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It blows my mind that people still use meta’s services. After everything we know - years and years of leaks, admissions, investigations. Honestly, what will it take??
Most people don’t see how these things directly affect them because the effects are mostly indirect and the media doesn’t explain why they should care, and many have their social lives tied to using platforms where the other people they know are, so can’t switch to a less evil alternative without becoming a recluse unless a critical mass of their friends are already using it.
Me on Discord. I’m so ready to move. My friend’s aren’t…
It doesn’t help either that in developing countries, Facebook is free to use even without mobile internet data. Little do users from these countries realise is that they are the product.
Way more shame.
Soon we’re going to learn that it’s all about de-anonymizing political speech.
They don’t want us to be able to show what’s happening on the ground in Gaza to the world. Or what’s happening at ICE raids. Or what’s happening at protests when the riot squads show up…
…Or what’s happening on deployed navy ships, or in classrooms, or in political meetings.
Yeah, I saw a CNBC news segment that delivered literally this with a straight face, but with the addendum of “age verification may affect user retention temporarily.”
It was utterly wild.
It’s also 17 billion over 10 years iirc. That is absolutely nothing for Meta.
Anyone who doesn’t get how this is exactly what happened is fooling themselves.
It’s not exactly what happened though. Meta aren’t being forced to do age verification. They were the primary lobbyists for it in the first place.
They all wanted it, but they knew it would be unpopular, so they needed a law to force everyone to do it. Meta stepped up. They get the data, the politicians get the blame--and a payout. The pols continue to spin it as protecting the children but no one is buying it. No one expects it to have any positive effect on children’s use of social media, but that was never the point in the first place.
It’s really a good time to divest from Facebook, or Snapchat, or WhatsApp.
They’re going to try to set this as a standard, and it really needs to not become one.
The problem is that a lot of people don’t care. They are getting the dopamine hit.
When I asked around, I was surprised how many people have messengers other than WA installed.
In a similar vein, I found Fediverse users in the most unexpected places IRL.
Weird to put the “Like” icon on there instead of WhatsApp.
The best time to delete social media apps was 10 years ago. The second best time is now.
At least when it comes to Meta, I have nothing to delete. In 2021 I deleted my WhatsApp and in 2022 deleted my Facebook account that wasn’t used for over a year anyways.
The best time to switch to the Fediverse was 10 years ago. The second best time is now.
Seriously, I’ve made the following replacements:
- Twitter to Mastodon
- Facebook to Friendica (though this isn’t as active as the other Fedi platforms)
- Goodreads (never had it) to Bookwyrm
- Tiktok (only used it once, no account) to Loops
- Instagram to Pixelfed
- Discord to Fluxer (Revolt/Stoat fucking sucks)
- Edit: WhatsApp to Signal/Delta Chat
FYI Fluxer isn’t federated. What you’re looking for is Matrix/XMPP.
Also, Fluxer is closed sourced.
Yeah, they state that they’ll open their code, but that’s since centuries ago, and I see it coming, they’ll use something as the FSL.
Yeah, I am using Matrix with the Sable client and it is really good
I’m using it with Extera Next myself, and is really good, yeah. Matrix >>> XMPP.
I’d like to see any Nheko Chat fork with better security (I’m in Plasma so I want more stack consistency, also more aestethical consistency), but well, that seems hard to find right now (fuck off Etke.cc, Komai is just shitty slopware).
which one is ICQ
Signal I guess? Sorta? But absolutely not really?
I opt for blue sky which is not bad
Bluesky not only IS BAD, but is EVIL itself.
Proofs:
Governance Scandals
- Bluesky’s CEO Meltdown: How Leadership Continues to Fail Its Most Marginalized Users — Details the October 2025 CEO crisis, bans of critics, and systemic leadership failures.
- Bluesky’s Growing Pains (NBC News) — Covers governance hurdles including government censorship, user revolt, and leadership decisions.
- Inside the Trump Administration’s Bluesky Invasion (WIRED) — The political controversy over the Trump admin’s coordinated Bluesky launch and the platform’s governance response.
