If you, like me, live in the EU, Facebook is now entirely clamping down and forcing free users to make their personal data available for monetization.
Attempting to access any Facebook domain and perhaps also other meta products will redirect you to the following prompt with a choice between either accepting the monetization of your user data, or coughing up a region-dependent monthly subscription fee: base (for me ~10€) + an additional fee (~7€) for each additional facebook or instagram account you have.
Now, the hidden third option. At an initial glance, it seems like there is no other option but to click one of the buttons - however, certain links still work, and grant access to important pieces of functionality through your web browser.
If anyone has information to add regarding Facebook or Instagram, please do share it. I’ve only (begrudgingly) used the former up until now, but I know many others use Instagram and don’t feel like giving a single cent (nor their personal info) to Meta.
-
https://www.facebook.com/dyi - perhaps most important of all, now is a good time to make a request to download your Facebook data. Don’t forget to switch to data for “all time” and “high quality” if you intend to permanently delete your account.
-
https://www.facebook.com/your_information - here you can find and manage your information, but crucially also access Facebook messenger.
-
The messenger app: Still hasn’t prompted me with anything, though I expect that will change in the not too far future.
Currently my plan is to use messenger to inform any important friends that I intend to leave FB, and where they’ll be able to reach me in the future.
You need to make a choice to continue using Facebook
This reminds me of the movie War Games, when WOPR says, “The only winning strategy is not to play.” The only correct choice to make here is to delete your Facebook account.
Indeed, I’d like to, and hopefully will be able to. Unfortunately it is basically the universal method of communication at my campus - unless you use instagram… or snapchat… :(
Hopefully it’ll be possible to get others to make the move, but I’m not really that important in social contexts, nor are most privacy-focused folks.
How anyone still has a FB account I’ll never understand—or, I should say, anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the insane, “well I have nothing to hide!”/“anyone reading my information will be SO BOOORED LOLOLOL!” mindset and that actually gives 1/10000th of a shit about privacy.
Most of my sports and social activities are organized through various Facebook groups, and I’d lead a rather boring life without it.
That’s why.
For me it is still holding on, barely, as a messaging app. I have a few friends and groups that just refuse to message on other things and that’s keeping me around. I’m tired of evangelizing better options.
I have friends like that. They never get a response from me.
It pops up every once in a while for things like old classmates getting together. If I weren’t on it I wouldn’t know about it.
It’s also useful for local events like neighborhood festivals that don’t get posted on any other media.
I literally had a job that distributed our schedule via a Facebook group exclusively and required an account for requesting changes or interaction about the schedule.
You can easily counter that sentiment by asking them if they also leave their door open when they use a public toilet. Since they got “nothing to hide”.
“Anyone that wants to watch me pee is god be SOO BORRED LOLOL!”
police gets called
Or stop caring about data being used for ads. Most people don’t 🤷♂️
When the “Subscribe” button is gray and the “Use for free” button is blue, you know something’s up 🤔
Probably because the lost revenue from not showings ads exceeds the monthly subscription cost.
You think they make 10€ per user in ads? I don’t believe that, the ad market is very competitive and banner ads don’t pay well.
Maybe, maybe not. But the UX pattern they use clearly indicates that they rather have users continue to use the adds version instead of getting 10 euros per month. And that’s certainly not because of the goodness of their heart but because it is better for them as a company. And “better for the company” pretty much always means “making more money”.
I don’t know, I don’t even believe, that they are going to stop using your data, even if you pay. So I don’t really know what to think. Also im very happy, that I’m done with meta as a whole.
That pricing (or any pricing) is unsustainable, all it is there for is to give illusion of choice to try and comply with the law. Your data are useless if too many people choose to pay and Facebook dies, on the contrary the more people allows for refined monetization, the stronger Facebook’s business becomes (or get back to before GDPR status).
Oh of course they will still use the data of paying costumers. I’m sure that data is more important to them then any add revenue.
