this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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Google searches for deleting Facebook, Instagram on the rise after Meta ends fact-checking | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
submitted 1 day ago by mesamunefire@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 3 points 47 minutes ago* (last edited 45 minutes ago)

I've never had even a single Facebook account, to explain why it's because the UK police once tried to stitch me up and they kept demanding my Facebook account (presumably to fish) I never had one but they would not let that go.

Once I got representation that line of questioning ended but holy hell did they seem to put a lot of emphasis on my non existent Facebook account.

For the curious I was raided due to an anonymous phone (to the mayor's office) call that claimed I was going to shoot up my workplace or something ridiculous.

My belief is the police wanted to impress the mayor so they just wouldn't let it go despite being nonsense until I paid representation to make them behave.

[–] Mojimbo54321@lemmy.world 6 points 1 hour ago

Dropped Facebook completely in 2018 my mental health was much better for it

[–] Absaroka@lemmy.world 3 points 56 minutes ago (2 children)

I am now scheduled for deletion.

[–] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 1 points 10 minutes ago

It's silly they don't just delete it instead they make you wait...

[–] jdeath@lemm.ee 1 points 53 minutes ago

i worry about (future, AI enhanced) impersonation attempts so I just keep it secure and don’t post anything.

[–] Eudocimus@lemm.ee 5 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

I have no clue why anyone takes this seriously or is concerned about this. I have seen maybe three fact-checks during my lifetime on Facebook. That was a long long time ago. I disagreed with two of them and I am not sure if the third one said anything interesting.

Is there a population somewhere I am not aware of, who believes everything they see on Facebook, who will now be ruined by this change?

[–] Baguette@lemm.ee 13 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I dont think fact checking was the main reason, moreso that they decided to allow hate speech (e.g. They're allowing targetted hate against LGBT groups).

[–] hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 43 minutes ago

Never seen FB disallow fake news or hate speech as long as it is coming from the (extreme) right.

Either they just stop pretending now or irl somehow get even worse?

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 hours ago

The usual suspects of Gen Boomer and X that first preached to not believe anything on the internet and yet doing exactly that without an external fact check.

Personally for stuff I don't really care, I will always say "Allegedly (...)" before stating something a website says. If the stuff is important (to me or a peer) I might look harder into it.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

he's replacing it with community notes, which is a good thing. the problem i have with Facebook and Instagram is all the useless junk videos that i didn't ask for and it keeps showing me

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 15 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Community note: this guy smells and is wrong.

[–] Donkter@lemmy.world 0 points 33 minutes ago

Community saw this as a potential note and agreed that it isn't provably true and doesn't contribute to the post. Rejected and it won't be shown.

If you think this method doesn't work I have an entire Wikipedia to show you.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

they don't usually happen that way

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Since Facebook market place is the defacto classified now I keep my account around to buy and sell. My feed is full of AI generated images related to anything I search on market place. Right now it is all trucks because I was looking for truck tires.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

i keep seeing dirtbikes climbing hills and fair enough ok

[–] Soulifix@kbin.melroy.org 228 points 1 day ago (9 children)

People should've dropped FB back in 2016 or when the Cambridge Analytica happened.

[–] Whateley@lemm.ee 8 points 4 hours ago

I deleted mine shortly thereafter. I tried to convince friends and family to do the same but got accusations of being paranoid or a conspiracy theorist. Jump to now, everyone's Christmas gifts from them this year was tatty bullshit from Temu that was advertised to them on Facebook and I spend most of my time with them dismantling conspiracy theories and misinformation they picked up from the dumbasses they interact with on that fucking site.

[–] UristMcHolland@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I deleted my Facebook account years ago, probably right around 2016. I met a new girl last year and she wanted me to make a Facebook account so she could send me stuff. I relented and made a "new" account using the same email I used back in 2016. Low and behold, Facebook never deleted a fucking thing.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 1 hour ago

The ol' "marked as deleted" lol.

[–] desmosthenes@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

that’s when I dipped - graph api was scary powerful

[–] Retreaux@lemmy.world 67 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It was that combined with the fact that they create shadow profiles for your unborn child when your wife is pregnant. (Found out through FB being allowed to track your browsing history even off the app). That was the final straw right after the Cambridge Analytica issue.

[–] kofe@lemmy.world 23 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Wait what the bloody fuck? I haven't heard anything about this. Sounds right up their alley, but what evidence is it based on?

[–] Retreaux@lemmy.world 16 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

If you look up the practical application of Shadow profiles they have the ability to gather information about non-users, which also includes unborn children in the case of them discovering that the mother is pregnant through whatever web searches that they may be doing even outside of Facebook. The whole science of Shadow profiles used to strengthen the algorithm is incredibly frightening and part of the reason why I left Facebook.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 1 hour ago

I can almost excuse shadow profiles for things like "two people both have X contact in their phone", but making them for unborn children? Lord have mercy. That's genuinely crazy. It makes me wonder if it's something like they just marked someone as pregnant based on searches (weird, but maybe acceptable, idk) and it got taken out of context? Hopefully? Either way it's icky.

[–] dditty@lemm.ee 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I hadn't heard of this either but here's an article about Facebook keeping shadow profiles on non-users that references an article from 2012 where Target's data collection determined a teen girl was pregnant before she told her dad

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 50 points 1 day ago

Yep, but the second best time would be now.

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[–] kipo@lemm.ee 30 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

According to Google Trends, related searches like “how to delete all photos facebook,” “alternative to facebook,” “how to quit facebook,” “how to delete threads account,” and “how to delete instagram account without logging in” have become breakout searches, with popularity suddenly increasing by over 5,000% compared to previous periods.

So that is 51 times higher than usual? Am I mathing that correctly?

I wish stories like this wouldn't use percentages this way, and reported hard actual numbers to compare against.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

So true... When I see 100% more, I interpret it as 2x. But somewhere around, idk, maybe 300% I interpret "300% more" as 3x. I know that's technically not correct, but it's just where my brain goes. I think a good deal of people just throw around "n% more" and "n% as often" interchangeably without much thought.

Luckily, the bigger the number the less of a difference between the two which is aligned with my brain using them the same.

(And obviously, if it's anything technical where it matters I would get clarification.)

[–] takeheart@lemmy.world 11 points 11 hours ago

Yeah,

1 + (1*5000%) = 51

Honestly I prefer just writing "51 times more frequent".

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 9 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah so if it was 100 queries per day before, its now 5100 per day. Or maybe we are both crazy.

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[–] Ithorian@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago (4 children)

We all know that in the end only maybe 1 or 2% max will delete their account

[–] ThePrivacyPolicy@lemmy.ca 11 points 23 hours ago

Exactly this. Wasn't Netflix going to sink after everyone cancelled when password sharing was banned? But everyone I know just ended up buying extra logins...

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[–] DocumentingReality@lemmy.cafe 21 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

I posted that article on Mastodon. So, yeah...

I hope more people will find that these open source social media sites are much better run. As well, as a much better platform than Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc.

Although, I do miss Myspace. The old platform.

I deactivated my Twitter and Facebook accounts weeks ago. I have my friends and family "moved over" to Friendica. They seem to like it so far. I have even posted (on Friendica) a few links of other open source social sites for them to check out.

[–] oldfart@lemm.ee 2 points 6 hours ago

I'm so happy to be here and read about Zuck, Elon and Google all the time

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[–] ToastySaff@lemmy.world 82 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (10 children)

He's getting very Trumpy with the orange tint and pale skin around the eyes.

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