Starting on February 1st, 2025, SHoWLE will reduce our use of Facebook. We will put in a static post pointing visitors to our website but we will not update our public page, boost any posts, or create any new events.
We don’t make this decision easily but the change in political views of the CEO and other actions taken by Meta, the owner of Facebook, make our continued use of the platform problematic. If you are not aware of these issues check out the links at the end of this post for some details. In general:
- Donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, while Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-A-Lago
- Ended its fact-checking program to cater to the right-wing
- Relaxed its rules on hate speech to allow hateful rhetoric against LGBTQ people, including as part of “religious discourse”
- Deleted Facebook Messenger themes that used the colors of the transgender and binary flags
- Ended its DEI work and eliminated its chief diversity officer position
- Called for companies to display more “masculine energy” (Zuckerberg) despite the overwhelming dominance of men in the tech industry.
The fact-checking moderation was put into place a decade ago because Facebook was used to facilitate ethnic cleansing in a couple of countries. Not to mention now there will be more irrational posts about the harm of vaccines and other promotion of woo.
We will keep our private group page for now but we intend to promote a more open community forum in the future off Facebook.
We recommend that our members also move away from Facebook but that decision should be left up to each individual. In the links below is an article from EFF.org that shows how to block use of your data for profit making by Meta.
If you have any questions about this new policy, feel free to reach out to Doug or other Board members.
For further information:
Meta ends its DEI programs as Zuckerberg blasts Biden on Joe Rogan
Mark Zuckerberg Preps for More Ethnic Cleansing
Mad at Meta? Don’t Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data
You can also find us on Bluesky as Toledo Humanist Community