I have a love hate relationship with Meta.

Mostly hate.

Time and time again, the company just keeps giving me reasons to sever my ties with them.

So, I’m thinking about quitting Meta.

Meta’s “The Hacker Way”

According to Wesley Chai and Linda Rosencrance, the term “hacker” emerged in the 1960s to denote someone who could increase efficiency and remove excess code instructions. It’s only recently it’s come to represent people who break into computers to steal data.

In 2012, Wired reprinted Zukerberg’s letter to potential investors contained in the Facebook prospectus for its share float. In it, he describes the company culture as The Hacker Way:

• Focus on impact
• Move fast (and break things)
• Be bold (take risks)
• Be open (more information leads to better decisions and greater impact)
• Build social value (real value for the world)

He explicitly tells us the business takes account of technology, NOT the humans using it.

There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.

You can see he doesn’t think we can communicate without Facebook.

Further,

we hope to rewire the way people spread and consume information

And they have. But is it accurate or useful information?

Anti-competitive behaviour

Following on from the Hacker Way, we get to a series of monopolistic and anti-competative behaviors aimed at dominating the market.

For which the US Federal Trade Commission has them in court at the moment.

According to Rob Nicolls, Meta uses a “buy-or-bury” strategy to maintain it’s position. Which is how Facebook came to buy Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as 89 other companies.

Which means new, possibly better ideas are buried. Or subsumed into the social media account that rules them all.

Not negotiating in good faith

In 2021 the Australian government attempted to require digital platforms scraping news articles from media outlets in Australia to pay them for the news.

According to Natalie Olivieri, Facebook “said, it was left with a “stark choice” after being unable to find a “solution” in discussions with the Australian government.”

So it just shut down news feeds for eight days.

In March 2024, Annika Burgess reported after making payments for three years, Meta decided to shut down news in the US and Australia altogether. They claim the numbers of news users have dropped 80%.

If that’s the case, then fine. Businesses are lawfully allowed to do what’s best for the business.

But, algorithms.

And, potentially, the search for more reliable news. Or maybe less reliable.

Theft of other’s work

In 2023, Alex Reisner revealed Facebook (among others) had used pirated material contained in the dataset “Books3” to train its AI model Llama. Books3 creator Shaun Presser collated the database to allow independent developers to compete with the bigger AI companies.

It was, and still is, possible to train AI models on books in the public domain, (seventy years after the authors death, or when copyrights are willingly renounced).

Plus, it still is, possible to seek permission from the copyright holder to use their work. Though I imagine most authors and publishers would expect payment.

I certainly would.

There are of course several high-profile authors seeking damages.

Meta have several counter arguments, including “fair use,” and that an individual book’s value can be measured in fractions of a cent.

Fair Use

I am not a lawyer, and the US law is slightly different to the Australian law, but to me it doesn’t look like fair use. Considerations include:

• whether the use is commercial, not for profit education, or other.
• the nature of the copyrighted work
• the extent of the copyrighted work used
• the effect on the value of the work

Essentially, we’re talking about a billion dollar company making money from a whole book they haven’t paid even a fraction of a cent for.

Economic value

Every story, just like every piece of code, is a form of intellectual property protected by copyright.

Which is why OpenAI (Mircrosoft) is claiming DeepSeek (the Chinese AI) has stolen its intellectual property. Which they think is worth a lot, otherwise they wouldn’t be complaining!

An individual paperback may well be as good as worthless, but the expression of a character’s journey is worth a lot more.

Consider Sherlock Holmes. Or Tarzan. Even Captain America.

They started with books. Then movies, tv shows, games, toys, figurines, t-shirts, ties, notebooks, shoes and so on.

All based on the characterisation of a character that didn’t exist until the author created it – created the intellectual property

And which the companies that manage the estates of Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burrows rigorously defend against assaults on those properties. Because they have value.

This is the value I would expect any AI payment to take account of. Even if my stories are not as well known as those of other authors, no one knows which story might be the one to go viral, so to speak.

Serial theft

Meta hasn’t just done this once.

Despite being caught, Alex Reisner has just revealed a second data set created from Library Genesis, a known source of pirated books.

And yes, some of my stories have been pirated and included in the Meta data set.

Sigh…

You are the product

You might remember I deeply believe we should treat people as ends in themselves, not as a means to our own ends.

Other people are not just things for us to use as we wish, but are creatures just like us, and this fact alone makes them deserving of respect.

Therefore, each and every person has the right to choose what happens to them, their data, and the world they live in.

Having said that, there’s a bunch of quotes along the lines of “If you’re not buying it, you’re the product.”

The Meta platforms are “free” to use, but they will sell your data to third parties without your permission as they did with Cambridge Analytca.

Which CA then used to influence the 2010 Trinidad and Tobago, and 2016 US Presidential election. Potentially, also interfering over Russian oil and Brexit.

Zuckerberg at first apologised – an admission of guilt.

Though later he referred to it as an issue, a mistake and a breach of trust. Later still, the company settled settled a $725 million private class-action law suit.

Having observed other class-actions, it seems to me, “they” don’t settle unless the consequences of not settling would be worse.

Not to mention that Meta has decided to use all the photos, videos, text, and presumably advertising in the Instagram platform to further train its AI. Here in Australia, we don’t have specific legislation requiring an opt out, so we have no choice but to either allow it or leave the platform.

To quit Meta or not to quit

I am deeply conflicted about continuing to use Meta Products. And quite resentful of the lack of comparative products which aren’t morally compromised.

Though I concede, the state of magazine and mainstream news media is almost as bad and if I don’t advertise on social media, then I must use mainstream media.

By now, about the only reason I use Meta products is for my business. And yes, any author who wants to sell books is in a business of one kind or another.

But…

At the moment, I can pend this decision for a time.

As I mentioned, there’s an anti-trust action taking place, and the US Federal Trade Commission is seeking to have the Meta group of companies split up.

The trial will last several months, most like followed by appeals and so on.

So while I wait for the eventual outcome, I can consider alternative options..