Why I’m Leaving Facebook

The Bell Ringer He Squeezed My Hand – Rob Coscia

Why I’m Leaving Facebook

I need to discuss something that is very personal and difficult for me to talk about. This is without question the most difficult message I’ve ever written.

I joined Facebook about 5 years ago. At the start, I had no idea what I was doing, but it didn’t take long before I was connected to a few thousand like-minded people and soon we had a community of believers who shared their experiences, taught one another, and laughed and prayed for each other’s needs. Over the years I’ve become terribly fond of my Facebook friends, even though I’ve never met most of them in person.

God has used Facebook as a tool to help me encourage and teach thousands of people, and in return I’ve been encouraged and instructed in the things of the kingdom. In addition to working a full-time job, I spend about 30 to 40 hours a week on Facebook, looking for material to post, commenting on friend’s posts, answering questions, and responding to people’s prayer requests. When people ask me where I go to church, I want to tell them Facebook is my church. Northwest Prophetic once told a friend, “He’s a pretty busy guy. He pastors an online church of 5,000 people.” Were it not for Facebook, I can only imagine where my walk with God would be today.

Over the last few years God has given me many dreams about Facebook. In some of the dreams I would tell people to start a Facebook page for their business and in others I would be promoting the pages of my friends. In one dream I was given a bag of “likes”. I had to give them all out, because the next day I was going to get another bag. In December of 2013, I had dreams about Facebook five nights in a row. All of them were positive. Then on December 9th I had the following dream:

In the dream I was communicating with people who had fears of being located and apprehended by authorities because of what Facebook was revealing about them. There was a sense in the dream that I should take this threat seriously and I was aware that I might be one of the people who would be apprehended.

I didn’t quite know what to do about Facebook in light of this dream, so I waited for God to give me more information. I sat on the dream and didn’t tell anyone about it. On November 1st of this year, while taking an afternoon nap, I had a dream where there was big news about someone we all know leaving Facebook. (I believe that person was me, but it wasn’t clearly revealed in the dream.) That night I had another dream where someone made me aware that a program on my computer had the potential to cause me big problems. The problem was related to one of the social networks I was using. The following night I had a dream where I was testing out a new social media program.

In years past, it seemed like Facebook was a safe place to conduct my online activities. I’m not one for conspiracy theories and I don’t live in fear that the government is out to arrest me or take away my rights. But in light of these dreams and recent changes to its policies, it seems like Facebook may no longer be a safe place for me and some of my friends. And it appears that God is asking me to move my social media activities to a safer place.

I believe the facts are most reliable when they’re established by the mouth of two or three witnesses. While Satan may be able to give us deceptive revelation, he doesn’t confirm it the way God does. The week that I composed this message I was contacted by two friends who had dreams involving me. In the first dream, my wife and I accompanied a friend and together we led a group of people out of a mine that lie deep in the heart of a mountain. We carried torches to light the way as we walked through the mines on an uphill path. As I sought God’s wisdom about this dream it occurred to me that it might be referring (metaphorically) to the mountain of social media. Facebook, Google and the like are known for “mining” and “scraping” data which is a valuable commodity that’s sold for a profit. The dream seems to indicate that it’s my duty to lead people out of that mountain.

A few days later I met with another friend who had a dream in which I played a key role. My appearance was represented by my Bitstrip cartoon character from Facebook. This friend’s dream was long and detailed, but the summary was that I led a group of people on a mission to uncover a prostitution ring that was operating in a network of underground tunnels out of sight of the people who lived in this town. In one scene I did something that startled the people I was with. I grabbed a child who was standing on the street and pulled a knife out of my pocket. I cut away the child’s face to the horror of those I was with. But when the child’s face was removed, it turned out to be a robot. There were other robots on the street posing as children and I did the same to them. My appearance in the dream as my Facebook character would seem to indicate that the dream is speaking about something happening on Facebook. Robots are computer programs that run automated tasks, often times appearing to be humans that are interacting on the Internet.

