Word has it that face scanning will soon be necessary to do anything at all on FB and IG (including deleting your account) so I'm in the process of taking care of that business now and trying to encourage the few friends I'm still in touch with to do the same.

Unfortunately, without an account you can't access content, and there are still numerous local businesses and organizations posting at FB and IG and I can't really expect that to change anytime soon. But it would definitely help sell the idea of giving them up if I can offer another way of seeing posts on those sites.

With IG, there is https://imginn.com/ which I've been using for a time, it seems to work well enough to show an account's IG posts.

What I really need is something like that for FB. I don't really need to see posts from individual accounts as I don't even think my friends post on FB anymore; I really just want to be able to see "Liked Pages" as those are often regional businesses and communities. Being able to see groups would also be helpful but those often require special permission even when you do have an FB account so I don't expect much there.

Thanx

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[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

"I'm cutting it entirely", "how can I see it's content"

Clearly you're not ot cutting it entirely, as you immediately after declaring you quit smoking bought another pack.

Just leave those platforms. Screw it's brain rot content. Don't open links from friends to there anymore. Just live a better life without all the junk there, plus without the junk on YouTube shorts and tiktok. Trust me, your life gets better without it.

[–] KaChilde@sh.itjust.works 6 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

OP isn’t asking about how to keep viewing shorts or memes from friends.

Many businesses forgo websites and put their contacts, opening hours, menus, and updates on a dedicated Facebook page. Is that small business open on Sundays? Google says yes, but Facebook has a post from the owner about their dog dying so the store is closed for the week.

I am part of several social groups that communicate entirely through Facebook. There is no way to get updates out to all members outside of the dedicated group pages. A venue change a few months back caused chaos because some people didn’t check the Facebook group in the week leading up to the event.

I too want to leave Facebook, and have stripped my use down to these minor use cases. But getting rid of it completely at this point cuts me off from some of my only positive mental health activities.

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

If a business stops using a website but uses Facebook (or similar platforms) instead, they will miss me as a customer. If their customer service is only on social media, they will miss me as a customer. Fuck them, I don't want to be forced onto certain platforms to be able to contact a company or see what's up. I'll go to the competition, preferably a small company, which still uses a website and has a phone number with a human answering it.

[–] KaChilde@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

Huh? Small businesses are the ones that predominantly use FB to replace traditional websites. If you want to support local business, chances are they are using a free Facebook page rather than paying for web hosting.

Gladys’s Artisanal Buttplugs is owned by a 60 year old who doesn’t know the first thing about running a website, but she has used Facebook to send spam to her grandkids for years. If I want to avoid giving my money to Big Plug^tm^, FB may be my only way to contact local creators.

I get the disdain for FB, I really do, but pretending that there aren’t people being held hostage by the system is a bit silly. This thread was about someone trying to untangle themselves from FB, and you’ve turned it into a moral argument, as if they don’t agree with your assessment of social media anyway.

[–] eggdaddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 12 hours ago

This is so true. I fucking LOATHE FB but our city has a fb group on it and it's dummy useful. I've tried to move them over to a hosted forum but only one person came. It's like people are just stuck hard on FB and won't ditch it come hell or high water.

[–] FrChazzz@lemmus.org 2 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Came here to say this. I left cold turkey almost two years ago and haven't regretted it. I get way more value out of time spent on Mastodon and Lemmy (and I spend way less time on those platforms than I did on FB or IG). I also use Pixelfed, but most of the posts I see there are of birds, flowers, or moss so I only really go there when I want to look at pretty and relaxing things (especially on Sundays with the #silentsunday posts).

The only way to truly leave entirely is to not look back.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 hours ago

No one in my IRL knows what a Lemmy or a mastodon is. All they know is the tok and fb and x.

I sent them a Lemmy link once and they were all really scared it was a dark web virus. People are really stupid.

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 hours ago

I never wss on insta and tiktok and I left Facebook 10 years ago. I spend way too much time on Lemmy, but most of my time I spend with friends or doing things I love. Fuck social media. It makes everyone miserable.

[–] Ricaz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

You're talking about being fed content.

In my country, Facebook is so embedded that it's hard to leave. All communication is on Messenger. All events are managed on Facebook.

[–] FrChazzz@lemmus.org 1 points 7 hours ago

I feel that. Here in Hawai'i a lot of our emergency services, etc. only use Twitter. Finding information can be difficult otherwise. I imagine in some places it's basically impossible.