Writing Madness

Hey all, a little Social Media PSA if you have the Facebook App on your phone. 

With the last update, Facebook began tracking something called ‘off-Facebook Activity’ which keeps up with all apps and browsing you do off of Facebook and collects that information with the purpose of targeting ads… which means they’re selling it to ad agencies. This includes access to any banking apps on your phone and your spending habits. 

 Not only is this a major breech of privacy that Facebook didn’t have to tell us about when they updated the app, it’s, of course, automatically turned on. 

From Facebook, go to the Menu by clicking on the three horizontal lines on the top right of the screen.

Scroll down to the bottom and select the Settings & Privacy drop-down menu.

Then select Settings (the first option under the drop-down).

This will take you to a screen showing multiple headers with lists of links under them

Scroll down to Your Facebook Information and select Off-Facebook Activity.

The next page has a short explanation of Off-Facebook Activity. Click Manage Your Off-Facebook Activity after the What You Can Do header.

This will take you to a screen with an option to Clear History (which I recommend). To actually turn off this feature, you will have to click the three dots at the top right of the screen and select the Manage Future Activity option that pops up.

This will take you to a page explaining in more detail what they’re doing. Select the Manage Future Activity at the bottom of the page.

THEN you can finally select the toggle to turn off Future Off-Facebook Activity. 

“Penguins having aquarium for themselves with quarentine lockdown and no guests visiting”

“nothing to see here.” - The Field Museum of Natural History

—

David Wong, John Dies at the End

Many of you may be facing extended isolation or time at home in the coming weeks. Maybe writing through hard times is a source of comfort to you and you’re looking forward to escaping into the world of your imagination. Maybe you can’t imagine wanting to write at all right now. We’re here to support you no matter which one of those camps you fall into.

We’d like to ask what we can do to support you as we get ready to host Camp NaNoWriMo in April. One of the best things about NaNoWriMo — and especially Camp — is that it’s an incredible source of virtual companionship and company at a time when you may feel increasingly lonely. We’ll be doing everything we can to increase those opportunities for social distancing-friendly connection and support.

If you have a moment, please fill out our survey to let us know what you would find most helpful and useful in the coming weeks as we all get through this together.

Meanwhile, we’re still offering all of our usual resources, activities, and community platforms. Here’s a list of some you might want to check out:

Become part of a writing group! You can now join or create a 20-person writing group to post messages and chat with your fellow writers.

Meet your April 2020 Camp Counselors! An Na, Dallas Woodburn, Devi S. Laskar, and Jennifer Ziegler will be guiding you through the month.

Join one of our upcoming YouTube livestreams for real-time writing prompts and sprints with the NaNo community from around the world.

What’s your Camp NaNoWriMo project going to be? Share your story idea and chat with other writers on our forums!

Looking for kid-friendly educational tools? Our Young Writers Program has got you covered with free downloadable workbooks, creative writing curricula, and more.

Stay healthy and safe, everyone.