My Battle With Facebook

In September of 2014 Facebook began cracking down on users who went by fictitious names. Although their policy doesn’t require people to use their legal name, they started demanding people use a name that at least sounds like it might be a real name, and Praying Medic didn’t qualify. They could tell by how many friends and followers I had that I had a legitimate purpose for being on Facebook, so rather than shutting down my account they demanded I convert my personal profile into a business page. (Some of my friends who go by aliases were allowed to keep their personal profiles if they agreed to change their names, but I was not given that option.)

I attempted to contact Facebook’s customer support, but found that it’s virtually impossible to contact a live person at Facebook. The only communication they have with users is through automated responses. The reason why Facebook doesn’t provide support to its users is because users aren’t customers. Users are the product that Facebook sells to its customers. Facebook’s customers are the likes of Nike, Ford, Apple, Burger King and Amazon. These companies purchase ads that are targeted at users based on the data Facebook collects on them. If Amazon has a problem, they can make a phone call to Facebook and get help, but that’s not an option for users. Users are the product, not the customer.

So after some futile attempts to contact a live person at Facebook I gave up and did what they asked. I converted my personal profile to a page. My 5,000 friends and 6,000 followers were converted to people who “liked” my new page. And since then, I haven’t been able to access my newly created page. (You can search Facebook and find that page, but I’m locked out of it and all the other pages I had that were associated with my old profile.)

As an admitted Facebook addict, (my wife calls me a Facebook maven) I needed to get re-connected to my tribe. So I started over with a new profile under a different name. I’ve been able to find some of my friends, but to most of them I’m still missing in action. And now in light of these dreams I’m having to ask myself what purpose Facebook serves to my community of friends.

It would be understandable for people to think that my thoughts of leaving Facebook are due to frustration or resentment over what they’ve done, or simple paranoia, but nothing could be further from the truth. Were it not for the dreams God gave me, I’d be perfectly content to stay on Facebook. I don’t actually want to leave Facebook, and I’m not trying to get everyone else to leave. I’ve been advising friends who feel led to stay on Facebook to continue using it. My move is just an attempt to obey what I think God is asking me to do. I realize that God has used my presence on Facebook to encourage and train a lot of people. As a guy who is trying to quit his day job to become a full-time writer, I realize that leaving Facebook may be committing social media suicide. From the natural perspective, leaving Facebook is a stupid move. But If God asked me to write more books and He’s asked me to leave Facebook, He must have a way to make this all work out. So I’m going to have to trust in His plan. I believe it’s time for me to leave Facebook permanently.

People tend to fall into three categories on this issue: Some are going to be content to stay on Facebook, no matter what. Some people will explore other options, but keep their Facebook account active to stay connected with their friends and family. A third group is leaving Facebook altogether, and it’s not a small group. I want to be clear about one thing – I’m not actually trying to get anyone to leave Facebook. I’m simply explaining why some of us have made the decision to leave and why some are exploring other options. I respect those who are staying on Facebook and I don’t hold any negative feelings toward them. If someone is being prompted by God to leave Facebook, they will likely know it. If you’re not feeling so led, then by all means stay.

For those who are feeling led to look elsewhere:

The same day that I had the dream about someone leaving Facebook, I found a social media platform called MeWe, which bills itself as the world’s “privacy network.” I signed up for an account and almost immediately got connected to one of the company’s vice-presidents, Clint Fiore. I had a lot of questions for Clint about MeWe; questions about its goals, its philosophy toward users, its business model, and a lot of other issues, which he was happy to answer over the next few days. He asked me to check out the platform and give him feedback. I found a few glitches and things that needed improvement and passed my suggestions along to him. Within a week or two everything I suggested had been incorporated into the latest update. To be honest, I was dumbfounded. It looked like I had found a social network that actually wanted my input and was prepared to take action on my suggestions. Some of you are probably wondering how secure MeWe is, and how easy it is it to use.

Ease of Use

Although there are many differences between Facebook and MeWe, I found navigating MeWe’s platform pretty intuitive and similar to Facebook’s interface. If you’d like to take MeWe for a test drive, I’ve created a video tutorial that shows the basics of navigating the desktop platform and I give a few some insights on how the mobile apps function. (The video can be found at the bottom of this message.) During the first few days of using MeWe and posting about it on Facebook, I was surprised to find that of the 700 friends I had re-connected with, about 300 signed up for accounts on MeWe. A social network is only as valuable as the people using it and so far, my friends have been happy to give MeWe a try.

