Quitting Facebook

Facebook has become unbearable to me, so those who connect to me there might want to know I'm off it. Temporary or permanent break, dunno.

It has major privacy issues but i am one of the lucky ones who read a post from a friend 13-14 years ago, a post to a group we were both in, that explained how completely public everything you do online really is, how impossible to delete, how searchable, etc.  I guess I have never expected anything else, and am so in the habit of keeping that in mind that it always kind of surprises me when others are so blown away about the discovery that their privacy is nearly nil.  I kinda don't care how public my posts and comments are, because I always write them with that expectation.

But.  To be on Facebook is practically to enlist in an culture-war army, an army of Here Is What You Are Supposed To Think.  All day, and I only have about 55 active friends, the liberal and conservative posts spool and spool, and I mostly hate them all.

The Martin case has done me in.  I agree with much of what is said about the outrage that GZ committed, and STILL, STILL, I find that highly intelligent, highly educated friends who have demonstrated many times that they have complex and nuanced responses, are endlessly reposting multiple 2-dimensional lauds of Sweet, Innocent Martin on a sainthood fast track that will have him canonized long before John Paul II gets anywhere near his own.   I am BLOODY fed up.

It's not all.  There are family conflicts - distant family - going on right now and I can't even hide the culture-war junk and post about real life matters. I weigh every word, I worry how it will be read, or used, even when it's an inspirational quote or a book recommendation, I can't even be that self-edited milder version of myself there anymore.

Online life is stressful.  There are ways around offensive spam and offensive ads and Cardassians, but online life is a constant battle as each victory gets blocked, and the spam/junk purveyor creates a workaround; new defenses need to be employed, always a need to maneuver and cut off and reposition to attack again. It's like an old Mad Magazine piece from my youth, "Recruiting posters from history" that had one poster saying "Enlist now in the 100 Years War!"

I like so much of what the net has to offer.  We have an online business, plus there's wonderful stuff to fnd. I'm not willing to go back to 1970 tech.  Much of the battle against awfulness, I have to fight, but Facebook is one BIG battlefront I can at least take a major break from.

Back to blogging, maybe more of flickr (despite its changes) or Pinterest.  In the blog world I can read who I want to read, I can respond to people, I can write, certainly not much personal stuff -- same problem I have on FB -- but any musings I want to share, with a hair more control over their permanence and audience.  I know; not a whole lot, but some.  Writers need outlets.

None of the above right now.  I'm tired.

But I'm still here.  See yall around.