I only plan to use it for messaging in a couple of sports teams and event invitations.
I’m willing to take a lot of measures as long as they don’t get the account blocked - no phone app, dedicated virtual machine+VPN to isolate from other internet activity, purchased fake phone number in signup, adding fake interests and life details. However, I won’t provide any real ID/photos, are these needed for signup?
Provide the least data possible.
Provide the most bullshit data possible.It’s simple, don’t use it, use alternatives, like Signal, PixelFed, Matrix, etc… there are enough, even better alternatives out there. You can’t mitigate privacy invasion in Zuckerbot sites, not even with VPN, with the sofisticated tracking and profiling systems they use, more now with AIs. I’ve blocked all Zuckerbot sites, even the accidental access to any of it’s sites and services.
use alternatives, like Signal, [Fedi alteratives], Matrix, etc
I do. There are some social situations I want to be a part of where that’s just not possible to demand.
Social media is not private. It can’t be private.
You can try to isolate it from your end but on its end and other users ends you can’t make it private. Don’t do or say anything on social media if you arent comfortable with it becoming public knowledge.
You are currently posting on a public social media website.
It’s a big problem with Facebook, even when you don’t use it, when friends or family doing it, because FB access their Agenda, where are also your credencials (mail, phone, etc), adding that every content in FB is property of FB, even when the user finish his account, his contents (post, photos…) remains in FB. Because of this, it’s always better to change the side of the street when you see Mr.Zuckerberg.
If you want to read any content, its better to use an front end, or like me, searchin it with Andisearch and let it summarize the content. So I don’t need to access myself.
Good luck !
I’ve tried 3 time signin to facebook using fake ID, I always ended up ban after a fews days because of “suspicious activities” (probably because of VPN or PiHole). It require a videos selfy to validate I’m not a bot. I tried to create one using genAI but it didn’t worked.
I always ended up ban after a fews days because of “suspicious activities” (probably because of VPN or PiHole)
I remember trying to make a fake account with friends for fun many years ago when we I learned about thispersondoesnotexist. Got ID-blocked within a few hours for sus acts, probably less because of the VPN and more because we started friend requesting dozens of strangers and set our birthplace to a food court.
Getting a burner phone and account and only tun it on when you want to check the messages is a good start. Do not use any of your real information.
When I left FB a decade ago they didn’t force a phone number for the messenger, thy basically just requested all possible permissions.
Not sure about Facebook, but Instagram will definitely ask you for a selfie if you sign-up using a VPN.
I didn’t know about this. That’s kind of disgusting.
if you sign-up using a VPN
If this is the case for FB, I can try a public WiFi for signup and hopefully it won’t bother me if I switch to a VPN after (it will already be obvious which city I live in from the people and events I interact with, the VPN would just be for a small extra layer of isolation)
I assume fake AI-gen faces won’t work?
Norman Reedus will do it
there is the fb Lite app, which is mainly for places without good Internet. That one is supposed to not do the same kind of tracking as the main app, at least when it’s closed. I can’t say the same for messenger though
It’s been deprecated (if you’re talking about Messenger Lite): https://www.howtogeek.com/facebooks-messenger-lite-app-is-leaving-android/
oh that’s a shame :(
Use Signal instead.
Or Graphene OS, second profile, VPN etc. But accept all chats, contacts, meta data or monitored. Sign up process using anon data is getting harder and harder, especially with phone number controls. The hard part isn’t going to be running it, in a secure enclave, but signing up with anon data.
Just out of interest: what’s on FB messenger that makes all the things you are willing to do to circumvent the grubby data tentacles worth it? I’m just asking because I came to the conclusion not to use FB a while ago and I haven’t looked back.
Just out of interest: what’s on FB messenger
It’s the first line of the post ;)
Touché. If I were in your place I would still try and find another forum, even if you ended up giving all your data to Discord or something like that.
One of the reasons is adversarial policies. They will sniff out you’re using a VPN and they will throw stuff at you. Oh, weird activity from your account. Oh, change your password. Oh, we need to get a proper ID from you. Unless you’re getting $$$ betting info, it just doesn’t seem worth the effort.
Personally I use Facebook as a launchpad for IRL relationships. Kinda like Meetup or similar. Everything gets posted to Facebook. There are Facebook groups. They don’t get posted anywhere else. FB basically has a Monopoly on group events and socializing/networking.
Aside from that, Marketplace. Especially since Craigslist randomly banned me from posting for no reason.
You can use Messenger without an account, but you do have to provide your phone number.
E: I’m literally the only person providing useful information and being downvoted for it LOL nice. What a great community.
but you do have to provide your phone number.
I managed to used a non-KYC SMS service to register a FB account, only took 2 tries and they refund the failed one. If I’m lucky, I won’t get pinged after a few days like @borokov did.
Which service did you use? In my experience they can detect and reject these services.
