Abandoning the Social Media Giants

Today posted to Instagram and Facebook an image of text explaining that I am forever leaving the giant social media platforms behind. Over the years, I’ve played around with the idea of training myself to use them less frequently and to quit using them entirely, but somehow I always found my way back to them, endlessly scrolling through vapid content only to snap out of it thirty minutes later and ask myself why I did it in the first place. I’ve always known that this was by design, but I guess I’d never really sunk my teeth into the “why” of it, why and how these organizations benefit from it. I’ll just go ahead and stop before I wax philosophical for 2,500 words on mental sovereignty and the fundamental right of privacy.

I’ll just leave it to Glenn Greenwald to paint the picture. It’s a really important talk, and I highly recommend you watch it.

Suffice to say, digital privacy is extremely important to me. I believe it should be to everyone, but sadly this isn’t the case. If you came here from my FB / Instagram post today, please contact me in cases of reunions, events of note regarding friends / family, etc. My withdrawl from social media doesn’t mean I don’t want to communicate!

TL;DR how do I get in touch with you?

Email: [email protected]

Keybase: @willricketts

Mastodon: @[email protected]

Telegram: @willricketts

Github: @willricketts