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.

  • Liam MayfairEnglish
    85•1 year ago

    I welcome this change. It makes it clear to the user in realistic terms how they want to engage with the site.

    • Pay up with your money
    • Pay up with your data
    • Don’t use Facebook

    I despise Meta and all their products but they are entitled to charge people for them. Shit ain’t free to run, you know.

    I’d much sooner they showed this banner and force people to make a decision than what they’ve been doing up until now, which is to “assume” everyone’s fine with their personal data being harvested and exploited without their knowledge or consent.

          • @[email protected]English
            4•1 year ago

            Offline activity stays offline if it never goes online. If you don’t have a facebook account, then your probably have thousands of facebook accounts. It will generate an identity for each unique advertising ID you use, and you can always generate new ones in most devices.

    • @[email protected]English
      26•1 year ago

      That assumes that because they’re paying they aren’t also tracking. They might not use it for ads directly but they’ll still sell it to others that will show you ads off Facebook.

      • @[email protected]English
        10•1 year ago

        Facebook’s data is way more valuable to Facebook; it doesn’t sell data to third parties. If you think they’re going to sell the non-monetisable data to third parties, you have to believe they’re willing to introduce this (which is likely to be unpopular) in apparent compliance with data protection laws, while still flagrantly violating them in secret, without any of their many employees nor any of their partners’ employees blowing the whistle (and Meta as a company leaks all the time). If they were doing that, why would they bother setting up the fake “pay to not be tracked” flow, when they could pretend to honour people’s free requests not to be tracked?

        • @[email protected]English
          2•1 year ago

          why would they bother setting up the fake “pay to not be tracked” flow

          They didn’t. That was not an option.

    • @[email protected]English
      8•1 year ago

      Don’t use Facebook is the best answer but if you must then the next best option is:

      • Choose a better Adblock

      You don’t owe your enemy anything. Stop using spyware as a business model.

    • @[email protected]English
      5•1 year ago
      • Pay up with your money

      More like give us money, while also paying up with your data, that we won’t use for tracking, only for resell to people that will sell us back tracking details in a maybe not currently illegal way. Also we also are the “people” that will buy the info and sell back the tracking.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•1 year ago

        Fun fact: In Illinois we actually got pretty nice checks from Facebook over them violating a biometric law the state has. I believe most of us in the class action lawsuit got around $300 each.