I recently watched a two series PBS Frontline Documentary series about the social network Facebook. It was chilling but I already knew that in the Facebook world, I was the product. I was only there because my friends and family were using it.

I created an alternative family site on Google Communities and managed to get about 70 people to sign up. I know that Google also mines data from its users but they did it with more finesse and without targeted advertising. They also didn’t use an algorithm that ensured the success of Russian propaganda. A portion of the documentary transcript might help illustrate their business model.

ZEYNEP TUFEKCI, UNC Chapel Hill:
What Facebook does is profile you. If you’re on Facebook it’s collecting everything you do. If you’re off Facebook, it’s using tracking pixels to collect what you are browsing. And for its micro-targeting to work, for its business model to work, it has to remain a surveillance machine.
ROGER MCNAMEE:
They made a product that was a better tool for advertisers than anything that had ever come before it.
TIM SPARAPANI:
And of course, the ad revenue spikes. That change alone, I think, is a sea change in the way the company felt about its future and the direction it was headed.
NARRATOR:
Sparapani was so uncomfortable with the direction Facebook was going, he left before the company’s work with data brokers took effect.
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
NARRATOR:
The extent of Facebook’s data collection was largely a secret until a law student in Austria had a chance encounter with a company lawyer.
MAX SCHREMS, Privacy advocate:
I kind of wanted a semester off so I actually went to California to Santa Clara University in the Silicon Valley. And someone from Facebook was a guest speaker explaining to us basically how they deal with European privacy law. And the general understanding was you can do whatever you want to do in Europe because they do have data protection laws but they don’t really enforce them at all.
So I sent an email to Facebook saying I want to have a copy of all my data.
So I got from Facebook about 1,200 pages and I read through it.
In my personal file I think the most sensitive information was my messages. For example, a friend of mine was in the closed unit of the, of a psychological hospital in, in Vienna. I deleted all these messages but all of them came back up. And you have messages about, you know, love life and sexuality. And all of that is kept.
Facebook tries to give you the impression that you share this only with friends. The reality is Facebook is always looking. There is a data category called “last location,” where they store where they think you’ve been the last time.
If you tag people in pictures, there’s GPS location, so by that they know which person has been in what place at what time. Back on the servers, there is like a treasure trove just like 10 times as big as anything we ever see on the screen.

This is the dilemma, Facebook crushed Google as a social network, Google decided to kill the product some time in 2019. I blogged that I was leaving Facebook on July 4th, 2019, my Independence Day. I was fed up with hearing Zuckerberg telling us that they need to do better. I started to look around for alternatives. I tried Ello, Diaspora and a few others. They might work for me but not for my friends and family.. Facebook had all of us in the “everyone you know is already here” situation.

A friend lamented my departure saying 10% of content is great and 90% is garbage. I also created several pages and one successful group. I realized I can never leave. However I can diversify. Recently I learned about MeWe with a stupid name but a Facebook/Google like appearance. More importantly a different business model that purports to NOT mine personal data. I’m always skeptical but I do need a replacement for my Google+ Communities.

Will this succeed? Is it possible to build a responsible social networking tool? Time will tell.