Deleting Facebook

The slow regard for neurosis, thanks to social media

Last night before I fell asleep, I was watching a YouTube video about how there seems to be a growing backlash against “social media” apps; against “smart” phones; against the very things that were once meant to foster inclusivity, connection, collaboration. But somewhere along the route, the “greater good”, the “noble mission”, got replaced with greed, malarkey, and all the hallmarks of capitalism. As Jack Conte pointed out in the video, the customers of Facebook are advertisers, and the product that they demand from Facebook is every last ounce of your attention. So what does Facebook do? It pilfers, peddles, and mainstreams anything that will keep you on their platform, even if it means it destroys your minds and results in social neuroses.

I can’t remember the last time I posted on Facebook, but it must’ve been years ago now. I keep hearing about how Facebook is now full of disgusting AI Slop targeted at the basest desires of its Boomer population, to keep them hooked onto the app. This is just another attempt, but the tide is overwhelming and the next generation is abandoning Facebook and it’s mind destroying antics like there’s no tomorrow. 

It was a noble mission in the beginning — connecting people together, friends, family. It was also new, and we didn’t know what a privacy nightmare it was going to be. I still remember the early days of Facebook when friends and family would get together to “create” photo albums. It was a thing. After any event, a get together, a party, a hangout, there would always be someone saying “I’ll upload the pictures to Facebook.” And honestly, if that model had stayed, it would have worked. Facebook would still be our default. But the more Facebook has evolved, the more they’ve shown how truly evil and inhumane they really are.

A few months ago, I ended up reading the book “Careless People” by Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former Facebook employee and whistleblower. This is what I wrote after reading the book:

This is the story of how Facebook has destroyed countries, economies, politics, social norms. This is a story of how Facebook has lied, obfuscated and perjured itself. But because the chief evangelist of Facebook is richer than God himself, he has gotten away with it. Over and over and over again. This is a story about the disdain that people like Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Joel Kaplan, Elliot Schrage have for ordinary mortals, who do not have the same excess and naked wealth that they do.

If you think you know how Facebook operates — because they present sanitized versions of their corporate hierarchy to the outside world — let me assure you, you don’t. You don’t have a single fucking idea how deep rooted and inherent the malaise is in Facebook. You don’t even have to read the book; just look at the latest updates that they’ve pushed to WhatsApp — their most “privacy” focused product. They’ve shoved their privacy shattering, god-awful AI tool into your most intimate and private conversations, and as soon as you so much as touch it, it will send your “encrypted” chats to their servers, where they will read them, and use them to shove more privacy denying garbage down your throats. They expect you to not care about that; they expect you to think that even your AI interactions (and the subsequent data that they’re collecting — which includes your private, personal chats by the way) are encrypted and safe. But they’re not. None of it is. It’s icky and disgusting and it is why the Zoomers are leaving this dystopian hellscape in droves. 

To be fair, WhatsApp was never, and has never been a privacy first product. They say it’s “end-to-end encrypted” only because they were forced to say it, not because that is what they wanted. Signal had come to eat their lunch after their privacy debacle in 2021, when they said they would share your chats with Meta/Facebook (especially your chats with businesses), before begging and pleading with everyone that they’re not breaking any encryption and privacy.

But the lack of privacy is only one side of the coin. The other side is the soul destroying neuroses that they peddle and mainstream. They allow — deliberately — hate, bullying, perversion on their platforms because that is what creates shock and awe. That is what keeps you hooked. That is what allows them to turn back to their advertisers and say how many minutes and hours and days you spend on their apps because you can’t look away. The system is designed to break you, so that the system can turn you into a mindless lemming who can’t figure out why it’s so stunted and anxious and broken all the time. All the while, there are algorithms programmatically capturing every single data point about you, from your age, your gender, your political beliefs, to the brand of ice cream you like, to your secret dating partners, to your deepest darkest secrets. And you know what they do with that data? They horde it, to sell you slop in the best case, and hand that data over to your governments so that those governments can completely and utterly destroy and ruin your lives (and the lives of your loved ones) in the worst case. 

