If you, like me, live in the EU, Facebook is now entirely clamping down and forcing free users to make their personal data available for monetization.

Attempting to access any Facebook domain and perhaps also other meta products will redirect you to the following prompt with a choice between either accepting the monetization of your user data, or coughing up a region-dependent monthly subscription fee: base (for me ~10€) + an additional fee (~7€) for each additional facebook or instagram account you have.

Now, the hidden third option. At an initial glance, it seems like there is no other option but to click one of the buttons - however, certain links still work, and grant access to important pieces of functionality through your web browser.

If anyone has information to add regarding Facebook or Instagram, please do share it. I’ve only (begrudgingly) used the former up until now, but I know many others use Instagram and don’t feel like giving a single cent (nor their personal info) to Meta.

  1. https://www.facebook.com/dyi - perhaps most important of all, now is a good time to make a request to download your Facebook data. Don’t forget to switch to data for “all time” and “high quality” if you intend to permanently delete your account.

  2. https://www.facebook.com/your_information - here you can find and manage your information, but crucially also access Facebook messenger.

  3. The messenger app: Still hasn’t prompted me with anything, though I expect that will change in the not too far future.

Currently my plan is to use messenger to inform any important friends that I intend to leave FB, and where they’ll be able to reach me in the future.

  • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    Recently uninstalled:

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter/X
    • Reddit

    I feel free. My phone feels lighter, almost. My brain feels lighter.

    • lemmesay@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      don’t forget to delete the accounts too! I’ve seen people just deleting the app and thinking their account is gone too.

      • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

        Very good tip! To be honest, I’m not ready to delete the accounts yet. I’ll just run the services on my computer in containers (Firefox) and with μBlock Origin, so there’s minimal impact of this change for me.

        But it does feel very nice not to be able to do much when I pull out my phone as a reflex. I feel limited in a positive way. Much rather be talking to you fine folk than the drivel I was often interacting with on Reddit. 😁

  • avater@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    Easy fix. Stop using crap like meta, or Reddit, or TikTok, or Twitter or another degenerated social media platform…

  • b3nsn0w@pricefield.orgEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    this has to be illegal.

    like, no, seriously. i’m not a lawyer but i was working on a (since failed) startup in 2018 and distinctly remember how much headache the gdpr caused. literally one of the main things was that you cannot coerce users into consenting to data processing, or make features conditional to them. the gdpr makes a distinction between processing you do to perform a contract (that’s why no one asks for your consent for processing your email address to log you in, that’s implied) and processing you do for other reasons, which require user consent (that’s why everyone asks if they can spam you on the same email – it doesn’t matter that your email address is already on their server, processing it for marketing reasons requires consent of the data subject). opting into these kinds of processing needs to be granular, if it’s not they lose the validity of your consent.

    i seriously hope facebook gets slapped so hard over this that no one ever thinks about doing this again. “paying with your data” should never be a thing in any society that calls itself civilized.

    • AeonFelis@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      I trust that Facebook’s lawyers are payed enough to make sure that this is technically legal. These laws always have loopholes.

      • cosmicrookie@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

        It’s a reaction to Facebook methods being deemed illegal in Europe. Although this does not mean than the new model is illegal, it’s an interesting sample of Facebook not always being right even though they have good layers. Both Facebook, Google and many other big tech, operate on the edge of what is legal and often on the other side of it, because it can be profitable enough to just pay the fine if it turns out to be illegal.

        This last move, I believe, is more of a statement than it is an actual change.