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Controversial opinion: This entire thread reads like a game of cat-and-mouse. People trying to block intrusive ads, and FB reaching into the depths of code and making it nearly impossible for anyone to do so en masse. I've been there. Tried to uncheck all the boxes on their ad platform; used all manners of ad blockers, etc; used incognito mode; used Tor; etc. etc. etc. At some point, you realize that the only way to not get served ads on Facebook -- and thereby not benefit the company itself -- is to get rid of it completely. Delete your account, get off that blasted site, and enjoy some moments of peace IRL. Having been a very early adopter of FB (since ~2004), I deleted my account and am clean + sober + much happier since 2016. (Not to say that I'm completely out of the FB ecosystem. Unfortunately, my fam is still on WhatsApp... and I've been trying to convince them to migrate to Signal...) YMMV
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you realize that the only way to not get served ads on Facebook -- and thereby not benefit the company itself -- is to get rid of it completely You're probably right when it comes to benefiting the company, but technically - at least for me - using only https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr means no ads/sponsored/whatever. Only the posts I actually want to see, and chronologically so easy to continue where you left off. I don't understand why this isn't more common knowledge but have been using this for years and it makes the whole platform usable exactly for what I want to use it for: tracking things which haven't moved on from it yet without being forced to consume anything else. Btw there's also https://www.instagram.com/?variant=following which does something similar on Instagram.
Unfortunately it’s hard to replace local groups for me. It’s mostly crap but there is very useful updates there as well and I live in a small enough community there’s no alternative. I’ve used them to get rides, forest fire info, community event info etc. I used to use marketplace as well but they’ve completely ruined it with shipped products and ads and stuff from too far away. They’d rather show me pages upon pages of shit I’ll never buy because it’s shipped or three hours away than show me just the five results for “dresser” within 20 miles of me. So now i only interact with marketplace through buy/sell groups. God I miss Craigslist.
I had a period before I dropped Facebook where I actually manually removed every add from the timeline with the added option of "I don't want to see ads from this company ever again", and frankly it worked. After a period of a doing this I started to get new ads only periodically, and after a couple of sessions of removing every one of them, the rest of the month was quiet. I fucking beat the Facebook ad department.
I've migrated my fam by just refusing to use it at some point "sorry folks no facebook apps on my phone". It was kinda hard when I needed something from them, but once they needed something from me they had to install my preferred communications channel.
Deleting Facebook, Instagram, X (Formerly Twitter), and TikTok was the best decision I have ever made. I thought that I would really miss them but I just don't.