I’m back on Facebook
Everyone from Cher to Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak is deleting it, but I have returned. Here’s why.
It’s already being described as an iconic moment. Small and pale, surrounded by massive security guards, one of the most powerful men in the world walked into a committee room in Washington on Wednesday to the sound of a thousand camera clicks.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is 2018’s favourite bad guy. High-profile users in the entertainment and tech world – Steve Wozniak! – have deleted their accounts and walked away from Facebook in the weeks since it was found to have ‘‘improperly shared’’ 87 million users’ personal information.
If it hadn’t been such a dramatic moment, it might have been absurd. Zuckerberg was more powerful than everyone in the room put together, and the questioners’ lack of grasp of the subject matter was obvious. What followed felt, according to one journalist in the room, ‘‘like a five-hour tech support call.’’
Zuckerberg seemed baffled as question after question struggled with the what and how – and most importantly the why – of Facebook. By the end of day one, confusion reigned – what is it? How does it actually work? There was no shame for the Congresspeople there: even the tech experts don’t really know how Facebook works. At times Zuckerberg appeared not to know.
He kept it folksy, kept mentioning Facebook’s humble dorm-room beginnings, which prompted some to question the wisdom of reminding everyone how few years it’s been since he left college.
He told the committee that all data belongs to you, the user! You can delete it, he claimed, or take it to another platform if you want (this sounds good but is apparently much, much harder than you think).
Zuck says it’s all in your hands. You can, if you choose, use Facebook thus: Log on, not post any data (pictures, video, updates, anything) not press like or share, but instead follow (stalk?) your friends and the pages you like, read the content, all without leaving a footprint or revealing too much about yourself.
Funnily enough, this is exactly how I use Facebook. But it’s not how pretty much everyone else does.
I’m a renegade in modern Western society. I gave up Facebook altogether five years ago, and had been a not-very-enthusiastic user before that. Hardly ever posted except on the work page, wasn’t into scrolling and liking and sharing. I even guiltily muted a family member whose multiple daily food posts had begun to get a bit annoying (forgive me, but enough with the lasagne recipes already!)
My eventual disconnection from the planet’s social lifeline came not with a bang like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Cher or Elon Musk, but with a literal whimper. I’d been getting a bit of a trolling online (too long ago now to go into details, nor care) and my 15-year-old daughter discovered me one evening, sitting at the laptop, snivelling into the sleeve of my hoodie. She quickly took command, deleted everything, and I was free.
It did feel strange, to be honest, those first few months, being the only one who did not Facebook at all. But I embraced my inner Luddite and enjoyed the sense of otherness. Eventually I stopped thinking about it altogether. The sky did not fall.
That’s not to say I was pure and free of all social media. I’d discovered Twitter (fewer lasagne recipes) and filled the gap with that. My family calls it an addiction, and who am I to argue? But even then, I post about once a day on average.
After a couple of years my sisters, both of whom live overseas, started to pester me to rejoin Facebook. Come on, they cried, how else are you going to see our pictures from the Grand Canyon/Colombia/motorbike tour of Tasmania. Think of the children! Eventually they convinced me to create a new account with a fake name. I hardly ever look at it.
Recently though, I’ve had to re-engage, because of the #MeTooNZ investigation I run with the help of a team of talented Stuff journalists. Private messaging on Facebook has been an important tool for people to reach me with their stories.
It’s the portal through which many (most?) people view the world these days. How they get their news, contact their friends, keep up with family. No matter how nervous the Cambridge Analytica revelations make us, most people will not disengage as Wozniak has.
That’s why, despite a farcical start at Congress, the questioning must continue. As docile as Zuckerberg appeared for what was essentially a two-day show trial, he mostly ducked questions on regulation. Facebook remains mostly outside the law.
Two-and-a-half million Kiwis use Facebook – if you’re one of those, you do have a choice. You could log off, delete your profile (apparently it lurks there forever in the background, waiting for the moment you weaken and come on back) and turn to other forms of communication. But let’s be real – that’s unlikely. If Zuckerberg, at this moment of crisis in the short history of his global behemoth corporation cannot keep his promises to change, then regulators around the world will have to find a way to force him.