I am so glad that I decided to shun Facebook years ago, and have never had accounts with WhatsApp and Instagram.
What, I did have a Facebook account once upon a time? I confess that I did. After a long period of resistance, I eventually signed up in July 2010. I really had no specific reason to do so, and was simply bowing to gentle pressure from family and friends at the time. My connection with Facebook was short-lived.
I disliked it from the start. It was an uncontrolled space for silly and sometimes ill-considered messaging. Any serious original post, or any serious comment, was buried within hours. Gone and forgotten, or never noticed. Or it met with unexpectedly frivolous, or rude, responses. I was apparently fortunate not to receive more vitriol. It seemed that Facebook encouraged prickly exchanges. It was also attracting trolls. I'd already had a few of those on my blog; but the Facebook variety was apparently more vicious still. Facebook didn't seem to care.
But mainly it was the stories one heard of people misunderstanding Facebook's ever-changing privacy settings, and accidentally making indiscreet remarks that gave away family secrets, or private information, causing squabbles and upsets. Then there might be a witch-hunt, to find out who had blown the gaff - or had deliberately set out to stir up trouble.
I remember, years ago, being verbally attacked at a social meet-up by somebody whose current secret (their marriage engagement, something that needed to be kept under wraps for the time being) had been made public by someone called 'Lucy'. This person thought it was me. Just because we were both at the time part of the same real-life social group - although I was certainly not one their close friends, and could not possibly have known anything about the secret. Nor was I, by then, even 'on Facebook'.
Their fury, their jumping to conclusions on no evidence whatever, the shock of someone thinking that I could misbehave like that, or could be so malicious, took me aback. I took the bull by the horns. I had a face-to-face talk with them, and convinced them that it couldn't have been me. They climbed down, and tried to make amends, including I think a special invitation to the wedding. But the damage was done. And I chiefly blamed Facebook for this bad experience, for facilitating an indiscreet message, and encouraging an aggressive reaction in the person most damaged.
Facebook wasn't simply a frequent vehicle for such mishaps and misunderstandings. It was a constant irritation. I objected to intrusive messages that asked me to watch some supposedly very funny video from some very dubious source. I hated to see people whom I thought well of making inane comments, having clearly descended into a kind of mindless Facebook Mode.
More seriously, I was disturbed by the phenomenon of lonely or vulnerable people basing a pseudo social life entirely on constant Facebook exchanges, claiming hundreds of supportive 'friends' when really all of them were strangers, and none of them genuinely caring. This was illustrated when an unbalanced woman in Brighton, who in her turmoil had threatened suicide already, reached a point where she was finally prepared to kill herself. She started to give warning to her many local Facebook friends that her time was up, and that she really meant it this time. I suppose she imagined that these 'friends' would gallop to her rescue, or at least alert the health services, so that despite her total despair, she would be saved for another day. But all they did was chew over her messages, debating whether she could be believed, or whether this was just another false cry for help. Nothing was done. Some of these 'friends' knew where she lived, and could easily have walked over to find out how she really was. But not one of them bothered. Meanwhile she died in her bedsit. So much for all those 'Facebook friends', I thought. And how awful, for a woman in difficulties to be so dependent on an illusory social circle.
I left Facebook in the end because I was spooked by unwelcome attention from someone I'd had a pleasant conversation with, but who wanted to make much more of it. So that every time I fired up Facebook, this person would telephone me on my landline, hoping for a chat. Always within a few seconds of my logging on. I never got a chance to work out how to configure my settings so that I could explore Facebook quietly and anonymously. This person would interrupt my concentration, and I'd abandon the attempt. It was a gross intrusion.
It was also, after a while, utterly unnerving. I felt this person was waiting by her computer like a spider, phone to hand, in case I logged on. It felt very much like being stalked.
One day she phoned me every hour through the day, right into the early evening. I couldn't stand any more of it, so I picked up my landline - it was her - and told her sharply not to phone again. To my surprise, she complied. But I wanted no repeat of this experience, and closed down my Facebook account.
Or tried to.
I discovered that it wasn't easy to get out of Facebook's clutches. Uninstalling Facebook didn't achieve it. No; one had to go through a long-winded and well-hidden process. It took me three attempts before I finally got it done correctly. Then I had to wait a week or more for those key-presses to take final effect. Facebook clearly hoped I'd change my mind. As if I were going to change my mind about this hateful app!
But by late April 2013, I was off their records. I checked this by trying to log on. The old account couldn't be reached. However, I found that somehow I had set up a new one, and was live again on Facebook - albeit as if I were a different Lucy Melford. I didn't use that new account. I immediately went through all the necessary steps to delete it, all over again. And I have stayed well away ever since.
I'm still not quite convinced that Facebook have binned all trace of those accounts. I suspect that they have retained some basic stuff about me deep in their vaults. To a business like theirs, personal information is valuable, even if it's getting a bit old. So as a matter of commercial policy, it would make no sense for them to obey user instructions to destroy any records they have. And indeed those regular Facebook scandals you hear about assure me that the person who steers Facebook, and sets the tone, is heedless of best-practice standards and shies away from anything that will dent revenue, whether current or only potential.
In the years since I detached myself in 2013, the popularity of Facebook has grown humongously, and it seems that only social deviants and hermits now exclude themselves from it - and myself. Similarly with Facebook's tame creatures WhatsApp and Instagram. Commercial organisations, government agencies, and important service-providers all assume that their customers or are signed up with Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram. That's not good, especially if they ever begin to deny access to goods or services to customers, unless it's through one of these platforms.
I'm increasingly feeling like a drop-out, a rebel - or a freedom fighter.
It seems to me that all these organisations and agencies - and of course the general public - are putting an undue amount of trust in these three particular interconnected social media platforms, which are all under the ultimate control of one man: Mark Zuckerberg. This is surely a great mistake. With the fresh allegations now emerging, I hope something decisive will be done to dissipate their social penetration and the influence that brings. I don't mind elected governments having control. I object to unelected private individuals being given the same power.