Also that is just money for serving you ads, i think the real money is advertisers buying your data.
How do they target you, are you the demographic they want to sell to, when are you active online, what do you look at, what are your interests, what values are important to you, etc.
youtube only makes around 2€ per user per month by the most optimistic estimates, and they serve full tv-like video ads which are also clickable and targeted, and a lot of them. that’s literally the final form of advertising and it still doesn’t reach a monthly 10€/user, the addressable market is just not that big.
the dark pattern is real though. they’re going for your data and they’re not doing it for money. make of that what you will (i certainly have ideas and they’re not pleasant)
Also those are video ads, that get you waaaay more money, opposed to the banner ads on Facebook (at least some)
They also make a great deal of money using people’s user data to match them to pages that pay to promote and have their page shown to more people. It’s 14 bucks to have a single post “boosted” for a page otherwise your posts will be held at the bottom of the algorithm.
If you give them access to your info, they can keep using it after you’ve stopped paying.
I’ve worked for a successful scaleup that was pouring millions into Google ads every month. I have no idea who clicks ads, but it worked for them.
One thing nobody has mentioned here is that paying users devalue the ads for non-paying users. Paying users are more likely to have desposableincomee, and are more valuable to advertisers. If advertisers know that the only people being shown ads are those without the money to buy their products, they won’t be willing to buy the ad space.
That’s a really interesting point-- I can see that being the case.
It’s because they make more money from your user data, but it also doesn’t cost you money
Third choice: Delete your account and never look back.
Imagine how many artificially inflated egos would be deflated all at once if facebook/social media went away.
probably be one the greatest things to happen to humanity.
Isn’t that incredible? Turns out that connecting people to one another in this way fosters some healthy interaction for those who choose it but also amplifies loads of unhealthy bs. I’m one of those idiots who 15 years ago thought the internet and social media would bring about something of a second enlightenment, a golden area of progressivism, being well-informed, connected to one another in new and beautiful ways.
25ish years ago we all thought the internet would be a wonderful marketplace of ideas where people wouldn’t be judged by their age, gender, race or whatever, but on the merit of their ideas.
And it did feel that way for a while back when it took a bit of intelligence to get online. However, now that anyone can get online with just a few clicks the morons have learned how to amplify their moronity.
Its both a marketplace of ideas and the cesspool of moronity.
100% because of social media. see my reply to schnapsman
It would have been that. Or at least a lot more like that…
If social media hadnt been invented, and if social media hadn’t gamified human interaction with upvotes/likes/etc, which ended up doing nothing but creating a dopamine feedback loop that is directly responsible for the extremity of online discourse today.
Social media is also responsible for using its algorithms to link isolated village idiots and conspiracy nuts, and giving them secure echochambers with which to bounce off of eachother free of outside criticism or view, until they ended up completely disconnected from any hint of reality.
I mean, it sort of did, it’s just not quite that simple. A lot of amazing things have come about because of social media. So many artists able to reach people directly without needing gatekeepers like publishers. Movements able to be organized where previously those people would have never interacted.
Commenting this on a post about one of the new gatekeepers is quite ironic.
The route to getting something posted on Facebook or other social media involves 1 gatekeeper who barely involves itself. The route to getting a book or news article published involves more, and they micromanage the content much much more. Just compare what percentage of people have posted something on Facebook vs have had an article published by a newspaper or magazine.
You can post all you want, if you actually want to reach an audience you must comply with silly rules (try putting an innocent non sexualized nipple on an albumcover and posting it to facebook) and you have to pay for visibility because algorithm heavily favours money. On top it’s vendor locked-in, there are only very few networks with a very large userbase, and even fewer corporations behind them.
None of that affects people’s ability to disseminate information anywhere close to the constraints put on people by traditional publishing. Again, how many people have ever posted to social media vs how many people have ever published a book?
What’s absolutely scummy is that “laws are changing in your region” is not what happened. The law hasn’t significantly changed. What has changes is that the regulator is finally enforcing the law.
