Neil Young has unfriended Facebook.
The notoriously outspoken musician recently announced that he would no longer be using the social site because of the propagation of “false information” and “obvious commitments to one side of politics.”
Young wrote about his decision in a post on the Neil Young Archives website. He first noted the criticism that Facebook is facing for “sponsoring the annual gala of the Federalist Society, the powerful right-wing organization behind the nomination of the conservative supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh.”
He then wrote, “This turn of events, in addition to the false information, regularly supplied to the public on Facebook, with its knowledge, has caused us to re-evaluate and change our use policy.”
And lest anyone think that it is because of a differing political view he added, “I don’t feel that a social site should be making obvious commitments to one side of politics or the other. It further confuses readers regarding truthfulness in coverage and message.
“NYA, no longer interested in further links with FACEBOOK, will be discontinuing use.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to you. Thanks, NY.”
Young’s displeasure with the social media giant has been building for some time. Last month he posted another message regarding the site, writing that Facebook “gives you more than you want and it’s not all good. A lot of it is very bad misinformation about political campaigns and ads that are outright falsehoods. These are fine with Facebook, but not with NYA. If we were to leave Facebook with our social outreach, we would lose communications with millions. If we continue to be on Facebook, we are conflicted about who we are.”
The post references the fact that Facebook has made it clear that they will not censor any political ads, even if the information presented is blatantly false. This is in direct contrast to Twitter who announced at the end of October that they were stopping all political ads worldwide.
You can read both posts in full at NeilYoungArchives.com.