So tell me again, what exactly is the point of having social media apps owned by these narcissistic, perverted, elites who live in a bubble so far removed from reality, that they will never know, nor care, the damage that they have unleashed upon society in their quest for unimaginable wealth and power? What is the point when the meaning of “social” in social media has been corrupted? So I did what so many before me have done, and so many after me will continue to do: I deleted Facebook. In protest. And I know it is more symbolic than functional, because it won’t make a lick of difference in the end; because I’ll still be tracked and an algorithm will continue to build my profile, adding things that even I don’t notice about myself. But one day, when hopefully enough people have done the same, that’s when it will start making a difference. And that is the future we should all hope for.

When Meesha Shafi wasn’t hot enough to be harassed by Ali Zafar

Ali Zafar

Meesha Shafi called out Ali Zafar for sexual harassment, publicly — and all hell broke loose on Pakistani social media. The Twitterati had a meltdown, the social justice warriors went tapping away on their keyboards frantically, and the rest of us watched in amazement as those who we thought had some modicum of sanity, resorted to obscene objectification of Meesha Shafi to prove that Ali Zafar would never harass her.

The amount of social breakdown I saw in the aftermath of Meesha Shafi’s allegations has rendered me completely speechless. I knew there was a reaction to the feminism movement in Pakistan — I just didn’t know it’ll come out in such force. The number one objection to Meesha Shafi’s allegations was that she’s simply not good looking enough to be harassed. This was quickly followed by the more conventional “she’s a slut, so she was asking for it”  line of thinking that the Pakistani nation is accustomed to.

Now I am not going to go into the depravity of someone believing only “good looking” girls can be harassed, or the fact that most guys commenting on this tragedy today were of the opinion that being harassed is actually an honor that Meesha Shafi should quietly accept. No.

What I am going to go into is the fact that the vast majority of men and women are so biased in their assessments against victims, it should literally give you migraines. Pick any victims over the last 10 years. Mukhtaran Mai, was bullied and harassed on national TV by Mubasher Lucman in his show; to be followed by Pervez Musharraf saying she conveniently got herself raped to get foreign visas. Malala, shot in the head by Taliban, conveniently dismissed as a western agent, an actor, and questioned about how she’s alive after being shot in the head. Shazia Khalid, a doctor posted at Sui, raped by an army officer in the middle of the night, beaten and tortured, and then drugged by the medical staff who she had gone to ask for help. And then, she was put under house arrest. Then her husband’s grandfather asked her husband to divorce her for bringing dishonor to the family, and when the husband refused, the grandfather assembled a mob to kill her. Khadijah Shah, stabbed 23 times in broad daylight, who’s perpetrator’s father said in open court, in front of a judge, that he would leak her pictures if she didn’t back off. Her attacker was sentenced to 7 years in prison. Then it was reduced to 5 years. Then the judge himself asked Khadija to pardon the attacker.

How many men and women in this country believed the stories of these victims? These victims who’s stories are verifiable without any question? We still laugh at Mukhtaran Mai, dismiss Malala, have conveniently forgotten Shazia Khalid and have pushed Khadija to fend for herself in a society that will not rest until her attacker is free to torment her once more.

I have no love lost for either of the two individuals involved in this very public kerfuffle. I don’t know them. But some things do stand out to me. 1) No sane woman in this country called Pakistan would be stupid enough to willingly subject herself to the vitriol that is currently being directed at Meesha Shafi. 2) We have documented proof from Ali Zafar’s Twitter account that he is in fact, a sexist pig. 3) Since Meesha Shafi’s allegations against Ali Zafar, a bunch of other women have stepped forward to claim the exact same stuff as Meesha Shafi. 4) Meesha Shafi’s ignominious attitude aside, there really is never any justification for one human sexually harassing another human.

Ali Zafar says he’ll take Meesha Shafi to court. If I was Meesha Shafi’s lawyer, I would throw Ali Zafar’s Twitter account in his face, call the women who’ve called him out publicly as witnesses, and call it a day. But I’m not her lawyer. What I am, is a rational thinking human who thinks Ali Zafar crossed one too many lines. He’s rich, he’s famous, he’s handsome, and women probably don’t say no to him. And those that do, probably don’t go public with it. He probably tried the same with Meesha Shafi, and now he’s got his face plastered all over the Pakistani internet.

But he should fear nothing, because the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis have convinced themselves that he would never do it because a) Meesha Shafi isn’t hot enough, b) Ali Zafar doesn’t look like the kind of person who would sexually harass another person, or c) it’d be an honor if Ali Zafar harassed them.

Meanwhile the rest of us are going to go stand in the corner with our hats in our hands thinking about the social breakdown that’s led us down this path.