The social media world seems rather in a mess right now with Meta’s new Threads recently being launched. This is where I stand with them all.

Why Social Media

I’m starting to think there is no reason for me to be on social media really. Hearing from different people and perspectives is of most interest to me, not sure if people care what I say. One day I might just delete them all.

Fediverse

This is where I prefer to be right now for the following reasons:

  • No advertising
  • Run by the people, not billionaires just trying to make more cash
  • No creepy farming of my data by privacy vampires
  • A safe place for LGBTQ people
  • People respect each other more

I’m on Mastodon and Pixelfed.

I did think about being on PeerTube, which is the Fediverse alternative to YouTube, but my content doesn’t fit in there.

Threads vs Twitter vs Bluesky

It seems there is a lot of competition between these billionaire-owned social media giants. One is in free fall, the other taking advantage by launching its product early and on the sidelines is something else which hasn’t made a lot of publicity lately.

Vulgar insults coming from Mr Musk and threats of legal action supposedly because Mr Zuckerberg hired some staff that he pushed out of Twitter. Then ex-Twitter owner Mr Dorsey stirs the pot by putting down both Threads and Twitter, but he has Bluesky and I’m not sure what happened to that. Threads had millions of new sign-ups in its first few days even though it can’t launch in the EU as their privacy rules would not go down well there.

The privacy part of Threads appears quite distasteful, even worse than Meta’s other entities like WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook. I don’t have any desire to sign up to Threads, who haven’t even got a web version yet, and I left Twitter some time ago.

In the news today were the rate limitations Twitter had implemented and how that affected DriveBC getting out critical information.

I would say don’t rely on social media. Some people aren’t on Twitter or Threads, and the only way to get assurances that a wider audience will see important messages is through your own website. My web host does a lot of special events over Twitter but I can’t participate in this benefit as I’m not on that platform, I wish they’d use their own assets to get the info across.

Video and Graphic Apps

I deleted my account from Vimeo some time ago, I wasn’t getting any visitors to my content so there was no point being there.

I had an account at Vero for a while, it was a beautiful app but no one viewed my content maybe because it’s a home for professional photographers and I don’t blame visitors for not wanting to my crappy pictures.

I still have an account on YouTube, my videos are very popular there although I don’t create content too often as the type of videos I produce takes a lot of work.

I’m still on Instagram but don’t post much content there.

Business

The only business type social media I’m on is LinkedIn although I only visit twice a year but quite often forget that its there in the background.

Summary

If a social media company has too many “issues” I’d rather just keep away from them and I don’t want to be a pawn in helping billionaires become even richer which is why I am on the Fediverse. Open Source rules!