- Facebook’s corporate practice of suppressing free speech.
This is not news to most. Facebook’s so-called “community guidelines” have been used to intimidate, punish, and ultimately silence voices expressing views dissenting from the socially, morally, and politically progressive agenda promoted by the company. On Facebook, users are free to say whatever is on their minds, as long as it echoes the politically correct party line. This may be Facebook’s right as a private corporation, but it is un-American and disingenuous.
2. Facebook’s conspiracy with other big tech corporations to undercut rival social media companies with free-speech values.
Again, old news to most. Facebook’s CEO insists they are not a monopoly, and are just “concerned” about the spread of “misinformation,” but his company conspired with other big tech corporations to shut down rival platform Parler, presumably because Parler presented a free-speech friendly alternative to Facebook. You can’t say you aren’t a monopoly, and then act like one.
3. Facebook’s creepy surveillance practices.
If you aren’t aware of this, you should be. Facebook’s practice of tracking its users across the internet, data mining from their devices, and keeping detailed data records on them is downright scary and Orwellian. Call it what you want—it’s spying, and it’s wrong. The average user who doesn’t even bother to read the I-don’t-know-how-many pages of unintelligible lawyer-speak disclosures unknowingly signs an open warrant for Facebook to do what the Founding Fathers wanted to make sure no government ever would be able to do to Americans—radically violate our personal privacy to freely collect and store information for whatever future use they deem fit. As a business owner, I can no longer conscientiously use Facebook to promote my business, knowing that the traffic generated to my website is at the cost of exposing my potential clients’ private information to a massive, unchallenged big tech company acting in the role of Big Brother.
What does this mean?
Facebook drives a decent amount of our website traffic, and we realize we may pay a price for ending our relationship with them… but standing for freedom and right, even when it costs us, is one of our founding principles. For us as a business, we will continue to maintain our public-facing presence on the internet through our website. Up to this point, we chiefly serve the Kenai Peninsula region of Alaska, and most of our traffic is local. Accordingly, we will rely on traditional grassroots connections to promote our business—word of mouth, in other words. Maybe some cool posters.
This is not me trying to tell anyone what to do in their personal lives. If, like us, you are finding yourself troubled by what’s going on with social media (and society in general), let me encourage you to take a step back, and consider how you can reinvest yourself in connecting with people in meaningful ways. Some of us need to pry ourselves away from digital media and develop our ability to interact with the people around us. I sometimes wonder how the world would change if folks put down their phones and had civil conversations with their neighbors. Might be worth a try. When’s the last time you wrote a real, paper letter to someone you care about to let them know what they mean to you?
For our friends and family, we will be personally stepping back from social media for the time being. This doesn’t mean we don’t want to keep up with you. Please feel free to email us through the contact us feature of our website. We will be glad to get caught up with you.