Comment by zhivota
6 hours ago
In the Philippines it's pretty much the center of the community digital life. Government at all levels, local vloggers who get thousands of views even though they are just random people in small towns, groups, marketplace, all incredibly active.
Generally you can't function here without Meta: businesses are either on FB or Instagram (with some on TikTok too), and some people exclusively communicate via Messenger on data only plans where FB data is subsidized by the telco.
It was quite sad when we moved here and had just executed a personal extraction from all Meta properties. When in Rome, I guess.
Most Filipinos cannot grok why Meta and its properties are a toxic waste dump, because they are part of the problem. They're addicted to those "data only" plans you're talking about. To them, Facebook is the internet. It's as simple as that, and because their culture is so docile and submissive, they don't think outside that very limited box.
If you have kids in school there, you can't keep up with school news, closings, etc. unless you're on Facebook. The schools, teachers, PTA, everything is on Facebook. All restaurants are on Facebook. Every single government entity and office is on Facebook. All DM traffic is on Messenger. Anybody selling anything is on Marketplace.
"What's so bad about that?" you might ask. It's this: in many cases, the only way you can contact any of these entities is on Facebook. When you try to explain to Filipinos that Facebook is a walled garden and a silo, they look at you as if smoke is coming out of their ears—they just can't comprehend data freedom and independence because these concepts are extremely impaired in their culture.
It's really depressing to think about these people's lives, but nobody should get too depressed because they don't know any better and are satisfied to be cattle. They'll happily use their device for absolutely nothing else but to flip between Facebook and Mobile Legends all day, every day, completely unaware that there's a whole other online world out there.