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The young’uns are going on about RedNote, or something, as an alternative to TT/X/etc
I'm sure that will be completely fine... 😉
In 2022, China Digital Times published leaked documents showing how Xiaohongshu's content moderation teams censor or limits posts about sensitive topics, including mentions of derogatory nicknames for Xi Jinping, and discussion of events such as labor strikes, geographic discrimination, student suicides and criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.[46] Users noted that topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre or Free Hong Kong are censored on the platform.[34][47]
I left FB after Cambridge Analytica and Twitter after Musk, and each time I was surprised at how little I missed either. I was scared I might miss out on something important, or end up with fewer friends, which seems laughable now.
I stuck with Insta for a while, for the pictures of dogs, but ditched that too. I still use WhatsApp. There might be inconsistencies in this considering ownership/tracking etc, but I'm glad I'm not on FB or 'X' any more, no matter how miniscule a protest it is.
I joined Bluesky which does feel like old Twitter, but I really can't be arsed with any of it any more.
It's all just a river of piss, and it's brought the faecal matter to the surface.
Never had Facebook so that’s not an issue for me. Was on twitter and did get some good info on it but sacked it off last year as it just became a pro trump platform full of nonsense and just made me angry. I have tried Bluesky recently but am finding it full of anti trump stuff, no bad thing, but I like a balanced view and views from both sides so I can make my own mind up. I don’t like everything to be one sided.
Funnily enough I finally left twitter half an hour ago. I'd deleted my tweet history a while back, but stayed on for the few I followed that hadn't gone to bsky. The plan being I thought it's always worth seeing what the other half think. Trouble it it's just toxic blue tick headbanger opinions boosted in replying to any tweet now, so depressing and pretty much worthless, so I left.
Still on FB but with a minimal profile, for mates & groups... can recommend FBPurity Chrome plugin to remove all the cruft.
The absolute turn around in Zuckerberg from kicking Donald off FB to bending at the knee is worrying.
I think an issue this time round is that with time having passed people have learned how to manipulate Trump to their own end, its pretty much common knowledge is you just have to have said something nice to him or about him. Time will tell is Zuck is genuinely an ally of Trumps in the way Musk is, or just playing the game you need to play around Trump while Trump has power. Tucking $1m into Trumps bra and standing near him at his party seems like a pretty cheap way for a billionaire keep trumps meddling out of your business interests and have his tantrums focused somewhere else for a bit.
In a sense Twitter (currently known as X) and Meta are going in two different directions in that Musk is using his platform to fuel a particular kind of political discourse. Meta by contrast have quietly set in place measures that work to suppress political content (political in the broadest sense or any discussion of politics, laws, elections, crime, housing or other social topics). These topics aren't banned or censored but any post that covers social issues now deliberately get significantly far less reach than they used to. So Musk is pouring fuel into the political fire and Zuck seems to be trying to reduced the oxygen.
The other difference is Twitter users have other places to go, in that Threads, Mastadon and Bluesky all provide a roughly similar function, all that differs is whether the people who's content you want to consume are there too or not.
Facebook is a different proposition because theres no comparably functioning platform - as a social network rather than social media platfom- that has managed to get any kind of traction. Being 'the new Facebook' seems to be the most obvious thing to want to do and thing nobody has managed.
So people will have friend and family networks that just don't transcribe to something like Bluesky, but there are also a variety of interest groups and pages that once upon a time would have been a forum like this - a knowledge bank and discussion platform that now instead operate either publicly or privately on Facebook instead.
So for me - leaving Facebook would be difficult, not so much for the friend and family network element becuase frankly for the most part the novelty of posting anything has worn off for most people. But I'm part of a Facebook group thats a knowledge bank for a particular model of CNC machine, I'm freelance and may of my work and job posting channels are through peer groups on Facebook (for some reason my sector has never been interested in Linkedin for that sort of thing) and so on.
I'm not really sure how those sorts of functions can transplant themselves elsewhere now - keeping those voices together and without loosing their shared archive.
I think if one dominant alternative existed it would be a no-brainer - whether thats another social network site that apes Facebook, or whether it perhaps a deliberate regression back to something thats a bit more old school - yahoo groups 3.0
Something weird going on in the background
The algorithm promotes it, I think it's as simple as that - since Zuckerberg says we don't need fact checking it's all just opinions and emotions and the ones that get the most reaction go to the top. The biggest mistake I made with SM at first was thinking that it represented general opinions, it doesn't. It represents the most divisive opinions that are boosted by algorithms that only care about keeping you engaged and serving up more ads. (I realise that's social media 101, not intending to be patronising - just took me a while using it bitd to see that)
You can make the algorithms work for you, my Instagram feed is full of lovely visual stuff and the ads are all along those lines as I show interest in people selling photo prints and graphic art or Japanese furniture etc so it tries to promote/sell more of that. Twitter wasn't too bad but harder to ignore the comments and avoid getting sucked in because it's natural to have an emotive response. 'never read the comments' .. Deleted it, don't miss it.
