2 weeks Ago
It’s the end of the world as we know it...
and we should be logging off. “Are we too addicted we can’t log off even for one week?” R.E.
M. frontman Michael Stipe has encouraged people to boycott Facebook, Instagram and all platforms owned by Meta over their role in “helping advance the far right in America.” The singer-songwriter behind hits like ‘Shiny Happy People’, ‘Losing My Religion’ and ‘Everybody Hurts’ has detailed his plan to take part in the ‘Lights Out Meta’ campaign from 19 – 26 January.
This involves logging out from all Meta platforms, which includes WhatsApp, Threads, Messenger, Metaquest and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. “I’ll be logged off for the week,” he captioned his post. “Please consider doing the same so corporations like Meta can imagine there might be consequences for helping advance the far right in America and world wide.
” He added: “Or are we too addicted we can’t log off even for one week?” “Its so gross,” he continued in his post’s caption. “I’m really happy to step away for a week as some form of protest - and then I’ll come back and decide what to do from there.” Stipe’s decision to temporarily boycott Meta coincides with today and comes just days after Meta chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company was on its platforms, replacing them with X-style “community notes”.
This leaves the accuracy of posts up to users. Zuckerberg said that fact checkers were “too politically biased” and declared it was “time to get back to our roots around free expression”. The move has been met with widespread criticism and thought to be an attempt to align with the upcoming Trump administration.
Trump recently said that he was impressed by Zuckerberg’s decision and added that Meta have “come a long way”. That way seems to head to the spread of further misinformation, according to commentators who join Stipe in saying that it contributes to the spread of far-right ideologies. To answer Stipe’s rhetorical question about social media addiction, statistics by California State University suggest that around 10 per cent of Americans are addicted to social media.
Elsewhere, recent studies have shown that more than 77 per cent of Internet users (approx. 3.6 billion people worldwide) are active on at least one Meta platform.
It’s going to be an uphill struggle to log off for even a week then, which says plenty about how reliant we are to Meta. And by reliant, please read: enslaved to. Still, Stipe is leading the charge and is not the only celebrity to announce his departure from social media.
While the R.E.M.
frontman’s absence is temporary for the time being, The Cure’s Robert Smith announced over the weekend that he is leaving X for good. However, he posted that he will be active on Bluesky and Instagram. “Otherwise I will likely be outside,” added Smith.
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