I’m not going to lie: I hate Facebook. They’re an awful company, and they have routinely fucked over their users. Deleting Facebook has been key to increasing my quality of life across the board. Being off of Facebook is directly responsible for feeling like my life is actually quite lovely.

Facebook’s problems are long running and deep rooted. If you are interested in educating yourself about the problems with Facebook, you’re in the right place.

Here I am providing a list of all the articles and studies I have read about the harm Facebook does to us as individuals, to our society, and to our democracy at large.

Bookmark this page for future reference, as I will update with resources as I find them. New finds are always listed at the bottom.

Updated: 14 September 2020

Table of Contents

• Articles
• Studies & Reports
• Videos

Articles

1. Ysmay: Why I deleted Facebook
2. Quartz: What it’s like to quit Facebook
3. Basecamp: Becoming a Facebook Free Business
4. FTC: Facebook Settles FTC Charges That It Deceived Consumers By Failing To Keep Privacy Promises
5. CNN: The NSA mines Facebook data, including Americans’ profiles.
6. TechCrunch: Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them
7. Bloomberg: Accident Involving Facebook Experimental Drone Under Investigation
8. Business Insider: Facebook knows what you’re doing on other sites and in real life.
9. The Verge: Why Facebook is beating the FBI at facial recognition
10. ACLU: The NSA Continues to Violate Americans’ Internet Privacy Rights
11. Washington Post: 9 answers about Facebook’s creepy emotional-manipulation experiment
12. The Guardian: Leaked: Cambridge Analytica’s blueprint for Trump victory
13. TechCrunch: Facebook data misuse and voter manipulation back in the frame with latest Cambridge Analytica leaks
14. The Guardian: Belgian court orders Facebook to stop tracking non-members
15. USA Today: Facebook Tracking is Under Scrutiny
16. Nieman Lab: One year in, Facebook’s big algorithm change has spurred an angry, Fox News-dominated — and very engaged! — News Feed
17. NY Times: Clean Up Your Act, Facebook, or We’re Leaving
18. The Verge: If you can quit social media, but don’t, then you’re part of the problem, Jaron Lanier says
19. Input: Facebook knew it was divisive and resisted reform anyway
20. Input: Facebook has become too toxic for the world’s biggest brands. It will cost billions.
21. Columbia Journalism Review: Spies, Lies, and Stonewalling: What It’s Like to Report on Facebook
22. The Verge: The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America
23. Wall Street Journal: Facebook Executives Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site Less Divisive
24. Axios: Facebook made an “operational mistake” by not removing Kenosha militia page
25. Gizmodo: Facebook engineer resigns with a blazing letter
26. Business Insider: How Facebook became a haven for misinformation
27. BuzzFeedNews: Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation
28. Bloomberg: Facebook Isn’t Blocking Advertising Fraud
29. Business Insider: Facebook is challenging an order that blocks EU data from being sent to the US
30. Law Street Media: Facebook files motion to dismiss amended complaint in antitrust suit
31. Vice: Hate Speech on Facebook is Pushing Ethiopia Closer to Genocide

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Studies & Reports

1. FTC: Complaint against Facebook, Inc.
2. Pace Law Review: Facebook Revolutionised Online Government Surveillance
3. News Whip: 2019 Guide to Facebook Publishing
4. PLOS One: Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults
5. PLOS One: Inferring Tie Strength from Online Directed Behavior
6. PLOS One: Facebook Flow and Facebook Addiction Disorder
7. PLOS One: The reach of commercially motivated junk news on Facebook
8. AKJournals: The uses and abuses of Facebook: A review of Facebook addiction
9. AKJournals: Motives to use Facebook and problematic Facebook use in adolescents

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Videos

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