Just went to try and delete my profile on Twitter...logged in and they want evidence of my data of birth...picked today in 2000 and apparently I'm not over 13 so need to get my parents to confirm my age. My account is now locked.
Tried to follow the deletion of account process until it takes me to the form asking for my parents email address, so I'm in a loop that I can't escape. I'm hoping it I leave it for another 2 months my account will be killed but I doubt it.
Twitter I never got involved in beyond having a log-in so I could follow links.
Ditto Instagram
Watsapp would be a PITA to ditch as at this point it's the default messenger app.
Facebook I'll probably delete from my phone and just use the browser if i need to actually use it rather than doom-scroll. As others have said it's too useful for all those pages that would have been forums a decade ago.
Facebook has gone mad in the past few weeks. Absoloutly swimming in weird “make britain great again” and, “wasnt everything perfect before all the brown people and gays” tripe.
I'm genuinely interested in what sort of FB pages you follow? I've seen zero difference in my feed recently and certainly nothing like the above.
I'm a watcher not an interactor though - I do post on FB but pretty much exclusively in private car related groups.
I’m hoping it I leave it for another 2 months my account will be killed but I doubt it.
I put a pinned post on my twitter account saying I wasn't going to be using it or logging in much anymore and after a while of being logged out the account was deleted for me.
Zuckerberg is the original
Zuckerberg is an idiot who got lucky. Every decision he makes seems to be designed to drive users off FB. For one thing, a constant feed of 'you might like' which is AI generated slop, fash-adjacent or just generally in need of an instant blocking at the expense of what people go on FB for ie. stuff posted by their mates, is not a recipe for ongoing use.
I’m a watcher not an interacter though – I do post on FB but pretty much exclusively in private car related groups
Exactly how far do they need to go, even if you don't see it, turning a blind eye is still being part of their userbase.
IMO the excuses of "I only see fluffy kittens" actually shows how psychologically addictive the platforms are, at first I think they just stumbled onto the addictive properties, but now they are using it. I think everyone knows really, its just some people are trying to make excuses for themselves.
Exactly how far do they need to go, even if you don’t see it, turning a blind eye is still being part of their userbase.
Watcher as in viewer of content I'm interested in - I mainly see motor racing and classic car feeds* - I don't go down the rabbit hole of looking for an argument and seeking out extreme content.
And whose media outlet is acceptable? And where are the left-wing billionaires funding their own social media platforms?
(*which are also unacceptable to many. And kittens can do one - dogs are best!)
Facebook only persists for me because as a musician there is a fair bit of traffic that gets me gigs - had a wedding gig last year from a post on FB so that's a revenue stream I can't just wave goodbye to, the ever increasing volume of AI generated crap is frustrating because real human stuff gets missed (posted once then disappears, there's been a few things I've seen and then can't find again) but the junk gets promoted...
twitter I moved off a long while ago but this thread has prompted me to just deactivate the account, I was concerned with account takeover but every day/month it gets less relevant
Governments need to get grips with the idea of regulating press and social media platforms (this is something that lots of governments on the same continent need to do as a concerted effort but that's another thread subject) we could start with the Leveson recommendations and include net-based platforms because they are news publishers
Never had a myspace/Facebook, instagram or whatsapp/linked in account and whilst I've been on twitter since 2008 I'm now banned for telling musk to **** off to mars, preferably to burn up - the last of my 37 tweets in the previous 17 years.
Signed up for bluesky last year but going to bin that as well due to "reasons" outlined by Dave Troy and the fact i can't be arsed anymore.
I never used twitter "correctly" anyway as I don't have any notifications for anything showing up on my phone/iPad/iMac (except for phone calls, no text message beeps/no email notifications etc), I only ever browsed/read from the last place in my following feed (less than 100 folk/organisations) which meant I was days/weeks behind when they originally posted.
I never looked at the "for you" or elsewhere on the site.
I think so – he seems to put judgement aside and do the right thing for his business even if that is arguably a bad thing for society.
