Ad free Facebook and Instagram is officially on. I’m trying to stay open minded but honestly it’s too expensive especially with this sneaky account center rule unless you’re in an unfortunate position where you need to spend a lot of time on these platforms.
More on official blog post: https://about.fb.com/news/2023/10/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/
“Meta declined to comment on whether subscribers’ data would be used for anything other than ads.”
Not answering is an answer.
Yeah the headline is dead wrong. Privacy ≠ ad free.
That said, paying for a service is the one solution to getting rid of ads that I can see working in general. In general I don’t see this as a bad thing.
Absolutely, the $10/month is just to disable ads, like if you are running a free uBlock. Meta will still collect all your data from every cookies/sites and sell all your info to 3rd party for $$$.
They’ve already been found guilty of illegally tracking users in the EU and are facing insanely high fines - this is supposed to be their response to that - it’s supposed to be a viable business model that doesn’t involve tracking.
If they’re still tracking people even after doing something about it - there will be zero leniency given.
There’s so little doubt that they’re still using and selling user data no matter what they claim.