The news that Australia has now become the canary in the coal mine that is Facebook is disappointing but not surprising. Stopping people from posting news on Facebook because they don’t want to pay for it? Easy.

Stopping people from posting bullshit about Bill Gates putting microchips into coronavirus vaccines? Can’t be arsed. And besides, Facebook makes money from its spread. What else explains their lacklustre efforts to stop such nonsense?

I’ve been quite disillusioned with Facebook for a while now. You might notice that I used to post on the Amateur At Play page a few times a day – up to four times on a Sunday, for example. But I increasingly came to the conclusion it wasn’t worth my time.

I used to write posts and they would commonly get nearly 1000 views each. And this was when I only had around 400 followers on the page. As time has gone on, the reach that Facebook’s algorithm gave me collapsed. It wasn’t unusual for me to write a post, yet have only 20 or 30 people actually see it.

I concluded I was wasting my time and set up my own site instead. Not only do more people see what I write now, but I can also link to past posts easily and I can get away with a lot more than on Facebook. I had to mind my language and not annoy anyone too much there. Here? No such issues.

I’m more than happy to be the canary in any mine.