Security

MeWe’s is the brainchild of Tim Berners-Lee and Mark Weinstein; two respected Internet pioneers. Weinstein is an outspoken privacy advocate, who has made a career out of establishing social networks where the online activities of users aren’t tracked. Berners-Lee is the founder of the World Wide Web. He serves as an adviser to the developers of Mewe. He said this about his involvement with MeWe:

“The original idea of the Web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information. The power to abuse the open Internet has become so tempting both for government and big companies. MeWe gives the power of the Internet back to the people with a platform built for collaboration and privacy.”

While Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg proudly proclaimed the death of internet privacy, even going so far as to say that people don’t care about their privacy anymore, Weinstein and Berners-Lee believe that if a network is created that offers privacy to its users, people will leave Google and Facebook in droves.

MeWe is designed from the ground up to provide privacy, security, and anonymity if users require it. As far as anonymity goes – MeWe doesn’t particularly care what name you use. One of the big pushes lately with Facebook is its insistence on getting names, addresses, phone numbers and the physical location of users. This information is like gold to advertisers and that’s why Facebook wants it. Unlike other networks that want to know as much about you as possible, MeWe stores your data on its servers, but doesn’t categorize it or build profiles on its customers. Facebook states in its user agreement that you acknowledge that the content you post belongs to them, and they’re free to do with it as they please. MeWe acknowledges that the content you post belongs to you.

Questions and Objections

My friends and I have been discussing my decision to leave Facebook for a couple of weeks. Below I’ll address the most common questions and objections people have about my decision:

So if MeWe doesn’t sell its users data to advertisers, how does it plan to make money?

With optional services. MeWe allows users to earn up to 8 GB of data storage for free. You can add extra storage for a fee (up to 500GB). They plan to roll out apps for business users in the near future and eventually, they plan to launch a subscription-based enterprise version. For those users who aren’t ready to break ties with traditional social media, MeWe has an option to post to their Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts and monitor newsfeeds from inside the MeWe desktop.

Some have asked what is to prevent MeWe from turning into another Silicon Valley start-up that sells out to Facebook or Google?

The founders of Mewe have a different philosophy from those who have founded other social networks. Nearly every other social network has operated on the same basic business model: You offer a service to users in exchange for their data, which is the commodity that companies like Google and Facebook want. The plan is to grow the network large enough to gain the attention of Google or Facebook, which buys the company leaving investors with a tidy profit. (Facebook recently paid 21 Billion dollars to acquire WhatsApp and its mountain of data.) Mewe operates in a way that would provide no useful data to companies like Google or Facebook, so there is virtually no chance of them selling out to one of these companies.

Some point out that all our information is available on the Internet anyway and trying to secure our personal information is a waste of time.

My response to this objection is that Internet security is not a cut-and dry issue. Some networks handle data in a way that makes them more trustworthy than others. While one network may store your data and never analyze it, another network might categorize it and sell it to advertisers, while a third may hand it over to a government that will put you in prison for it. Not all networks have the same degree of loyalty to their users. Companies like Google, Apple, Yahoo, Amazon and Facebook are all in the data collection business. The NSA and other government agencies have asked for data from them in the past and it’s likely they will ask for it in the future. Some companies gladly hand over what they have, but other companies will go to court to keep it private. The question isn’t whether your data is available somewhere on the Internet but rather, who has your data and what are they doing to protect it?

Some have noted that the life if the believer is one where we’ve already already died, and that any danger Facebook poses is no real threat, so why should I be concerned? (The observation here is that a believer should never try to avoid harassment or persecution.)

Sometimes God’s plan is to have us go through persecution or harassment (the apostle Paul is an example). But other times His plan is to rescue us from them. Joseph was told to flee to Egypt when Herod went on his killing spree and Peter was released from prison by an angel. God doesn’t always want us to face harassment and persecution. I think this is a case where He would rater we be spared from it, at least for a while. The issue is further complicated by the fact that I’m deeply connected to a few thousand people who are likely to follow my lead. Wherever I go, they will probably go, and while I might be willing to risk my own safety to stay in a place where I might be exposed to danger, I can’t knowingly expose my friends to it.

