Like many people, I look back on the social media years as somewhat lost. I posted enthusiastically for years, and the platforms got crummier and crummier.
This morning I set a timer for twenty-five minutes and asked for it all back: Facebook and Instagram (both together) and LinkedIn.
If you’re interested in doing something similar, you might like to know that the Meta export defaults to exporting just the last year, but I chose everything, ever.
Meta also defaults to HTML for the export, which looks nice, but I selected JSON because it will provide for more interesting data analysis. It complements what I recently did with all the material here on my own site.
The LinkedIn export, so I’m told, will be CSVs.
When the files arrive, I’ll create a full archive: everything, decoded, flattened, in order, and private. Something to interrogate rather than publish, probably, but I can’t be sure till I see it.
Previously, I’ve done this kind of thing by hand – going and fetching whatever happened to come to mind, and reposting it here bit by bit as Outstagram and LinkedOut.
The exports are due in a day or two. I gather that Meta will delete them if I don’t download them quite quickly, so keeping my eyes peeled.
No idea what is in there. My guess is that the tone and focus will be slightly different, from one platform to the next – I hope so, anyway.
Will report back as I go along.
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