Leaving oligarch centralized platforms – last entry (on my facebook). I got delayed by a busy 2025 and tomorrow plan on deleting my meta accounts, gmail still needs a day or two of work, because that account has been my network identity since 2008/2009 or 16+ years. My gmail is on so many sign-in accounts. kinda every thing, so just making that inventory and changing the email is a chore.

Back to meta, this afternoon I put in a “Meta download request” of my data which includes everything since I started the account. I read on reddit something about 2 weeks and still no facebook download link. If I don’t have the download, I may give it a few days or just delete anyway. But you can download your data (both for FB & IG) and this seems like a good idea. I have never done this so don’t know how long it will take.

My big plan, to make an event, invite everyone and make a self hosted contact form was telling. Telling about my own engagement and these 466 followers. I am thrilled by the folk who filled out the form!! And grateful for such a beautiful assembly 💖 had 20 people fill out the form.

Deleting my account loomed like some big crisis about losing contact forever with people. But personally found it wasn’t contact with people, but contact with my previous lives; yup a little self-involved, as was evidenced - there wasn’t much interest about my leaving. Again I’m a supportive lurker who does posting of professional activities, for to be legitimized to those looking - ‘for the record’.

From this, I arrive at a too reductive and too provocative and the closest word I can think of that gets at what this leaving oligarch platforms process has conjured up – surveillance. I surveil. I am surveilled, I watch and get attitude when I see a bit much ‘performing for the surveillance’. And at the end find, perhaps, this is the social-media medium, the message – surveillance, or is it curiosity. Everyone is different I tend to be critical by nature.

Candidly, from this process (leaving facebook event) I arrive at a sense that once I leave the panopticon, it’ll go on merrily without me. And what is actually, truly important is my meta profile will not advance, the tracking and targeting will cease (most likely also scraping, AI testing / development - this will be true especially once I delete gmail & youtube)

Also a thought. I was active on leaving oligarch platforms early this year, when I felt whiplash at what was happening to governmental/business norms, and that I needed to do something, at minimum, not be in-with the oligarch's products. It’s been a year, now I find this whiplash has become normalized to the point where for me it has turned into a wrong kind of entertainment, checking what batshit thing is happening today. Honestly I’m a bit hooked on being so appalled. So I’m glad to be deleting my accounts, not 100% normal, doing a thing, a little thing.

Last bit, earlier in the week I laughed at myself - what like I’m some sort of woo-woo, going underground, by deleting my meta and gmail, hotmail…. like Brave New World going outside the "World State" to a "Savage Reservation" or something so silly and grandiose. But realized, no I just need to get above ground. show up, put effort into engaging above ground. I’m around, and how is that going and what am I doing. safe travels & love -r

I'll be deleting FB & I made an event, so i could invite all my Facebook folk, to see if we can still be pals... i made a form via an app 'NocoDB' which I'm hosting on 'PikaPods' - my new favorite thing.

I had been planning on quitting Meta Platforms, Inc. it is sad and i feel it is good. The AI scraping & slop and potential for surveillance is too much fuckery, I'm just not that tough. Darrin relayed, can't remember the artists name, but the advice 'don't become hard because then they can break you.' also I get that doing shows and not being able to PR or 'get the word' out on Meta Platforms, Inc. seems like a questionable choice. And It just really doesn't, for me, deliver. I don't work in a largely popular form, and to get people to come out, relationships and shared life works well. In on it, not outside of it.

: leaving oligarch platforms blog series before I go. I was busy late spring/early summer, performing doing some shows which were -sweet! , so I put on pause my departure.

A few things, from doing the shows. * i do feel the jumping into the abyss of ‘how will anyone know ?’ ‘how do I get anyone to show up?’ I was in IG groups for some performances and didn’t even know it 🤪. Leaving feels a real ‘getting out there’ loss AND possibly more significant is trying to get bookings, where is my trace? A good friend said of Instagram ‘my whole artist career is on there’ …. This is a concern.. I dunno, but again I need to - not participate in this oligarch media/marketing/consciousness project.

My plan is to do nice shows, ideally with local artists / house-audience , build interest, and be in and participate in the orbit of that scene.

