i want to delete facebook but can’t; also, did you know i embroider now?
First off, you know that feeling when you get an inner urge to revamp your blog but when you go to do it you find that you’ve forgotten your password and when you click “forgot password” WordPress decides heyyo we’re not gonna send you one so you end up locked out of your blog whilst your friend Aaron works on it for you and it’s several weeks before you actually get around to implementing his solution and by the time you’ve logged back on the urge to alter the blog has faded and you don’t really know what you want to do with it now?
Yeah. That.
Anyway, huge thanks to Aaron for getting me back on track. Here I am now, rambling away once more and thinking it really is high time that I did something substantial with this whole poor bloggedy mess. Why? Well, multiple reasons:
- I need a space where I can vent in writing for more than 140 characters at a time, or however many Twitter allows these days. I can’t remember. I don’t keep track of such things. (You might have noticed that there are a lot of things I don’t keep track of. Passwords, for instance. Other items include umbrellas, lip balms, favored pens, hairclips, gloves, and children.) (I’m just kidding about that last one.)
(Mostly.) - I am in the process of deleting my Facebook account. I pretty much quit using Facebook in July 2017 after realizing that it was an incredibly toxic environment for me. (The clincher were the “friends” who attacked me because I dared to state vehemently that Donald Trump is not possessed of impeccable character.) I finally got around to logging on again today, with the intention of deleting the account permanently — only to find that I can’t log on until I’ve verified my identity. The only two verification options Facebook gives me are (1) entering a confirmation code they text me or (2) uploading my photo ID (such as driver’s license).
Problem: I’ve requested the confirmation code text so many times, I’ve maxed out my hourly requests, and the text has yet to arrive.
And I categorically REFUSE to give Facebook my driver’s license. What the actual f.
So, for a number of reasons, Facebook is not a viable platform for me (and if you’re reading this, you should reconsider making it your online home too, if you haven’t quit already. Facebook is insidious and they know everything about you.) - In that vein, although I am a near-constant Twitterer, I don’t really consider that platform any more trustworthy than FB. There are the white supremacists that don’t get sanctioned. There are the violence-inciting politicians who don’t get deplatformed. There are the trolls who harrass women and minorities (to the point of doxing), trolls who clearly violate Twitter’s own TOS, but they rarely get banned. Then there was my incident in December of my account being locked for no specific reason other than “suspicious activity” that Twitter never bothered defining. The platform might be free, but it’s also shady and hosts plenty of toxicity.
It also has plenty of algorithms that limit a user’s reach and promote a general atmosphere of negativity. Users don’t have nearly as much freedom and safety on Twitter as we think we do.
Thus, the only place online where I can output as much as I want and have as much control as I need is this blog. It’s past time I started making more use of it.
There’s more to say on all of the above, but my brain is tired, my stomach is hungry, and there’s a seven-year-old running the “Spongebob Challenge” on Alexa well within my hearing, and I can’t think straight.
And yes, I am perfectly aware of the cognitive dissonance of my own concern over Facebook’s violations of privacy, when all the while I also have a device in my livingroom potentially listening in on everything that goes on inside my home. Don’t @ me.
In other news, I embroider now. It’s relaxing. I started because Rob Bell said in a podcast that somebody should embroider this certain Bible verse on a pillow. I didn’t do the pillow thing, but I used the idea as my first ever embroidery project, and it was a romp. I have it hanging on my wall, and it perplexes people. Functioning as intended.
