Hi everyone, I've always counseled friends to leave Facebook, when the conversation was feasible or potentially fruitful, but hearing recently that author Stephen King has left Facebook due to FB's policy to allow factually incorrect political advertisements, I realized just how this threatens US democracy (and possibly democracy in other countries as well): (1) the Trump campaign has at least 500M dollars, and (2) Trump has no compunction against disgorging a stream of lies with no concern for discourse. I'm envisioning what is technically called a s**tstorm that will cause chaos and simply overwhelm discourse.
I'm calling out to my friends to ask them to boycott, and I'm suggesting they preserve their Facebook community by organizing transitions to alternatives. I suggest Friendica and Mastodon as specific alternatives. I've written my missive in blog form here: https://internetperdition.wordpress.com/2020/02/22/boycott-facebook-for-real-this-time-to-save-our-democracy/ Please consider reaching out to your friends and colleagues similarly. Feel free to point them to my blog, create your own version, or proceed however makes sense to you. I think this is a special time. Facebook has always been reprehensible, but now they've made one additional error that most people find particularly hard to swallow: they forbid incorrect medical ads because "they could cause harm", but not incorrect political ads. It follows that Facebook believes that political ads don't cause harm. Admittedly, my post is US-centric. I also made the tactical choice to not for Free Software specifically, for which I'm sure many here will be disappointed. I generally do advocate for Free Software when I see an opportunity, but I felt the need to focus in this case, and can discuss software freedom in whatever follow-up conversations arise. Thanks for acting in whatever way you can! Jim Garrett _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