Also said law doesn’t allow blocking access if you don’t agree to the tracking rules, so let’s see where this goes.
Law opens for supplier to charge money, if necessary to support the service, which is what Meta is doing.
However, fuck Meta.
Honestly I don’t disagree with that bit.
A website shouldn’t be forced to operate at a loss, which is what Facebook would be doing if they couldn’t strip mine data OR charge access to use the service.
The Law doesn’t care if any one company’s business model is viable and, Facebook being an American company which avoids taxes like crazy, EU politicians don’t care enough about them specifically to change said Law.
So ultimatelly and once they exhausted all legal recourse, Facebook have only two options: “comply” or “leave” (i.e. stop operating in the EU).
Somehow I suspect that selling non-personalized adverts will still make the EU market appealing enough for Facebook to operate in an that would allow them to comply with the local laws.
To me this looks like a play by Facebook to keep their higher revenue model going as long as possibly by breaking the rules and then relying on the slowness of regulators to keep going and any two-strikes policies to avoid big fines.
That’s not a loophole, it’s a key provision of the law.
True, edited.
Delete that garbage.
I swore off all Meta products before they were called Meta. One of the better decisions I’ve ever made.
lol, saying “before they were called meta” as if that was a long time ago. That was 2 years ago.
Pepperidge farms remembers
The text is also incredible misleading. The data will still be harvested and monetized, just not for ads.
Even that claim I find dubious. Yes, your data won’t inform targeted ads on Facebook, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be used for targeted ads elsewhere on the internet.
And it most certainly will still be used to make general prediction for the rest of the population
I welcome this change. It makes it clear to the user in realistic terms how they want to engage with the site.
- Pay up with your money
- Pay up with your data
- Don’t use Facebook
I despise Meta and all their products but they are entitled to charge people for them. Shit ain’t free to run, you know.
I’d much sooner they showed this banner and force people to make a decision than what they’ve been doing up until now, which is to “assume” everyone’s fine with their personal data being harvested and exploited without their knowledge or consent.
deleted
Did you omit option 3 for brevity, or because you think it’s not a valid option?
deleted
Offline activity stays offline if it never goes online. If you don’t have a facebook account, then your probably have thousands of facebook accounts. It will generate an identity for each unique advertising ID you use, and you can always generate new ones in most devices.
Those accounts get combined through fingerprinting and other dark systems.
That assumes that because they’re paying they aren’t also tracking. They might not use it for ads directly but they’ll still sell it to others that will show you ads off Facebook.
Don’t use Facebook is the best answer but if you must then the next best option is:
- Choose a better Adblock
You don’t owe your enemy anything. Stop using spyware as a business model.
Yeah, even getting them to display this banner is a victory in itself.
this has to be illegal.
like, no, seriously. i’m not a lawyer but i was working on a (since failed) startup in 2018 and distinctly remember how much headache the gdpr caused. literally one of the main things was that you cannot coerce users into consenting to data processing, or make features conditional to them. the gdpr makes a distinction between processing you do to perform a contract (that’s why no one asks for your consent for processing your email address to log you in, that’s implied) and processing you do for other reasons, which require user consent (that’s why everyone asks if they can spam you on the same email – it doesn’t matter that your email address is already on their server, processing it for marketing reasons requires consent of the data subject). opting into these kinds of processing needs to be granular, if it’s not they lose the validity of your consent.
i seriously hope facebook gets slapped so hard over this that no one ever thinks about doing this again. “paying with your data” should never be a thing in any society that calls itself civilized.
Yeah I really hope the EU smack’em down. Asking users to pay a fee only because their countries law limit an illegal practice is astonishing
I don’t think you understand how this works. I’m not the biggest fan of Facebook but even I know they’re not a charity they’re not a governmental entity. They’re out there to make a profit and if they can’t make a profit on their ad revenue then they have to make a profit in another way via a subscription service. So they’re literally giving you the option to either continue using them with ads or continue using them as a subscription service. Your other option is to completely delete your Facebook. I don’t see the problem here. You aren’t entitled to a Facebook page, no matter how useful it is to your personal life.