Financial Transparency Scandals
- EU Says Bluesky Is Violating Information Disclosure Rules (Reuters) — European Commission accused Bluesky of failing to disclose user counts and legal establishment.
- Bluesky Issues Its First Transparency Report (TechCrunch) — First-ever report revealing a fivefold increase in legal requests and 54% jump in moderation reports.
- Bluesky Under Fire as EU Demands Transparency on User Data (iPhone in Canada) — EU scrutiny over Bluesky’s failure to publish DSA-mandated transparency data.
Moderation Scandals
- Bluesky’s Moderation Woes, Investor Pushback, and User Backlash (Fortune) — The 2023 N-word username crisis that triggered a poster’s strike and forced a CEO apology.
- Bluesky Suspended Various Trans Authors Over Anti-J.K. Rowling Posts (Them) — Multiple trans authors penalized for posts wishing harm on Rowling, sparking accusations of selective enforcement.
- Controversy Brews on Bluesky Over Anti-Trans Journalist (Advocate) — The Jesse Singal saga, a 25,000+ signature petition, and Bluesky’s refusal to act.
Protocol (AT Protocol) Scandals
- Banning Controversy Reveals Bluesky’s Federation Isn’t There Yet (Flux Community) — A user banned across all AT Protocol apps, exposing that the federated model doesn’t actually protect users.
- We Need to Protect the Protocol That Runs Bluesky (MIT Technology Review) — Warns that no credible exit exists and the protocol is hostage to one VC-funded company.
- Protocol Developer Explains How Decentralized Bluesky Really Is (Gigazine) — ActivityPub designer Christine Lemar Weber calls AT Protocol “a centralized system that relies on centralized authority.”
- Is Bluesky’s “Decentralization” Real? (Leaflet) — Argues the architecture is “decentralization theater” structurally identical to Twitter/X.
- Be Wary of Bluesky (Kevin Åberg Kultalahti) — “The open protocol is actually a centralization flywheel” — nearly all data sits on Bluesky’s servers.
- “Decentralization” and Erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphere (Nexus of Privacy) — Critiques the protocol’s surveillance-friendly architecture and choke points that guarantee de-facto centralization.
Is there an alternative one then?
Mastodon, Pleroma, Akkoma, GoToSocial, Misskey, Sharkey…
These are all based in the same protocol that makes this place work: ActivityPub.
While this is the Threadiverse (Lemmy, Mbin, Kbin, PieFed, etc.), these other are the more general Fediverse, although more dedicated to microblogging.
If you want macrobloggin/traditional social media, you have Friendica, Diaspora*, Aarkvard and some other similar ones.
If you want forums, there are some as Discourse or NodeBB.
If you want video, there is PeerTube.
If you want music, there is Funkwhale.
If you want traditional blogging and/or publishing, Plume or WriteFreely.
There are AP-based software for almost all needs, if not all needs.
The worst part:
Malicious Advertising / Astroturfing
- Twitter rival Bluesky raises $8 million in venture funding (Axios) — The seed round led by Neo, revealing the VC backing behind the “grassroots” narrative.
- Jack Dorsey departs Bluesky board (TechCrunch) — Dorsey’s exit; he later told Mike Solana Bluesky had become “a crap company run by VCs that wasn’t even really decentralized.”
- Bluesky and its user community struggle with it being a VC-backed company (Nostr) — Detailed analysis of the $15M Series A led by Blockchain Capital and the “enshittification” backlash.
- Escaping to BlueSky? Check the business model, first (Reason Street) — Dorsey “resigned from the board soon after, arguing that VC funding risks repeating the same mistakes that constrained Twitter.”
- Bluesky is being valued at around $700M in new funding round (Hacker News discussion) — Community reaction: “It’ll then need to pay it back, probably by enshittifying their product in order to extract the money out of its users.”
- How is Bluesky funded? (Reddit) — “They’re VC funded, and the people doing it aren’t publicly disclosed” — user frustration over opacity around beneficial owners.
Well that’s not the way i expected to find out the outcome of that trial 🫠