Reclaim the Seeds does not like Meta, Facebook and Instagram

In the past, Reclaim the Seeds has used Facebook/Meta. It is a convenient medium for reaching new people and spreading updates about a programme. There were always doubts because it is a powerful, capitalist company, but the practical advantages outweighed the principled disadvantages. But the world is changing...

Scary, rich, powerful men are gaining more and more power. And also Mark Zuckerberg, the big boss of Meta has now joined Trump. This is really a step too far, which is why Reclaimtheseeds.nl will no longer update its Facebook page and will soon delete it. (This is policy of the general website. Local seed fairs take their own decisions, also about the use of social media.)

Robust seeds for a robust community
Protecting and preserving ancient and special crops contributes to a robust agriculture and food supply. Reclaim the Seeds has always been something broader and also tried to contribute to building alternative structures and a more inclusive society. In doing so, we think it's important to look beyond just food. If you make your alternative project and local community dependent on a capricious company like Meta, which tries to please extreme right-wing politicians, you are not being robust. Of course, we will always have to make compromises and often remain dependent on large corporations for the time being, but we want to limit this as much as possible. However, there are limits and Mark Zuckerberg decided to cross this limit. We can also organise our publicity and promotion in other ways.

Disinformation
An additional problem is the spread of fake news and lies. It is insurmountable to occasionally disagree, have an argument or maybe even end up in a fight. But this must be done on the basis of facts. And those facts are increasingly denied by the extreme right. Science is being discredited. The deliberate spreading of lies is used as a political tool. Decent research is seen as a leftist hobby. This is a dangerous development, for society and the world as a whole, but also when it comes to agriculture.
Until recently, Meta has been reasonably committed to fact-checking content on Facebook and Instragram. However, kneeling to Trump, Mark Zuckerberg has now indicated Meta will stop doing this. So also on your Facebook or Instagram account you will be confronted with more and more nonsense and lies, both innocent and dangerous. Reclaim the Seeds does not want stimulate people to use those social media by posting content. As small as our role in this is, we don't want to participate in it anymore.

Twitter/X?
Do we even need to mince words about Twitter/X? The national events of Reclaim the Seeds and ReclaimtheSeeds.nl have never used that. So there is no need to stop it either. (It is possible that local seed fairs under the banner Reclaim the Seeds did use Twitter, it's a decentralised organisation). But Elon Musk is at least as nasty, powerful a person as Mark Zuckerberg. This man is a danger to people and the environment. You don't want to be dependent on that either.