Campaign to boycott Facebook

[Jim Garrett]

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