad, or attacking him because he simply wasn’t doing enough killing.

I repeat – these were the very same people.

And I had had enough.

Finally, I have gone right back to my position in 2003, which I now am fully convinced was essentially correct: “If you are an American citizen, and you do not go out of your way to explicitly prove that you are opposed to the warmongering policies of your government, you are a war crimes enabler and a war criminal as far as I am concerned.” I would however add one extra phrase: "... irrespective of the party in power in your country" after "policies of your government."

I do not intend to be fooled again.

Telling them this was, and is, pointless. Amerikastanis think they know everything already. As President Putin said recently, after unveiling Russia’s new missiles, Russia had been begging Amerikastan for years to understand that the current path led down to nothing except dangerous confrontation, but Warshington would not listen. “So listen now.”

They did not listen to him, either. Putin doesn’t really have an option; as a national leader, he has to deal with Amerikastanis. But I don’t.

This was another major reason why I left; I wanted to limit my exposure to Amerikastanis as much as I could. It was essential for managing my own stress levels, on top of everything else. On other social media I use, I interact either with relatively few Americans (who are not Amerikastanis, but thinking humans) or where politics are not discussed, like on the comic satire blog on the left of this page.

Then there was Fakebook itself.

What is Fakebook?

First, it is a tool of enslavement. Fakebook is like a drug; it drip feeds you “likes” in an effort to make you a neurotic whose self-worth is measured in those likes, and who therefore keeps trying to get more. In order to get those, of course, one has to fit in with the tastes of one’s contacts (Fakebook keeps suggesting an ever expanding list of contacts) and so you find yourself conforming to whatever propaganda Zuckerberg decides you should believe. And he censors the rest.

This censorship is both direct and indirect. Fakebook direct, or overt, censorship is crude and highly visible. Links from RT or other non-Amerikastani or NATO-controlled media disappear quickly; I once had a link from RT vanish within thirty seconds of posting it, while one from the CIA-controlled Washington Post on the very same topic, saying the same thing, stayed intact. That’s obviously to compel adherence to the War Party line, as is the arbitrary banning of (invariably pro-Russia and pro-Syria) users for any or no reason whatever.

The indirect, covert, censorship is much less well known, and that is the one that makes a lot of money for Zuckerberg. You may miss this fact, but Fakebook has no content. None. It’s like an empty building. All the content is provided by users, and all of it is free of cost to Zuckerberg. He just has to make money from it.

And he does it by quite simple means. You have a page on Fakebook where you want to post your music, or art, or writing, or anything that you want the world outside your contacts to see? Fine, you can do that...as long as you pay Zuckerberg to promote it. If you don’t, said page might as well not exist as far as 99.99999999% of Fakebookers are concerned; they’ll never see it.

Then there are the adverts. Fakebook keeps trying to mine data, endlessly, so that it can tailor adverts to you. Any of the “games” your idiot friends keep trying to get you to play aren’t games; they’re tools to get information about you so that advertisers can hit you with their lies. And, of course, the data also goes to the CIA. Of course it does.

I was sick of the attempts to brainwash me into a neurotic zombie spending every waking hour making money for Zuckerberg. I was sick of the censorship. I was sick of the “promoted material” being pushed on me.

This was although I was using far less than all the tools Fakebook kept trying to push on me. I did not download the Fakebook App. I refused to use Fakebook Messenger or Fakebook Lite. I did not play any games. I disabled all text messages and emails from Fakebook. And still it was far too much to tolerate.

So I quit.

Even quitting wasn’t easy. Fakebook makes it as hard as possible. The site only gives you, from the site itself, an option to deactivate your account, meaning it’s still there, and any time you sign in it gets activated again. There is a way to permanently delete your account, but you would never know it from Fakebook. Google “How to delete my Facebook account permanently”, and you will find a link on this page. From it you can apply to have your Fakebook account deleted. But you would never know it from the main Fakebook site. Even then I had to wait two weeks before they wiped my Fakebook permanently.

How do I feel now that I am without Fakebook? Do I miss anybody? Do I have any withdrawal symptoms? No and no. As I said in a farewell message I put up before I left, those who were interested would know where else on the net to find me already. Those who didn’t know weren’t interested. And I am far from surprised to find that just one single person followed me to my alternative sites, no matter how much many of them pretended sorrow (or, a sad emoticon, :( ,because writing a line is too hard and taxing on the attention span) at my leaving Fakebook. Just one, who left one message for me on VKontakte and stopped being active there. The rest of those who are still connected to me on alternate sites were already connected.

I am still writing my novel, and I am still drawing cartoons, and I have some more peace of mind since I freed myself from Zuckerberg’s shackles. If you think you should, too, you know what to do.

Goodbye, Fakebook, won’t ever be back, won’t miss you.