Edit: a word
then offer the subscription service as the only option. if they want to do that, it’s on them. but you can tell by the dark pattern on this ui element that that’s not their main goal, they just want to use the threat of having to pay to coerce people into consenting to data processing.
it’s not about entitlement, it’s about playing fair. removing the option to “pay with your data”, and leaving only the subscription or cancellation as options would be fair play. it would also destroy facebook but that’s on them, it’s their decision to make. but if they decide to provide a free service of any kind, they cannot discriminate against those who wish to choose privacy.
and if we’re being realistic, they’re not expecting even 1% of their user base to pay. they are, however, expecting to keep nearly 100% of their user base. that’s what makes this about coercion – if they didn’t have the option to coerce people (and i’m fairly sure they don’t have it legally, but again, i am not a lawyer) the options presented would be very different, because facebook itself wouldn’t be able to afford to only give its service to paid users. you’d probably have a free tier with optional privacy included, which is missing some features, or a paid tier with extra features and privacy included (hopefully non-optionally, but it’s facebook so they’d probably still try to track you).
Every argument you make here is completely silly.
This is a for-profit company and it has always been a for-profit company. They have no obligation to host you on their site and they can stipulate any conditions they like. If they want to make it a choice between paying a subscription fee or you consciously acquiescing to their collecting your data and advertising to you using that data, then that is 100% their right. Equally you have the right to opt out by closing your Facebook page and deleting all of your data on their site. I will reiterate, you are not entitled to a Facebook page!! This is not right, it’s a privilege granted to you by this greedy-ass corporation in exchange for monetary compensation, either through targeted ad revenue or a subscription fee. Deal with it.
then don’t host the site if they don’t want to. or charge people for shit if they want to. i’m not asking for them to not do that, i’m asking for one thing and one thing only: don’t make service, free or not, conditional to consenting for data processing not related to providing that service. that shit, to my best knowledge, is illegal in the eu, and it’s for a damn good reason.
facebook is not entitled to a profit either just because they’re for-profit. they need to earn it. and no, they don’t have a right to take a “whatever means necessary” approach on it – just like a company cannot legally rob people, or cannot legally entice minors into gambling addictions to make that money, in the eu it also cannot coerce people into giving up their personal data just so it can then profit off of that either. consent for that needs to be given willingly, without pressure, and without deception. why is this principle so hard to understand?
you paint some ridiculous strawman arguments here in your efforts to lick the zuck’s boots, but i never once asked for facebook to continue giving their service for free if they don’t want to. the only thing i said is “paying with your data” is not a valid idea under the gdpr (and honestly, it shouldn’t be a thing in any civilized country.) if facebook relies on it, tough shit, their options are to figure out an alternate revenue stream or go out of business. that’s how it works for every other business as well.
Where exactly is the coercion here? The choices in order to maintain a Facebook account you either pay a fee or let them use your data to advertise to you. The other option is to completely close your Facebook account and delete all of your data on their servers. An argument can be made that they should make it easier to remove all of your data and several people that I know have made that argument. But other than that I don’t see anything they are doing as being illegal, in the EU or otherwise. Sure the way they presented is a pretty scummy but what do you want? It’s Facebook and it’s run by greedy corporate dick heads. If you don’t like it delete your Facebook profile.
I also find it hilarious that you don’t think they have lawyers who specialize in European Union law that don’t know exactly what the fuck they’re doing. This is a multi-billion dollar company, they can afford the best goddamn lawyers.
