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

[sbv@sh.itjust.works]

First of all, figure out your threat model. What data are you trying to keep secret from Facebook? What will happen to you if Facebook gets that data? What lengths are reasonable to prevent that outcome?

Then figure out how to consistently prevent that data from leaking.

I don't want Facebook knowing my address, name, age, and face - basically I don't want to be doxxed. I'm not willing to go through the effort of hiding my IP, so I'm willing to give up on that, but the others are easy enough to lie about.

[adarza@lemmy.ca]

i'd probably opt for a cheap android tablet that's only used for fb, nothing else.

and in 'full paranoid' mode, i'd also avoid using my own home or work wifi with it, too. the library's public hotspot is convenient enough to both locations.

[ghostpepper@lemmy.ml]

I haven't used it but Firefox has containers to allow you to separate your browsing activities which are isolated from each other. You need to install the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension in order to use them.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/

[gayhitler@lemmy.ml]

What would make you unsafe? What data do you want to keep away from Facebook?

[breve@pawb.social]

Tell those local businesses that you really want to support and follow them, but that you boycott Meta and the reasons that you do.

Honestly there's so many reasons businesses should also avoid Meta, like the fact Meta is literally collecting and selling their most valuable business data to other competing businesses. Tell them for their own good that Meta is not their friend, it might help them at first to get exposure, but only long enough to get that data and sell it off.

[mukt@lemmy.ml]

Not META, but there are videos of small business owners explaining how amazon used their data to set up its own thing as their direct rivals, then manipulated their ratings, virtually stealing their clients too.

Tell them that selling their data to thurd parties is one of the biggest revenue streams of META, that you are NOT ok exposing your own business to sych risksv and that as serious businesses, they should be wary of giving data to data selling / leasing social networks as well.

[mukt@lemmy.ml]

The assumption that there is only one kind of threat model relevant to a person / business is a bad assumption.

[mukt@lemmy.ml]

This.

Probably the best strategy to minimise risk from data pilfering.

[aria@lemmygrad.ml]

It only knows what you tell it. Just use it like any other website, and follow the same rules you do for all websites, which is to think about what you're sharing, and only share what you're okay with them knowing.

Facebook is for local things, so it'll have to know where you live and who you are. So a VPN is kinda pointless. If you engage with three groups that are in the same village, you're probably someone from that village, you know.

You also don't need to clean cookies, because closing the browser clears the cookies, that's what private browsing is for. But even without private browsing, you should have a global sensible cookie policy that only accepted cookies from whitelisted sites, and for those sites, doesn't allow them to see cookies they didn't give you.

On the last point: The most sensible and important thing to worry about here is fingerprinting. Using a different device for every service is an effective way to combat that. It's not very practical, but specifically using your work phone that you use for other local services, to me makes a lot of sense.

[breve@pawb.social]

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.

[christov@lemmy.world]

Maybe safe is the wrong word in my post. I mean keeping the data safe from meta in the respect that I don't want them to have it.
Their record in data privacy is not so great so I'm keen to keep my data away from Meta if I can.

[christov@lemmy.world]

Pro tips, ty! I was hoping for something mobile friendly but this will definitely help!

[sbv@sh.itjust.works]

If you have different threat models for different data, then you should enumerate them and work through each.

[appearanceboring9229@sh.itjust.works]

Some friends had to restart their business because their only online presence was on Instagram and their account got banned. So all their sales dropped to almost 0 overnight

[gayhitler@lemmy.ml]

What specific data?

You can’t keep information you put on their platform or your habits of use on that platform “safe” from it.