It was actually several years ago when I made my first attempt to quit. The event that triggered a hasty exit was a sudden and surprising demand.

Facebook said that I had to use my real name.

I was just doing what I did every day. Log in to Facebook. But my account was locked, and the only way to get back in was to use my real name. This presented a real puzzle for me, because my first reaction to this was, I thought I was already using my real name.

Did Facebook think I was someone else? Had that bitter gnome that I had ganked and corpse-camped so many years ago hacked my account and altered my vitals? Did the folks at Facebook know something that I didn’t? 

I’m not exactly sure what prompted Facebook to clarify my name that day. Maybe it was trying to differentiate me from the other Kristy Ambroses using the platform. It’s not an uncommon name. But even then, why? My friends knew who I was. Why would FB want to know, or even care, whether or not I was using my real name?

When I first discovered Facebook I wanted to pretend the profile belonged to my cat,  and as he studied his human subjects he was using the medium to record his progress. I thought it would be a cool exercise in RP and a nice way to start Cat of the Tao. But that was not allowed. I had to use my real name and a real profile picture.

I caved back then, but this time something stopped me. This felt like bullying. I was already using my real name, despite FB insisting that I wasn’t, and my information, photos, links, and other precious junk was being withheld until I did what the Machine wanted. And something about that put me off.

It took an hour to deactivate my account, including deleting all of my personal information and making copies of anything relevant or useful that I didn’t want to lose. Even then, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t do a thorough cleansing and I don’t want to go back and find out. For those quitting today, check out several handy tips and advice to make sure you follow the four Ds – decrypt, deactivate, delete, and drop out. I also have to admit, this gave me an excuse to take another step towards “no contact” from certain people I was in touch with on Facebook.

It was easy at first but it gets harder when you start to feel left out. When I first moved to Puerto Escondido two years ago and I was looking for a new circle of friends, that was when I came pretty close to coming back to Facebook. What stopped me the second time was what happened at a dinner party.

The conversation turned to some photos that a friend had posted about another friend. Neither of them were present to confirm or deny any of it. Some rather snide words were exchanged about the number of people this girl was talking to at the bar. I’m not sure how this came about just because of the pictures or about the guy that had posted them in the first place, even though they were evidently friends and the photos didn’t contain anything incriminating. The drama that erupted around a few pictures posted on Facebook was pretty impressive. No wonder people would freak out over pictures that actually contained something scandalous.

I concluded at that point that Facebook was little more than a glorified rumor mill for people that had no talents or hobbies and didn’t mind being sold as a product. Exceptions could be made for people who stayed on to communicate with friends or family, I thought, but how essential was that really? Don’t you have email?

If something happens twice, it has to happen a third time.

Then I decided to get out of the content mill business, which is a process you can read about in another post. That would mean I would have to revamp the blog and get my own writing more exposure, which means taking advantage of social media. For a moment, I briefly considered opening a whole new Facebook page that was dedicated solely to my writing. I would avoid the social angle as much as possible, I told myself. I can use it professionally and post only writing-related material and nothing else.

That was only a few scant weeks ago. Then the news about Cambridge Analytica came out, followed by even more sleazy connections the company has to Russia and Jared Kushner. Even Zuckerberg himself was dumping the plummeting FB stock last week.  Only days later, I’m proud to say that I Quit Facebook before it was trending on Twitter.

I make a home on MeWe these days. Things are quiet in the neighborhood at present, but as Facebook crumbles and other equally vapid social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram fall apart for many of the same reasons, users like me will start looking for alternatives that value privacy and anonymity.