Grief Response...

A week ago or so a friend posted a meme that basically said they weren't prepared for how much of your adult life is spent grieving. 

You grieve for those who have died. You grieve for relationships that have ended. You grieve for pets you've lost. You grieve for paths you didn't take, for jobs you've lost. You grieve for opportunities that you either didn't take or that you thought you'd have but didn't.

Nobody talks about the grief. 

Last week I finally decided that yeah, the new terms and services agreement from Meta was more than I was willing to accept. There are three parts to it that bother me. The first is that they control your data forever. They can use it to train AI (written and photo), they can use it in advertising, they can use it however they want to. And, I'll be honest, I think they've already been using my things to train AI. They have to have been. Part of it has been in the open, when you see a summary of comments on a public post, that's AI reading everything and processing it. It's the forever part that bugs me. Because it's paired with the next change. And that's that they can change the rules of interaction at any point and not give you the option to opt out. Your choice ends January 1 as soon as you log in. For ever. 

So if they decide that what they want to do is let tech bros go crazy with replicating AI versions of any user they choose they can. Is that going to happen? Probably not. But could you stop it if it did? Not if Meta decides that it's okay. 

I've had posts go out into the wild and live their own lives. I don't have my settings open to the public so when I make a long Facebook ranty post it's not unheard of for a friend to copy and paste it on to their status. By the way, I LOVE when that happens. Writers long to be read. But that being said I have had the weird thing happen where someone shared a post with me saying, "oh my gosh, this sounds like something you would write!" and well, that's because it was. But it had been copied and pasted and copied and pasted and shared and eventually the person posting it was like, yeah, I'll take credit for these words as if I wrote them, and either my name or the "a friend of mine" part has been lopped off. So I know that it's not completely out of the realm of possibility to see an AI version of my words out there. 

And though I've given up the dream of ever making a living by writing, I still want the credit for what I've written. Because I wrote it. I created it. I formed it. The idea of an AI generated world of words really disturbs me. I get that there are no new stories ever really, just reworkings and retellings of themes, but I don't want to live in a world where that is literally true. Reworked and retold versions of everything that has come before. No new spin, because AI cannot spin. 

And the third part is how quickly they bent the knee to Trump. Ran to Mar-a-Lago and said be nice to me and I'll let you post whatever you want! Who needs truth? We have versions of truth that you can pick and choose from, but we promise to push your version the most! What do you say? Are we buds now? 

As most of you know I had a blog censored during the last election cycle. Posted it to my Totally Random Page on Facebook and got the notice that it had been taken down because it was obviously posted for likes. Um..well, isn't that the point on Facebook? To get likes? If you don't want people posting for those clicks then take it away as an option. And I had a friend tell me it was because the link was in the body of the message and they don't like that anymore so put it in the comments. Which I have started doing. But...again, I always put the link in the body of the message and the only one they took down was a political one. A week before the election. Pro Harris, obviously. 

So it made me give some side eye. 

Because I already believe that this idea that the MSM and social media platforms are liberal is nonsense. They are driven by profit and political ideology always takes a back seat to greed. But greed is more easily fed through unregulated industry. So they tend to favor the republicans, not because they care about the christofascist traits, but because they care about draining every dime they can out of the christofasicsts and the rest of us. Capitalism is their religion, their political affiliation, their life. And they will protect their profits at all cost to us. 

You don't get to own an island or try to colonize Mars by caring about other people. 

So I decided that was it for me. I would download what I could and then delete my Facebook and Instagram and Threads accounts. It's been a long time coming. You all know I've gone back and forth about it for years. But it's always been a case of I think it's bad for me, not just I think it's bad. 

I am sure this will surprise you, but I can be fairly rigid about things and people. Once I've decided that they are "bad" I'm done with them. It's sometimes a little hit or miss what I will and won't tolerate, a lot has to do with when the offense happened, how direct of a line of offense it is, and if I am somehow supporting continuing harm by ignoring it. (And yes, I was being facetious, I know you all know I can be really rigid) So this stopped being about me and my use or overuse of a product and about them and what I think they are doing with my data and what I think they are doing with their product and new loyalty to Trump. 

Easy enough. 

But then...

This is where it gets tricky. Where they have me by the short and curlies so to speak. 

My social life is online. Like the majority of my interactions with people are online. I'm an introvert. Sitting face to face with someone makes me uncomfortable. And I spend days afterwards regretting something I said, or the fact that I talked for four hours and kept them from enjoying the rest of their day. If it's a group, a large group where I have to be social? Oh my gosh, I need a quiet room and soft lighting for a week to recharge. But online? Online I play an extrovert. I am social. I read everything everyone posts. I like things. I comment. I converse. I'm GREAT online. (To the point where people are shocked that I'm such a dud in real life)

I've been on Facebook for something like 16 years. I've never held a job for that long. I've never had a social circle that has been that stable for that long. I've cultivated it with people from my past mingling with people I've never met face to face. I've got friends online at all times of the day because they live in all parts of the world. And yes, before Meta became an ad factory it was easier to connect, but I still can. There are still enough of us here that it's still lovely. Mostly. And when it's not I just leave that person's party. 

I started looking at messaging apps because once I leave Facebook I'm losing access to Messenger as well. What's App seems like it will work but it's also own by Meta so there is that problem. If I could get everyone to download Signal that would be great, I can't send you a message from Signal if you don't have Signal yourself. So that's been a challenge. International messages is what I'm looking for here. 

So challenges but it will all work out. Especially if I can get everyone on Bluesky. 

And then...

The grip tightened. 

My On This Day feed. 

And the grief part from the beginning of this very long blog gets revisited. 

I've lost friends and family in the 16 years since I joined Facebook. Friends and family that were on Facebook while they were alive. And so when I'm looking at a post from years past there they are. Commenting. Telling a joke, posting a picture. Being there. My memories of the them. I get to see them again and again. They live on online. 

Even today there was a picture of George that popped up. Now I have that picture in my files, sure, but I don't have the caption, what was happening at that moment. I don't have the reactions to that post. I lose that as soon as I delete my data.

I lose the posts from friends. I lose the comments and conversations. I lose all of it. And for a few of those posts the people in them aren't coming back. They won't be on Bluesky or in my messages. They are gone. This is the only place they still exist. 

I have a few days to decide if I can do it. Push that button and let all of that go. 

Nobody warns you how much of your adult life is spent grieving.