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Forced to use Facebook to interact with local groups and businesses. How do I keep my data safe? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by christov@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I'm a big advocate for data privacy and I left Facebook many years ago without feeling the need to go back. However, there's several local groups and a couple of local businesses that specifically communicate via Facebook that I'd like to interact with.

This presents a problem - I have to use the platform to interact with these people but I don't want to use the platform. So how do I keep my data safe from Zucks greedy hands? So far I'm thinking:

use a throwaway email or email that is specifically for fb
only access via Firefox inprivate browser and use addons to clean cookies after every session
utilise ad blockers in said browser
set fb privacy settings accordingly to opt out of ad personalisation, othrr site fb logins etc
potentially only access via VPN but that might be cumbersome
maybe do all of this via android work profile but not sure if that's much benefit

Anything else I can do to remain reasonably safe?

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[–] Aria@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 days ago

It only knows what you tell it. Just use it like any other website, and follow the same rules you do for all websites, which is to think about what you're sharing, and only share what you're okay with them knowing.

Facebook is for local things, so it'll have to know where you live and who you are. So a VPN is kinda pointless. If you engage with three groups that are in the same village, you're probably someone from that village, you know.

You also don't need to clean cookies, because closing the browser clears the cookies, that's what private browsing is for. But even without private browsing, you should have a global sensible cookie policy that only accepted cookies from whitelisted sites, and for those sites, doesn't allow them to see cookies they didn't give you.

On the last point: The most sensible and important thing to worry about here is fingerprinting. Using a different device for every service is an effective way to combat that. It's not very practical, but specifically using your work phone that you use for other local services, to me makes a lot of sense.