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.
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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.
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https://www.facebook.com/your_information - here you can find and manage your information, but crucially also access Facebook messenger.
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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.
What's absolutely scummy is that "laws are changing in your region" is not what happened. The law hasn't significantly changed. What has changes is that the regulator is finally enforcing the law.
Also said law doesn't allow blocking access if you don't agree to the tracking rules, so let's see where this goes.
Law opens for supplier to charge money, if necessary to support the service, which is what Meta is doing.
However, fuck Meta.
Honestly I don't disagree with that bit.
A website shouldn't be forced to operate at a loss, which is what Facebook would be doing if they couldn't strip mine data OR charge access to use the service.
The Law doesn't care if any one company's business model is viable and, Facebook being an American company which avoids taxes like crazy, EU politicians don't care enough about them specifically to change said Law.
So ultimatelly and once they exhausted all legal recourse, Facebook have only two options: "comply" or "leave" (i.e. stop operating in the EU).
Somehow I suspect that selling non-personalized adverts will still make the EU market appealing enough for Facebook to operate in an that would allow them to comply with the local laws.
To me this looks like a play by Facebook to keep their higher revenue model going as long as possibly by breaking the rules and then relying on the slowness of regulators to keep going and any two-strikes policies to avoid big fines.
Shh, people don't wanna hear that. Lol
That's not a loophole, it's a key provision of the law.
True, edited.