If you read broken code or any of the articles from the facebook leaks it shows pretty clearly that anything they said was just window dressing in the past and purely in response to pressure.
Anytime putting controls in went up against increasing use the controls lost out. So its not surprising he took advantage of the opportunity to just stop pretending and save more money. Its basically how Facebook operates in many countries anyway.
I've got a pretty much stagnant X account - but it can be useful, like a friend got conned by Vintage Cash Cow and I checked them on X, seems to be other complaints, but most of the stuff like that gets buried under ads. How else can you publicly expose conmen like that?
Came back to say: anyone else noticed that Facebook is just becoming a deluge of spam adverts and algorithm pushed content? I was getting less and less content of my friends on there.
I also had serious concerns about marketplace scammers, and not a single complaint of a dodgy marketplace advert or paid advert for a dodgy seller has ever been actioned by Facebook in my experience.
I’m genuinely interested in what sort of FB pages you follow? I’ve seen zero difference in my feed recently and certainly nothing like the above.
Came back to say: anyone else noticed that Facebook is just becoming a deluge of spam adverts and algorithm pushed content? I was getting less and less content of my friends on there.
I'm wondering if all user experiences are not the same for FB. At some point in time there has been a shift in functionality whereby much more promoted and sponsored content has been introduced into peoples feed, and at the same time there has been the addition of selectable feeds. So from the 'front page' you can click on a 'feeds' button which takes you back to an experience more like FB used to be - a mix of your friends and groups with the odd ad in between. But if you don't make that selection and stay on the FB landing page then what you largely see is stacks of click-baity crud with the odd post from people you know in between.
However - I don't think that change has been rolled out to users at the same time so some people will be seeing FB as it was and some will be seeing something quite different and have to navigate to get to a version of their feed that actually has content they want.
So if you're been rolled over to the spammy version theres a 'feeds' option on the left of the page (browser) or Botton right corner (app) and clicking that gives you something tolerable
I’m genuinely interested in what sort of FB pages you follow? I’ve seen zero difference in my feed recently and certainly nothing like the above.
Me too. Though there are far too many unsolicited ads and sponsored posts (thinly disguises ads). Likewise Twitter, providing you select "Following" rather than than "For You" it's fairly easy to keep a cap on the bile.
I do appreciate the "moral" aspect and I have investigated Mastodon and Bluesky but until some of the particularly entertaining Twitterers move I can see me sticking it out on Twitter. FB I only use for friends and a handful of groups I have an interest in but it's convenient.
I'd love to ditch FB - but... I'd loose complete contact with a bunch of old mates & all my MTB group rides are generally arranged on there. I still like Instagram and WhatsApp. I also have a couple of business pages on FB I couldn't ditch so I guess the best I could do would be remove the icon from my phone.
I have recently taken to blocking any content I didn't ask to see or follow on FB. It's around one in every 4or5 posts. I must have blocked well over 100 pages over the past week.
It's a real shame as FB used to be about the social interaction, now it's about monetised views and add content.
I ditched X / twitter many years ago as I just didn't get on with the format at the time.
Big bonus here possibly . I've never been on Facebook. Now if more people leave it maybe less things I am interested in will lead to a Facebook page I can't see. No Twitter or Instagram either.
Amazon? Stopped Prime when they introduced adverts. Not missing it much. Rejoined Netflix. Still buy from Amazon but either over the free delivery or get it delivered to local post office. Buying less overall on Amazon as have switched to Ebay for some buys.
ON FB, I get far too many "You might like this!" suggested crap (mostly videos of people jumping off buildings) but hardly any ads. Mostly just see the bands/venues/sports clubs that I actually follow.
I had forgotten about my twitter account, which I opened years ago but never really used. I’ve just logged in and deactivated it. Thanks for reminding me.
Kinda relevant, but found out yesterday there's an easy-ish method of finding the people you follow on Twitter, on Bluesky
Download a plugin/add on for Firefox/Chrome on your desktop called Sky Follower Bridge
then supply that app with your Bluesky login info
Then login to your Twitter using the same browser, go to your Following tab and start the plugin.
It scans them and then gives you a list of their Bluesky accounts to bulk follow.
Not 100% accurate but saves a fair bit of time.
I use FB but almost entirely for local groups stuff + messenger.
I tried X last night for the first time and, well, that's an hour or so of my life I won't get back. What a shithole.
Instatiktok, never been on.
My kids (+ mates) seem to reckon youtube shorts has all the funny stuff now.
