Shuttering our pages on Meta

A paper lantern in the shape of a star hangs in front of a dark bookshelf, lighting it. Text on a box reads 'our position on Meta'.

We are no longer posting new content on Meta. We cannot, in good conscience, continue to encourage engagement on a platform that is increasingly hostile to women and the LGBT+ community. If you have been enjoying our work on Meta, you can still find us on BlueSky, Mastodon and our own website.

Why we’re stopping our work on Meta now

We had already noticed that the algorithms that drive what people see on Meta had changed, resulting in a huge drop in impressions. The only way to get meaningful eyes on our posts was to pay for advertising. Meta’s platforms also make creating accessible posts harder, and impossible through the third-party scheduler we use. So we had already decided to take a break in January 2025 to see if skipping Meta gave us time to write blogposts and delve deeper into stories.

Then Meta announced two things we do not support:

With this second one, Meta is telling us what they really think of people who aren’t straight white dudes.

There is, of course, an argument that such spaces are precisely where inclusive feminists should be, to fight back against the tide of hate. Which is where the point about the algorithm comes back in. If the algorithm suppresses our posts unless we pay, then we are being asked to fund a platform that is comfortable for people to be targeted with hate for not conforming.

We won’t – we can’t – do that.

Our consciences prevent us supporting an organisation that is active in our suppression, and the suppression of others.

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. ” Audre Lorde

The person running the Meta accounts cannot delete their personal accounts because pages are tied to personal profiles. We’ve going to try to solve that so the archive of posts can remain, but we can leave. If that proves impossible, then the archives will go.

Where to find us instead

Two years ago, we left Twitter because it was apparent its new owner was intent on allowing reactionary, hateful speech to thrive. We’ve rebuilt and grown, first on Mastodon and now also on BlueSky.

If you are on those platforms, search for @CarveHerName to find us. If you are not yet on them, please consider joining them. Meta does not have our best interests at heart.

How you can support us

We run this project because we are fired up with a desire to carve women back into history. It’s been a passion for over two years now, and will continue for a good while yet. We’d love to fill in the last gaps and have 366 days’ worth of achievements.

We do now want to start covering our running costs, and ideally give Mags a living wage for her writing time. So we’ve started a patreon (yes, we know the name is frustrating).

You can support us with $1 a month.

There’s no fancy tiers to chose from. No stunning reward packages where you start to think “but doesn’t the cost of producing that patreon reward wipe out any money earnt?”. We’ll do a monthly shout out if you’re on twitter. If we reach 200 supporters, we’ll start an email. but that’s it.

Who we are

We’re Mags L Halliday and Moira Paul, and we started Carve Her Name in 2017 as a result of Mags being on a long rail replacement bus service. We did not attach our names to it, for a heap of reasons.

Mags is the extrovert, and has now blogged about why she didn’t attach her name – and why she is doing it now.

Mags is also happy to talk to people, take commissions for writing and the like.

Moira doesn’t do any of that but can edit wikipedia. 😉