Can users of what is essentially privatized social infrastructure really log off? (Tablet Magazine)

When it comes to platform monopolies, there’s a weird libertarian myth about our ability as consumers to choose our fate. If you don’t like Facebook, goes this argument, just turn it off. For Facebook, Google, or Amazon, this myth goes, it is your individual choice whether to use them. And if you choose to use these services, you are complicit in giving them your data. As the Onion put it in a recent headline, “Nothing Stopping You From Deleting Your Facebook Account Right Now.” The article concluded, “at press time, sources told reporters they were unsurprised you were too fucking weak to pull the trigger.”
Continue reading →