During February, I’m going to disconnect from all Meta applications (WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Threads…). In this article, I explain why I’ve made this decision.
TL;DR, I’m doing it for survival and for my mental health.
Under authoritarian regimes, minorities are the first to be wiped off the map, so for me, this is a matter of survival. Later on, I explain (with sources) why Meta is becoming a key player in the resurgence of fascism.
On the other hand, with my attention deficit, it’s impossible for me just to have a quick look. I always end up trapped by short videos. I also explain why this happens.
And finally, I’m encouraged to do it because there are better alternatives, which I talk about at the end.
Related:
Why now? The rise of techno-feudalism
When The Simpsons joked about former President Trump back in March 2000, we took it as an innocent joke. And yet, here we are. How did we get here, and what role does Meta play in all this?
Capitalism died in the 1970s at the hands of Thatcher and Nixon. The wild neoliberalism we live under is not satisfied with being profitable; it needs to maximise profits at all costs.
Maximising profits above people.
Above ideologies.
Above governments.
Neoliberalism is anti-system.
Today’s neoliberals grew up with the cyberpunk of the 1980s. They saw the techno-feudalism of Alien, Blade Runner, or RoboCop and took it as an instruction manual.
Under the umbrella of neoliberalism, large corporations have become more powerful than many countries. They now use all that power to influence global politics, whether through lobbying:
Or by directly funding politicians who help dismantle democracies from within:
Why do they support the far right?
Efficiency. In a dictatorship, you only need to manipulate one leader; in a democracy, there are far too many voices.
Little by little, we’ve reached the point where people are starting to talk about a civil war in the United States, or a Third World War.
Why I’m leaving Meta
Meta sponsors fascism
When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he said, “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy. About three years later, he performed a Nazi salute in public.
Mark Zuckerberg (Meta’s CEO) doesn’t raise his hand, but he does use freedom of expression as an excuse to give a platform to hate speech.
At the beginning of 2025, they dismantled their fact-checking teams, dramatically increasing the amount of fake news on their networks.
They also changed their policies to allow hate speech.
The official narrative is that these decisions were necessary to appease the White House. But the facts are that in 2016, Facebook enabled Cambridge Analytica to influence the election in Trump’s favour. After the scandal, they took steps to make it even easier to manipulate their users.
Both Trump and far-right movements worldwide owe their rise to the preferential treatment they receive from tech companies.
Meta gets rich at the expense of my mental health
We’re aware that Meta, Twitter, and Google live off advertising. We accept that they use our private data to show us adverts in exchange for not paying anything. This business model can be summed up by the slogan “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product”.
What we may not realise is the rest of the outrageous practices we’re exposed to.
Meta employs teams of psychologists to figure out how to hack our brains so we stay on their platforms longer. The longer we stay, the more ads they show us, and the more money they make.
One of the most harmless techniques is infinite scrolling. Instagram or TikTok always offer us new content; there’s never an end, never a chance to reconsider whether we should stop and do something else.
Another, far more harmful technique is deliberately making us angry. As humans, we react more strongly to things that anger us than to things that make us feel good. What Randall Munroe called “Duty Calls”:
Meta’s algorithms show us posts that mock our political beliefs so that we get angry, spend more time on their apps, and, incidentally, become more polarised.
Worst of all, Meta is aware that these techniques negatively affect users’ mental health, and yet it still uses them.
The user experience is insulting
These “brain-hacking” techniques sometimes get in the way of what you actually want to do as a user.
For example, did you know that on Instagram, you can choose to see only posts from your contacts?
But if you only see posts from your friends, you quickly run out of content and end up closing the app. So this feature is hidden in the logo on the home page.
Another thing that infuriates me is blocking adverts that stop you from doing anything for three seconds.
The privacy settings have far too many options. They’re complicated by design, so most users won’t bother reviewing them.
Recently, they moved messages to the bottom bar, strategically placed after the videos. Before, the “go back” gesture after reading messages took you to the home feed; now it takes you to videos. This change works on me — I always end up watching one or two videos before realising that’s not what I wanted to do.
And the queen of dark patterns is the Threads feed, Meta’s Twitter competitor. For a start, posts are truncated to force you to tap “see more”, and of course, you have to be registered to view them. And if you don’t want to see these posts, you can only hide them for a few days.
Outside Meta, Google Search is another excellent example. Have you noticed that it’s been working worse for a while? It’s not you — it’s designed that way so you spend more time searching and see more adverts:
They use your information to train artificial intelligences
Meta trains its artificial intelligence (Llama) on everything you share with them. This includes text, photos from your posts, and conversations you have with their AI. They say they don’t use private conversations, although I don’t trust them. They also say they don’t use it for advertising, but as soon as you mention a product in a chat, you start seeing ads for it.
Like other companies in the sector, Meta disbanded its ethics team to develop Llama.
Months later, a teenager committed suicide following a recommendation from Facebook’s AI.
At a corporate level, companies have been laying off employees en masse for several years. They claim they’re going to replace jobs with AI, but it seems more like a strategy to drive down wages.
Klarna did lay off employees to replace them with AI, but shortly afterwards had to rehire them.
I don’t like how big tech companies are developing artificial intelligence, and I like it even less that they’re using it as a weapon against their workers. I don’t feel comfortable being complicit.
The Fediverse is much better
The question that’s been on my mind for days is: why put up with all this when there are other options?
I’ve been using Bluesky and Mastodon for several years, and I feel at home there.
In particular, the Mastodon community feels like an oasis in the desert.
It’s time to emancipate ourselves
On Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, a single company controls it all. That company owns your content, making it nearly impossible to migrate your data or contacts to another social network.
It feels like a toxic relationship to me — the same attitude as an immature person with low self-esteem.
Fortunately, the world has changed since the first social networks were born.
Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, a collection of distributed social networks that communicate with each other. Mastodon is similar to Twitter, Pixelfed is an alternative to Instagram, Loops imitates TikTok, and PeerTube replaces YouTube.
From my Mastodon account, I can interact with Pixelfed users, for example.
It’s time to emancipate ourselves and take back control of our public squares.
While Web 2.0 was brought about by interactive pages that mimicked desktop applications, it seems we’re entering a new era in which we control our data.
Years ago, cryptobros coined the term Web3 to refer to a decentralised web where users control their data and is based on blockchain technology. They may have failed on the blockchain part, but not on the rest.
The key is the human factor
The best thing about the Fediverse is that anyone can set up their own server. For example, I have mine at que.pasa.co.
These Fediverse instances are sustained by the community, which helps with moderation and contributes donations. This makes each server a small, well-cared-for community.
On the one hand, the ground is clean — I mean, you don’t find advertising flyers everywhere.
On the other hand, as soon as you arrive, everyone comes out to greet you, and you meet lots of new people.
And like any group with a healthy relationship, if you don’t like the people or content around you, you can migrate your account to another instance with just a couple of clicks.
Where to land?
If you want to create an account on the Fediverse and don’t know where to start, I recommend:
- Masto.es – Like Twitter, Spanish-speaking community.
- Luzeed.org – Like Instagram, Spanish-speaking community.
They’re medium-sized servers where you can have direct contact with administrators and moderators:
There are also adult-content instances (ask me if you’re interested 😅), and they’re very different from Twitter or Bluesky. Most accounts don’t focus on pornographic content (although those exist too), but on communities of open-minded people.
See you in a few weeks
Leaving the places where you hang out with your mates is sad and difficult.
But there’s no other option once the square stops being safe.
I like to think I’m taking on the role of an explorer, and that my experience will help make others’ journeys easier.
In a few weeks, I’ll tell you how the experience went.
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