Where exactly is the coercion here? The choices in order to maintain a Facebook account you either pay a fee or let them use your data to advertise to you.
right there. you’re a parody of yourself lmao.
a facebook account cannot simultaneously hold enough value that it’s worth compromising your privacy for and not hold value so that the threat of taking it away is not coercion. the enemy cannot be both strong and weak at once. the only way to resolve this dichotomy is to posit your privacy itself holds no value and is therefore a fair price to pay for something that also holds no value, but that’s just absolutely ridiculous to begin with.
you also had your answers to your questions about which part should be illegal, multiple times. to then ask the same questions again because you “don’t see it”, playing dumb like that, is just manipulative. why are you so dead set on corporate bootlicking?
Read carefully:
You 👏 do 👏 not 👏 require 👏 a 👏 Facebook 👏 page 👏 to 👏 live.
It is the very definition of superfluous luxury service. Just delete your page and be done with it.
Your thinking is so pinned-down by business-centric presumptions it’s ridiculous.
The Law doesn’t give a shit about any one company’s chosen business model, otherwise Murder would be legal as long as it was done by employees of an incorporated “Murdering Services” company.
Further, Facebook is an American company which avoids tax like crazy, so in Europe even politicians don’t give a shit about their business model, which means these Laws were not even adjusted to account for Facebook’s business model when they were created.
Facebook’s business model and even survival as a company are wholly irrelevant: the Law is the Law, and Facebook either obbey it or they stop operating in the Jurisdictions whose laws they don’t want to obbey - ultimatelly, all legal recourses exhausted, “comply” or “leave” are their only two options.
And I don’t think you understand the problem. Nothing is preventing Facebook from displaying ads. Facebook’s issue is collecting user data and using it to directly target ads. They can make it so that a user can opt out of personalized ads and still show ads to that person. Companies would still pay to display their ads, perhaps not at the same rate but that doesn’t mean Facebook would be losing money by serving those users.
Let’s not act like Facebook is going to go bankrupt if some of their users opt out of data collection and targeted ads.
I trust that Facebook’s lawyers are payed enough to make sure that this is technically legal. These laws always have loopholes.
It’s a reaction to Facebook methods being deemed illegal in Europe. Although this does not mean than the new model is illegal, it’s an interesting sample of Facebook not always being right even though they have good layers. Both Facebook, Google and many other big tech, operate on the edge of what is legal and often on the other side of it, because it can be profitable enough to just pay the fine if it turns out to be illegal.
This last move, I believe, is more of a statement than it is an actual change.
Oh, yea. I can believe that these lawyers checked it out and determined that it may be illegal, but more like a “pay a fine that’s the equivalent of a bubblegum wrap when scaled down to regular people money” illegal and not “shut down the company and place the CEO behind bars” illegal.
Now, if it was Xwitter, I could totally see Must ignoring all his lawyers and just YOLOing it.
i wish the eu could stop fucking around on this one. fines for gdpr violations can reach up to 20 million euros or 4% of global revenue, whichever is higher. if they actually prosecute over this, it will be far more than a slap on the wrist. (which is why everyone was so scared of the gdpr back in 2018, but apparently that didn’t really last)
I would love for FB to be smacked down hard by the EU, but isn’t this just the inclusion of a new option that didn’t exist before, I.e. the subscription? If you push the right button, isn’t that the status quo that you’ve been using all along without any other option? I don’t understand how giving more options is more coercive than before.
no, ever since 2018 when the gdpr actually went into effect, they had to allow users to opt out of data processing individually for different purposes. like, if you want to allow facebook to process your data for improving their site but not for marketing purposes, you need to be able to set that, and facebook needs to respect that. as such, you had the option to use the site without “paying for it with your data” at all.
and if that’s not a viable business model and they need to charge a subscription fee, that’s alright. there’s nothing in the gdpr that says you cannot charge for services. the problematic part here is that they do provide a free service but only if you consent to data processing. like i said, i’m not a lawyer, but i’m pretty sure that’s illegal, and it absolutely should be illegal. if they decide to provide a free tier (or a paid tier for that matter), it needs to be available even if you don’t consent for unrelated data processing. they’re not obligated to provide anything, but if they do provide something, they cannot discriminate against users who don’t want to share their data.
that’s the problematic bit here. privacy cannot be a premium feature. facebook is trying to charge for something here that should be available to all users, whether or not the underlying product is freely available or not.
like, no, seriously.
