We’re saying goodbye to Facebook

Goodbye, Facebook.

Goodbye also to Twitter and Instagram, though, to be fair, you’re not really the issue.

Beginning immediately, The Commercial Review will no longer be posting links to each of its stories, photos, editorials, etc. on the various social media outlets.

This decision has been a long time coming. The following are a few of our reasons:

•Behavior.

It’s atrocious.

There are some who are able to have civil discussions about legitimate issues on our Facebook page. But, at least in our experience, they are the exception.

It seems that some spend most of their time watching Facebook, waiting to pick a fight with or antagonize someone. It’s disturbing.

Even having our profanity filter set to “strong” is not enough. Some of you still find ways to be inappropriate and/or to harass others.

We reserve the right to ban those who are regular violators, and we have done so. But it takes time and effort to constantly monitor your comments on our Facebook page. We feel that time and effort can be better spent elsewhere.

It would be one thing if these sites were being used for a productive dialogue, but that’s not what’s happening.

•Giving our product away

While journalism can certainly be seen as a public service — we took down our paywall at the beginning of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic for just that reason — newspapers are businesses.

It is a regular occurrence on our Facebook page that followers see a post about a story they’re interested in and, rather than buying a newspaper or getting a subscription, they ask someone else to screenshot the story and post it. Inevitably someone does.

We shouldn’t have to point out, but we will, again, that it costs money to produce a newspaper. Someone has to write the stories and take the photos. Someone has to print the paper. Someone has to deliver it. None of them do it for free, nor should they.

Subscriptions range from 43 cents to 57 cents per issue, depending on your location and payment frequency. We don’t think that’s too much to ask.

•Impact on journalism industry

Last month, we ran an editorial by America’s Newspapers, an organization committed to being the voice of newspapers for support, for advocacy, for education, for connection.

That editorial addressed part of the social media dilemma. Social media platforms get most of their news content from news outlets like us and “the major tech platforms still refuse to compensate most news publishers, even while they pay creators for the ability to distribute music and lots of other kinds of content.”

While that is true, newspapers also must bear some of the responsibility. We have been, after all, voluntarily posting our content on their platform.

It would be difficult for us to make a legitimate push for change while we’re actively contributing to the problem. So, we’re not going to anymore.

••••••••••

To be clear, we are under no obligation to have social media accounts. Up until about a decade ago, those accounts didn’t exist.

You will still be able to receive our product as you have for nearly 150 years, in its print form. You can also visit our website at thecr.com, where you can sign up to have daily headlines emailed to you. You can download our mobile app.

Our individual reporters will remain free to share their stories via their own personal social media accounts, or to create professional accounts for that purpose. Whether they accept your follow requests or not is entirely up to them.

If you’d like to comment on a story, photo or editorial, you’re welcome to do so. But that will no longer happen via our social media pages. You’ll have to take the time and put in the thought to write and send a letter to the editor.

Social media has its positives. We would not argue otherwise.

But, at least for us, those are far outweighed by its negatives. And we will no longer contribute to that toxic atmosphere. — R.C.