For Many Facebook Users, a Last Straw That Led Them to Quit

[Hekate]

12. Aside from pix of my grandkids, there's a person who is posting disaster news I can actually use...

My husband and I live smack in the Thomas Fire burn area, which puts us in the danger zone for flash floods and debris flow.

The Thomas fire began in Santa Paula, Ventura County -- when it began, there was plenty of TV coverage. But as soon as the fire crossed the county line into Santa Barbara County, Ventura dropped off the map, both figuratively and literally. Fire maps and weather maps both have had a slash at the county line, although this is a regional disaster.

Last year we moved to the foothills above Ventura city, so this is of concern to me.

However, several different FB pages started up in Santa Barbara, and one of them aggregates news mostly on a regional basis. I have written thanking them. These are just average people doing good work, as opposed to the dipshit TV people from SB and LA who evidently view Ventura as an afterthought.

FB is one of those phenomena that in part is what you make of it, and it has made itself indispensible to a LOT of people for their social needs. I am sort of pleased at being in touch again with some of my graduate school classmates, but I am dismayed at how many of them are seemingly adamant about using FB in lieu of email. (So is my daughter, for that matter.) I have never really trusted the privacy of this platform, and with the news about Cambridge Analytica, I am all the more reluctant to say anything personal.

Also in the "Are you really sure you want to do this?" category are the large numbers and varieties of cutsie personality quizzes (including those purporting to show you are a genius), prayers for total strangers that must circle the globe to be effective, schmaltzy stories about brave veterans/cancer stricken kids/take your pick, that must also be Shared immediately to show you care, and if you don't you are a bad person. I have a dear friend who passes along all this crap. I am a bad person -- I don't "share."

Now it turns out that all this stuff goes into a vast data base and agorithms that sell you, not just junk jewelry, but junk science and a junk president. Zuckerberg's brain-child conspired with Uncle Sam's actual enemies. Zuckerberg was/is a useful idiot in the conspiracy to get us a potus who is making sure Uncle Sam's word is worthless among nations. And so on ad nauseum. This is a gross betrayal of us all. I hope all of FBs top guys get a grilling by Mueller, and in court.

But I'm not quitting FB -- yet.