Some people won’t consider leaving Facebook because they’re already connected to friends and family there and they believe they like couldn’t learn to use another network.

The movie The Matrix illustrates the situation most of us are in. “The Matrix” is a computer-generated world were humans interact with each other, as if they were living in a real world. The experiences they have are not real but computer simulations designed to keep their minds occupied. What they don’t know is that their purpose for being connected to the matrix is to provide energy to the vast system of computers that run the world. Humans have been reduced to batteries which give the Matrix the juice it needs to keep them enslaved. A few people learn the truth about the Matrix and manage to unplug from it. They live a meager existence as outcasts, continually on the run from agents who are trying to kill them. One character grows weary of life outside the matrix, and yearns to return to the simulated world of pleasure. So he strikes a deal with one of the agents to return to the matrix in exchange for information on where the others are located. Although he knew he would be returning to a life of slavery by plugging back into the Matrix, His need for comfort was far greater than his desire for freedom.

Facebook provides plenty of things that keep us entertained, educated, encouraged and most importantly for Facebook, comfortable. Some of us love the games. Some of us need the “likes” and “shares” that affirm our value to others. Some of us need the fellowship, the teaching or the connection with family. The goal of Facebook is to create a comfortable environment that keeps us coming back for more. The more we come back, the more data they collect on us and the more they have to sell to advertisers, which is the end-game for them. Facebook will go to great lengths to keep you from unplugging from its network. If you don’t believe me, try de-activating your account some time and check out the emotional appeal they make to get you to re-consider your decision.

Data Shelf-Life

The other thing to consider is that personal data on the Internet has a relatively short shelf-life. Addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail address change often enough that old data is not considered valuable to those who want it. Once you leave a network, your data begins to lose its relevance and value. The longer you’re off the network, the more important it is for them to update your data when you return. Once you unplug from the data mining community, the data they have on you quickly becomes useless. Allow me to illustrate:

When I tried to upload the Mewe tutorial video to Youtube this week, (Youtube is owned by Google) they required me to enter my phone number so they could send a code to my phone for me to enter to verify that I was the account user. Their story is that it’s worth my time to give them my phone number so that they can verify that no one else is using my account but me. It was a logical appeal, but if I comply with their request, I’ve just updated another piece of data they really want to have. My account could have been verified by e-mail, but apparently having my current phone number was more important to them. (I was not in the mood to give them my phone number, so I uploaded the video to Vimeo instead.)

Is it possible to find a trustworthy network?

I don’t know for certain. But MeWe has two very committed privacy advocates running it. If there is any way possible to keep people’s information secure, and out of the hands of authorities who may want to use it against us, I think they’ll find a way do it. There are no guarantees they’ll succeed, but I need to support the efforts of people who are at least trying to do the right thing, even if they don’t succeed to the degree that I would like.

There are a few issues you must deal with when you consider joining a new social network. One is learning the new platform. Another is the loneliness at the beginning when it seems like none of your friends are interested in joining you. Most of the resistance I’ve received from friends so far has to do with the fact that they’re already connected to friends and family on Facebook and they can’t see leaving them for a different network. Because Facebook has become so entrenched in our society, it makes me wonder how bad things would have to get before people would entertain the thought of leaving. If Facebook truly does become a risk to your personal safety, at some point you’re going to have to evaluate how important your loyalty is to your family and how much you value your safety and freedom.

If you decide to venture out into the unknown you’re going to find a few new friends there, waiting for you. If you give your current friends and family a few good reasons to consider switching, you might be surprised at how many of them are willing to come with you.

And so my friends, it looks like my days on Facebook are numbered. I plan to stay on a little longer so I can re-connect with friends who still haven’t found me, but I’ll be moving my activities over to MeWe in the near future. I hope to see you there.

If you want to connect with me on MeWe, just click on the image below and send me a contact request.