Should I delete my social media?

Social media used to be free and platforms could afford things like customer support and moderation teams because a) interest rates were low and b) that meant venture capitalists literally threw money at companies like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to grow their market share and audience as fast as possible.

It’s 2025 and fair to say that times have changed. Interest rates are high, and cash is no longer cheap. This means social media companies are trying to reduce costs (cutting jobs, offshoring, removing expensive things like customer support and moderation) AND increase revenue (more advertising, charging for things that used to be free, like verification).

At the same time, us regular folks might be feeling like social media is a lot less fun than it used to be. Because of the reasons I’ve outlined above, getting reach on social media these days is hard. There are more ads than there used to be. When things go wrong, it’s almost impossible to fix them.

Also – personally – I don’t like feeling that I’m spending hours every day on platforms owned by people who think it’s free speech to refer to women as property, or who don’t immediately apologise when they do something like might kinda look like a fascist salute. If nothing else, being on that platform feels like offering my tacit support to very bad people who do very bad things.

Talking to friends, I know that lots of us feel like we shouldn’t support platforms that are owned by fascists or fascist adjacent people. But does that mean deleting all your social media? What happens if you don’t want to shut down everything, but you also want to make a stand?

Here are some ideas:

1. First, streamline your social media. Delete duplicate or unused accounts (this means they can’t claim as many active users). Reduce the platforms you use. Do you REALLY need WhatsApp and Messenger and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Threads? Will your business wither and die without the 20 people who see your stuff on Reels?
2. Delete X. Anyone who makes a gesture that is widely seen as very similar to a fascist salute and does not immediately apologise (regardless of what they intended) is a bad person. No ifs, no buts, no maybes.  
3. Remember that social media platforms live or die by OUR attention. If you want social media to change, spend less time on it. Delete the Facebook and Insta apps from your phone. Use the desktop versions. If you currently visit once an hour, try visiting once or twice a day. One of Meta’s key reporting stats is the time users spend on their platform. Reducing the time you spend on these apps by 75% will deliver a powerful message. It’ll also probably make your life significantly better.
4. Spending less time on apps also reduces the number of ads that platforms can show you. In recent years, Meta has dramatically increased the volume of ads on its platforms as it tries to generate more revenue – if you spend 75% less time on Meta, that’s 75% fewer opportunities to show you ads and a big hit to Meta’s bottom line.
5. Don’t give bad guys free access to your data to train their AI models. They’re looking to make insane amounts of cash from AI, and you will see NONE of the benefit. You can decline permission to X/Twitter and Meta to use your public data in this way.
6. Meta tracks your activity on other websites by persuading those sites to add a little bit of code that lets them then access all sorts of data about you to target ads. Stop letting Meta do this. Go into your Meta account settings, look for “privacy”  and “activity off Meta platforms” – turn off future tracking, and clear all existing data. Meta will tell you that you’ll stop seeing targeted ads but to me, that sounds very much like a “them” problem.
7. Don’t interact with ads on social media platforms. Let’s face it, half the ads on social media are scams at the best of times. If you see something you like, take the extra 2 minutes to look for that brand or that article or that offer on the advertiser’s own website. If social media ads become less effective, advertisers will reduce their spend on those platforms.
8. If you’re someone who relies on social media platforms, a lot of this probably seems like a tough call for you to make. All I’ll say is that you might want to spend some time in 2025 building your own app or website, and your own email list.
9. Stop paying for services on social media platforms. You don’t need to be verified. You don’t need to boost that post. You don’t need to pay for Facebook ads. If you can, then just stop giving money to these people.
10. Let the brands you love know that you are no longer engaging with their ads on social media platforms because of certain platforms’ support of fascism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and hate speech.