"The Fediverse"
I first dipped my toe into the Fediverse back in 2023, then did what most people did back then, opened an account, made a post and ghosted it. In my case, I joined both BlueSky and Mastodon.
Little back then did I realise how glad future me would be for past me grabbing my social handles back then.
The Rise of the Far Right
I need not explore this one in much depth, many have done so and in much more interesting articles. Elon brought Twitter, Twitter became X. Interestingly Meta created Threads, part of the Fediverse itself alongside its current offerings of Facebook and Instagram.
But this is where the good news ended, the Orange one was elected and Zuckerberg suddenly turned to the right to appease Trump and the incoming US Government, if you can call it that. Meta created policies that allowed women to be referred to as objects, casual racism to return and for anybody LGBTQIA+ to be called mentally ill or insulted.
It was this that finally broke my will to stay.
Virtue Signalling
Many have been accused of virtue signalling in their moves to Fediverse. I am one of those who could be, I posted "I am leaving" posts to my Facebook, Instagram, X and other legacy social media.
But I have not removed my handles nor my accounts. In my own thoughts, this is to protect my online handle, albeit who wants to steal mine?
But also to take up space, use up space and become a dormant account on a platform where you cost them money to keep your account open. Surely this is a form of protest?
"You will flock back!"
I am a firm believer that I will not be flocking back to the old platforms. I have in fact found that BlueSky is a breath of fresh air compared to X the right-wing echo chamber.
Bluesky reminds me of a bygone era on Twitter. When Twitter was good. Enjoyable and a great place to have respectful discourse on any number of subjects.
There is currently a battle for Instagram-Alt, PinkSky is where I have landed for the time being, it uses my Bluesky account but provides a familiar experience.
Mastodon does not quite stand up to Facebook in terms of offering, and I remain hopeful that at some stage we will get a rival to Facebook that offers all that it did.
"But you still use WhatsApp and Messenger!"
As much as I wish I could tempt everyone in my social contacts away to Signal or Telegram, it's simply a hard sell to move away from WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
As it stands these are the only two remaining parts of Meta I still use on a regular basis. Not that this is for a lack of hoping that I can remove these in the future.