Also as for getting people to show up… here the social-media post/advert; - for me as an out of towner- i think is a bit of a mirage. For programmer/ promoter folk, yup they kinda have to be on FB,IG +. I do think alternative internetwork scenes are good & possible, My mastodon made friend Ranjit showed up to my GovsIsland opening and the Various/Artists show. I really am loving mastodon, no algorithm, no ads - there are people and interests - nice!

As for booking shows….side confession, I really enjoy making basic HTML web pages. So I made an info/EPK-ish page and I think it worked really well! Wrote a query with the page link. Also I put my lil’ ‘blog’ as my homepage, so here I can leave a trace of exhibitions/ performances . Then for people coming/viewing , email will be my best option….

I bought a composition book to start to use at performances for signups. And will add folk to a ‘ Timely reminders’ email list I set up last night. The Plane(s) project is intentionally small so, leaving is not such a blow/ loss…

Some changes: leaving oligarch platforms blog series before I go.

1. From Grammerly email subject, “a week with out words?” What are you my mother, saying you never call? This week it’s “time to jump back in” I have many fears but not so much of missing out of autocorrect.

I have grammerly linked via google, it can be in my gmail but I turned it off. I’m not writing as much now that I’m not in arts ed/non profit. I am not a natural 'good-writer' and need to do multiple edit passes. I tend towards a mud pie of adjectives when trying to do a description of a project for an application.

As I’m out of practice my writing has diminished and easy grammar/tone fixes offered by Grammerly are appealing. But the feedback of seeing the ‘being out of practice’ is very important. Knowing I need improvement, yes my writing is going a bit downhill, means I can address it. Having this taken care of for me ie grammerly; I feel I’d loose agency over my decline and in this, loose opportunity to regain the power of text expression. I’d be ‘theirs’ in a way.

I’m of the opinion that Grammerly is a fine company (they do some AI as is now the norm). And I’m so very fortunate to be in a situation where I don’t need to be efficient and react with haste or be backlogged/overwhelmed. I guess it might be reasonable to ask the question does the efficiency that platforms offer make their own trap, cause their own necessity. Thinking about AI paws on everything.

2. Leaving google maps … nothing else is the same - it’s so good! I’ve deleted the app and now when in a bind default to Apple Maps which is half-assed of me and yet still I miss google maps.

We recently traveled to NYC where I’ve depended on google maps for subway schedules and location … oh no… All was fine, MTA has a super new app, it’s great. I downloaded Organic Map based on OpenStreetMap. On Organic Maps you need to type out complete addresses. it’s community maintained and parts of NJ might be missing?. (My area is good and I could contribute to improve it) … but if we are heading towards a catastrophe, organic maps downloads locally on your phone so no internet needed. After another week of the not possible, I find this feature comforting, and reason enough to get the app.

3. Gmail is so tough to shut down!!! Thinking I’ll put on a less soft auto reply. Like not checking this email, and will not reply, give new email and a deadline for closure. need to toughen up....

Some changes: leaving oligarch platforms. blog series before I go. Case #2 gmails I had three: one gone, one being prepared, one to keep for the livestream.

This at first seemed daunting, tens of thousands of emails. I’m far from done getting out of gmail and It’s much more than gmails; it’s all things google. I like their products. I moderated an artists conversation with Trevor Paglen, it came up that google had me down, I said I knew this, so I felt I had some sort of agency, see I knew it. He then went on to say, could I realistically get out from under google. So many things google drive, documents, meet, calendar, maps, youtube, keep, search, translate, sign-ins. Wasn’t it a professional expectation to use these services.

Yes, it is and yes it is daunting cutting to the bone my google. I’ll not cut off a little used account for youtube where I run the weekly live stream. But I’ll need to move youtube to this account…

Gmail got me prepared for my tech oligarch exit with Gemini AI. One of my gmail accounts was for my lil’ LLC. I had purchased the bottom tier of Google Workspace. (more GB on drive and no timeout on meet) one day gemini showed up on this gmail account. I can’t AI for fun as it’s a doomsday for power needs and water. So I had the idea I’ll ask gemini how to remove Gemini. Its short response was, you could try these three things that might work. Basically no getting rid of it.

Some technicals: Google has ‘Google takeout’ where you can download locally all your account data, emails, files, notes… It packages it into tidy downloads. Not too bad if you don’t have that much. I did this it works great, for both the LLC gmail and my personal gmail. Because I have a website for the LLC, that gmail used the website name rebekkkah@the-biz-name.art. So this gmail was easy, after takeout, delete the account on google. Go to my website hosting, set up webmail (I made an email that receives forwarded mail) it took a bit for the hosting based email to propagate, and a bit of a pain but that email is now on my phone; done.

