Deleting Facebook suddenly goes viral
Another interesting week for Meta, as the response to her sudden decision to “abandon the use of independent fact-checkers” on Facebook raises eyebrows around the world. “Starting in the US, we’re ending our third-party fact-checking program and moving to a Community Notes model,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg tweeted Tuesday, with his new plan to adopt the same form of audience monitoring that Elon Musk has introduced in X (formerly Twitter).
But less than 48 hours later, as first noted by TechCrunchthe move caused a viral spike in “Google searches for how to cancel and delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts.” The news site described the data – obtained from Google Trends – as “explosive”, noting that “the consequences of Meta’s new policies could have serious implications for the types of posts, hate and violent speech and misinformation that can spread even faster than them. I already do.”
Commenting on the growth, Gizmodo suggested that “apparently not everyone is ready to live in a post-truth world… Conveniently, Facebook’s competitors are also seeing a surge in interest. Bluesky saw a nearly 1,000% increase in searches over the same period that saw people looking to exit the Meta string of social apps.”
According to TechCrunch“The reaction was quick. Interest in searches related to moving away from Meta platforms increased this week, especially in the last two days. Google searches for terms like ‘how to delete facebook forever’ achieved a maximum score of 100 – the highest possible level of interest on Google Trends.
Deleting Facebook — or not — has been a recurring theme over the years, as the company has built a social media empire that reaches more than half the world’s population. But it has survived backlash after backlash, as various parts of its algorithm-driven data collection have come under increasing scrutiny. But ultimately users need their fix, and there are few if any alternatives – there will be even less if TikTok is actually banned in the US
“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” Zuckerberg explained, adding that he “started building social media to give people a voice.” Going forward, Facebook will see the same community annotations we’ve seen work at X — where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a range of perspectives decide what kind of context is useful for other users to see.”
What happens next is anyone’s guess – but shifting the responsibility for censoring and correcting content back to the audience and away from the company resolves allegations of company bias. And with the Trump administration just days from office, there may be some much-needed thought behind it all.
I’ve reached out to Meta for any comments on this sudden increase in appetite for deletion.
So, should you delete Facebook? Maybe not. There are few points. He knows who you are, where you live, what you do and who you hang out with. Its trackers support most of your internet usage and there are apps for every occasion. But you should definitely check the privacy settings on your devices and be mindful of what you post, search and transact when using its apps or sites. As for community notes vs fact checkers – this is probably a case of no right answers and less bad options. The reality is that there has always been a lot of wrong content and no one has solved the problem yet.
