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Forced to use Facebook to interact with local groups and businesses. How do I keep my data safe? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm a big advocate for data privacy and I left Facebook many years ago without feeling the need to go back. However, there's several local groups and a couple of local businesses that specifically communicate via Facebook that I'd like to interact with.

This presents a problem - I have to use the platform to interact with these people but I don't want to use the platform. So how do I keep my data safe from Zucks greedy hands? So far I'm thinking:

use a throwaway email or email that is specifically for fb
only access via Firefox inprivate browser and use addons to clean cookies after every session
utilise ad blockers in said browser
set fb privacy settings accordingly to opt out of ad personalisation, othrr site fb logins etc
potentially only access via VPN but that might be cumbersome
maybe do all of this via android work profile but not sure if that's much benefit

Anything else I can do to remain reasonably safe?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Yup. Now I also get that exposure and engagement are important to small businesses, but to that end they shouldn't lock themselves to one place either. Point out the benefits of more open solutions like Bluesky and Mastodon, and the benefits of setting up their own hosted site/blog that they can then broadcast on social media but slowly cut them out as a middle man by pushing customers to their site directly.

And most certainly businesses should never use the "algorithm" on social media to collect data or get "free" advertising such as those "like/repost to win" style posts. Those are not free advertising, those are doing free data collection work for Meta.