My personal gmail is still in progress…. I set up a new email. I went with mailfence. Encrypted, servers in Belgium where surveillance requests must go through a Belgian court. Mailfence has been around since 2013 with the parent company start in 1999. They have doc, calendars. It's a paid service, a little less than what I paid for google workspace.

Oh, some other privacy emails are proton mail and tuta mail. I decided to get the free mailfence plan. So I get 500MB of mail 500MB documents, 1000 contacts. Pee-wee storage space, indeed…

I put an auto responder on my gmail with the new mailfence address. Part of getting off these centralized platforms, is I notice the low level stress they create. I had thousands of emails. I sign up for arty mailing lists, and when I buy anything I’m on a mailing list. The compulsion to see if I got mail, and then pleasure of the newsletter info and something on sale or nuts.com free shipping offers really works. There are so many every day to supply distraction as needed! The thought of going back over the thousands of emails gave me pause, ok a bit-of dread. What if some of it is important? But I can’t possibly muster going through it all to find out. So I keep the thousands and thousands of emails. I have known and envied folks who delete and archive; I’m trying to become one of those people. Pee-wee storage space, indeed…

Now that I’ve begun the mass deleting, (~8200 from hotmail today) I better understand why I’m kinda an overwhelmed shit show. And once the deleting starts it gets, for me, easier. The previous dread weakens. I’m almost to f*&kt delete the account. Not quite but closer, which surprises me.

The last thing, what if someone writes to me at my gmail after I delete the account. This I just need to recon with. I’ll still be here, the new address in on my webpage. But the idea of no contact sits in my mind kinda as thing that happens after death, but it’s not the reality. I'm around, you can find me. And this I wonder is another aspect of how they have you down.

Some changes: leaving oligarch platforms. blog series before I go Case # 1 twitter(x) to mastodon

some changes: leaving meta google twitter(x): oligarch platforms that now frighten me. re my data = my habits, hellos, projects, location, interests and entertainments. I thought I’d blog what I’ve found out, how is it going, and reflections on this process. maybe it might be helpful. I thought I’m not so much on the ‘coms’ so I’d have lower height to jump off from. This is just a story i thought I’d tell…

Still I’m processing what these platforms, with my consent have done. I like them; I like seeing friends and peers beautiful families, holidays, accomplishments, losses. I love the view of my niece's families. yeah when I delete the accounts: gone. And it feels like I’ve turned a little lurker and this is quite comfortable. hadn’t really thought about it before, but more or less I lurk, promote (cuz i should 🫤) while at the same time fed by an algorithm a bunch of crap. And now i see critically all the ‘groups’ I’m in where nothing goes on.

Case # 1 twitter(x) to mastodon I exited, but did not exit (this is good to know) an easy one twitter(x). I had twitter since i think 2010, didn’t really use it until the russian invasion of Ukraine for news and then found great film programmers/critics and curators on the platform. my use came after the NFT thing. I was on twitter for the musk purchase and yuck…. the posts i wanted to see i barely saw, i was fed posts that followed my interest but also slanted towards musk-world-view and did so very aggressively. the advertisers on my feed imo became ‘icky’.

Bailing from twitter seems folks went to blueSky (self identified “public good” for profit corp) or threads (Meta). On January 28, I joined Mastodon (non-profit fediverse). It’s as they say kinda empty, techie and wonk/geeky. This suits me well and I get its not for every one!

But on mastodon there is no algorithm and I can ‘feel’ it, anyone I follow, their posts are on my feed, same for my followers, listed in the order posted - simple. I sense this genuineness coupled with the ‘emptiness’ of the platform makes me want to participate, not lurk. Also I like tech folk default toward problem solving. I’ve learned a lot, as in informed what are the implications and activities of ‘doge’ and learned ways I can do somethings. I’m happy, info, jokes, some stuff is just over my head and cat photos.

Via mastodon I found recommendation on leaving not leaving twitter. once you close out your twitter, your handle name becomes available, my handle had my name. So a new owner could post unsavory items that might track back to me. So i deleted my posts manually, there weren’t many (i think there is a way to automate that), threw out all following/followers. put a picture of woodgrain as my image. changed my password and logged out for good.