The problem with 'avoiding SM giant xyz because owner is a weapons grade fin du cloche' is that all media barons ever seem to have been weapons grade fin du cloches, it's tricky to avoid.
Some of the best SM has always been (well) moderated forums. Like here. Folks might moan about stuff but really, its a utopia compared to a lot of internet places.
I’ve never been on Facebook.
Yeah, I'm lucky enough to not need Facebook/Instagram so have never had an account.
I binned Twitter off after the election, Bluesky is so far a bit more like old Twitter, far less toxic, and far easier to nuke the Nazis when they pop up by selective use of blocklists. Even the 'discover' algorithm seems OK now I've managed to reduce the amount of hairy chubby men in underpants and sexy furry cartoon art which for some reason* it seemed to be offering me every third post.
No reason why any public service (or respectable business) in the UK should still have a Twitter feed. It was basically 90% misinformation and far right ****s by the end.
*This does not reflect my browsing history, honest! 🙂
I ditched Twitter ages ago.
Instagram is still good if you click 'Instagram' at the top left of the screen and then choose 'following'. No more suggested content tripe.
Similar for Facebook, but I installed 'Facebook Purity' on my laptop, which clears out the suggested stuff and only shows posts that people / groups that you follow. Going back onto my phone and looking at FB again is a largely useless experience these days.
https://www.fbpurity.com/install.htm
What about Tesla? I wouldn't drive one if someone gave it to me.
No X, no FB, no TikTok, no Discord, no Instagram - Linkedin and STW are my only social media. I don't miss it at all.
@DickBarton. I quit twitter over 2 years ago. It was not easy as my account was reactivated any time I followed a link to Twitter. I then had to start the whole process again. I think Musk may have been forced to make the process of leaving twitter easier . I certainly hope so
I've also never really done Amazon.
I still prefer to use local and UK suppliers where I can, that said I love an online bargain and use eBay lots as a conflict...
Ahem ...... How about your Amazon accounts ? If you cancelling X and FB should you not be binning AMZN too?
Me, Im going the other way and buying some TrumpCoin !!
He seemingly cant be beaten (that's why Zuck and Bozo and I whole host of other corps are, this time around, are jumping into bed with him) and you know what they say .... If you can't beat 'em, join 'em !!
He's disrupted politics, is finance next ?
It's really just a hedge on my part.... lets hope it all goes wrong for him and I lose some option money... but if he goes from strength to strength, I'll make a bit to easy the pain..... (Hate the game, not the players)
And I'll leave you with this....
“Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws".
Just got an email from Twitter telling me my account has been locked and if my parents don't verify my age then my account will be deleted in 30 days...so got a result, which is good.
I'd already known my account had been locked, but the email confirms deletion (the website doesn't mention any of that).
Bebo for the win..
I deleted twitter a while back, but to be honest I was barely on it in the first place. I'm sticking with FB for now because for the little I use it (classifieds, groups and such and longlived group chats) it's still pretty effective and doesn't really have much competition, ironically a lot of this is pretty much exactly the stuff it took over from these old-school forums (but did less well and pissed me off) but now it's all that's left that doesn't suck.
But this does boil down to "I found it easier to leave twitter because it was shit, I might not take a principled stand on FB because it'd be harder", which isn't great...
I had FB for about a year. Never posted but it was the only way to see the local CTC rides calendar.
Never had Twitter/X or Instagram.
I do use Whatsapp though.
WhatsApp is going to be the hardest. I have no plans to dump it yet, but really want to. Not a tool you can replace without “everyone else’s” buy in. Any ideas?
I am sending people messages in whatsapp telling them I am moving to signal and the reason why, I haven't had any negative replies yet, and if some don't care about remaining in contact with me, I am not sure why I should care about remaining in contact with them. Most of my close circle of friends are already on both anyway.
I think we can get too caught up in believing we need to stay in contact with people who have already moved out of our lives, IMO it is one of the hooks of this kind technology and isn't really a part of the natural cycle of friendship and life.
Not bothered about friends, that’s easy. Family and changing tech is far more painful!
Zuckerberg is an idiot who got lucky.
Sentence of the year, right there.
Family and changing tech is far more painful!
I have a group of 'all the family round the world' - there are 6 octogenarians and another dozen or so 60+ year olds in there... I have no idea how to broach a 'I plan on moving, and want you all to join me, cos....'
Sentence of the year, right there.
Not entirely true though. He made some good decisions at a pretty critical time to end up on top vs the other networks.
He then used the cash from that plus a lack of ethics to gain further advantage eg the use of Onavo to capture user behaviour to help identifying competing products