There’s lots of things one can say about Facebook. But my main problem is that they do everything in their power to prevent my audience seeing my photos and that’s the main reason I joined Facebook in the first place; to share photos.

It started out that anything I posted as Beattie’s was seen by all the followers and a few others. So that was a good way to get photos out there. And then Facebook started restricting the people that saw the photos. Not everyone who followed the page got to see the photos. Of course if I paid money more people could see them. So I was paying to reach the audience that I previously had for free. Then even that wasn’t enough. They wanted more money and showed the photos to less and less people.

FaceBook seeks to punish me if I try to take a Facebook user off the Facebook platform to another web site, even my own. So if I include a link to a photo hosted on my web site (rather than a photo stored on Facebook) that post will be “demoted” or punished. Facebook wants people on Facebook and not directed off Facebook to any other web site.

I’ve been voicing my concerns about Facebook for years. There are lots of people for whom this isn’t a problem or Facebook wouldn’t still have a billion users. But there is a growing trend of people who just use Facebook Messenger and never go on the Facebook web site and so Facebook wants me to run robot messenger posts. That is a Facebook message allegedly from me to you but run by a robot. Its a form of advertising not unlike robot-calls.

Facebook wants me to advertise specific products for sale and use the Facebook sales engine to process the sale giving commission to Facebook as well as paying to run the ad.

Facebook wants me to pay for targeted advertising based on your private personal data.

It's no longer serving me at all well. I'm not going away angry, I'm just going away, I’m moving to YouTube and closing the Beattie's Facebook account. If you are not on the email list, please get on it now. That's my primary way to communicate the newsletter and feature newly restored photos and discussion about them.