What does “like” mean here? What’s it for?
It’s how people have been talking for, like, 20 years now at least
Rather, fucked american english. Like, fucked american english. Like, fucked. Like, like! Like!
flair, mostly. lol
Assuming you’re not a native English speaker. It’s a filler word. It doesn’t really mean anything, it’s used more to communicate tone.
Being native doesn’t make one being able to speak properly.
How much you wanna bet your info will still be used for ads even if you subscribe?
Lol the wording and design of it all. Subscribe to use without ads, picture of a credit card. Versus Use for free with ads, picture of a shooting star:
Discover products and brands through personalized ads, while using your Facebook account for free.
Plus the little “your current experience” highlighted in green. And finally “use for free” highlighted in blue.
They really want you to go with the second option so they can try to prove to the court that people want free stuff. When most of them were likely unconsciously coerced into it.
The big mean regulator is trying to make us charge you money. Click here to pay up or click here to stay free.
Dark pattern of the week: button colors.
Can you guess which button Meta really wants you to press?
“It’s free and always will be”
It is free. You are not paying. You couldnt even get money for your information so its not like youre selling it
deleted by creator
Where can i sell my data? I want money.
https://surveys.gobranded.com/
There are tons of sites for this, it was a lot more popular a decade ago before sites realize they could just steal it
Go fill some surveys for Google Play Store credits or something.
There are services out there that will pay you (either real cash or with points) to fill out surveys all day. They’ll pay you less than they’d pay someone like Facebook though, since people are more truthful on these platforms than when filling out these surveys.
They dont want my data, they want to ask me dumb questions. And they dont pay
deleted by creator
You couldnt even get money for your information
Well, you could. Taking part in surveys in exchange of monetary compensation is a side hustle for many.
And on the other side is sourcing data a huge expense for many research endeavours.
That’s why everybody is buying from Google & Facebook. Because they offer it for relative low cost.
Only if you think your time and personal information are free.
You might want to work on your self-worth and business sense if you think that.
Recently uninstalled:
- Twitter/X
I feel free. My phone feels lighter, almost. My brain feels lighter.
Same! I am enjoying the fediverse as a largely nontoxic replacement.
Agreed. It’s not too mainstream (yet) so not too much drivel has started seeping through lol. Here’s hoping it’ll stay this way. Feels very wholesome so far! Feeling at home already.
don’t forget to delete the accounts too! I’ve seen people just deleting the app and thinking their account is gone too.
Very good tip! To be honest, I’m not ready to delete the accounts yet. I’ll just run the services on my computer in containers (Firefox) and with μBlock Origin, so there’s minimal impact of this change for me.
But it does feel very nice not to be able to do much when I pull out my phone as a reflex. I feel limited in a positive way. Much rather be talking to you fine folk than the drivel I was often interacting with on Reddit. 😁
I’m surprised the EU hasn’t pounced on them for GRPR infringement, maybe there’s a loophole Meta’s exploiting. Being total assholes ain’t a crime.
I don’t know about the rest of EU, but in France for some reason it was decided that this type of choice, i.e. “pay a subscription or accept all trackers”, was in the spirit of GDPR.
I think it’s bullshit, but hey, it helped me choose whose services I will never use any more (really, most of those were already shit before they tried to pull that one, no big surprise here).
In Italy lots of online newspapers do the same: either you subscribe, or you accept the tracking
LOL why are people using Facebook?
To communicate with people, to follow various pages and groups that notify me of the current events regarding the topics that interest me, to buy and sell stuff in some groups, etc. At least in my case.
Because my friends and family, unfortunately use Facebook. Moreso IG these days actually. And if I’m not on there I get left out of fun activities.
deleted by creator
There aren’t if they don’t use those other ways. Shocking, I know.
Memes
