The first time I wrote about overcoming troubles with Facebook, it was all about accessibility. Being practically blind and requiring software that interprets what is on the screen and reads it allowed can present some difficulties when the source is not designed in such a way that the software can read it in a way that makes sense to the user. Facebook’s complex and busy screens can still be tough to navigate, but it has come a long way in making its content accessible. This is commendable and I’m grateful that Facebook now has a team dedicated to accessibility.

But now we have a much bigger problem, and all of its users are affected. Some don’t see it as a problem, but they should. No one should be comfortable with a self-appointed arbiter of truth deciding for them what is true and what they should be allowed to see. You may agree with Facebook’s decisions today, but are you so certain that you will agree with them tomorrow? There will always be people who are intellectually lazy and perfectly content for someone else to tell them what to believe. We can hope to get through to them, but they don’t worry me as much as the other group. These are the people so arrogant as to believe that though they are capable of discerning truth, you are not and so must be protected from anything they deem to be false. This seems to include many involved with “big tech” but certainly is not limited to them. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are among the most guilty.

Now I’ll admit, spending a day scrolling through some of the wacky stuff that gets shared online might lead to the conclusion that they are right. Hoaxes that have been around for twenty years are depressingly hard to kill. Like zombies they just keep coming back and they are definitely after your brain. Let me just say this. Even before it started meddling, Facebook was never a place you should have been looking for news, assuming your definition of news involves facts that are useful for understanding what is happening in the world around you and responding to it wisely.

So what should we do? Should we abandon the platform? Many have decided to do just that. I don’t spend as much time there as I used to. It has actually led to my posting more, since I’m reading real news from other trusted sources and passing it along. I don’t plan to completely abandon Facebook or Twitter because that is still where the people are. It’s not likely that we’ll be able to convince all our friends and family to migrate with us to some other platform. Someday Facebook will get eclipsed by something new, but it might take a generation.

I do have a suggestion. I’d love to start a trend, though I have no illusions about my ability to do so. I’m nobody and can probably count the people who will see this without running out of fingers and toes. Of course I’ll share it on Facebook, but how far do we think that will get? If we’d all just shut down Facebook for the day as soon as one of it’s fact checks rolls onto the screen, they might be less inclined to use them. Facebook makes its money by advertising and by tracking your every move. If you shut it down as soon as you are presented with one of these, whether on something you try to post or on something you see in your feed, they just might get the message. That is what I do now. Even if it doesn’t work, which is likely, you’ll have gotten time back that you can use in more productive ways.