1y ago

What Does Your Migration Process from Mainstream Social Media Look Like?

For context when I say Mainstream, I mean Reddit, FB, IG, Twitter, etc.

With privacy and data concerns mounting more and the change of things in the general overall and day to day, I have started to rethink the use of mainstream Social Media and begin to make the migration away from it.

So far I have taken to the Fediverse with Lemmy, Pixelfed, and Mastodon. This is after Reddit just just shooting itself in the foot and blowing the damn thing right off. Twitter after Elon also just started the using a platform for his pissing context with Zuck. Instagram, I have no real use for now as it has become so hard to get any actual engagement beyond “likes”.

My issues with Facebook come from constantly changing how the timeline works and it got to a point to ONLY seeing pages I had liked and ads and not even seeing posts from anyone on my friends list. I was able to take the time and clean it up, but compared to the alternative of moving away from Facebook, it got old real fast. I continue to use Facebook primarily for the messenger functionality, but even there now everyone who I would talk to on the regular is either via text message or some other platform.

Eventually, potentially by the end of this year, I can see myself completely closing out my Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit so long as I like what I see here on Lemmy. That’s not so say Lemmy isn’t good, but IMO a I’ll has some ways to go.

The ONLY reason I can see keeping an Instagram is because there are some accounts I do find entertaining and have some good bits of information(Costco/Target finds, etc).

I don’t expect for these platforms to be replacements for the mainstream. And I hope they don’t become that, because that’s what making it special right now. The communities are small, instances make things close knit and that’s nice. Oh and also, not seeing ads after every post post is always nice as well.

So the TL;DR here is I plan on migrating away from Mainstream Social Media Platforms completely by the end of 2023 and wondering what everyone else’s game plan is or if they plan on keeping both the Fediverse/decentralized platforms and the Mainstream.

20 comments

I never used Facebook not Twitter or Instagram, but I was very active on Reddit.
The key to a successful migration, in my opinion, is being involved enough in alternatives that you stop caring about your old mainstream accounts, that doesn't happen in a day but it's an ongoing process.
What I'm doing (in practice), I created my account here when the protest started, I took the time off reddit to search for alternatives to the subs I was in and actively participate in them, after a while I stopped caring about reddit, so much that I unsubbed from everything and I don't even follow its news anymore.
I didn't ditch reddit completely yet because there are a couple of niche subs that are not easily replaceable, so I still check those every now and then, but compared to how active I was before, I'm basically not contributing anything anymore.
It's just a matter of time IMO before those niche subs will grow on the fediverse, I don't know how long it'll take but when it happens I'll be done with reddit forever.
- Totally agree. There will be a point where Reddit will become nothing more than something you go to for very niche things (if not found here), or(and this pertains to the profession/hobby/niche also) finding answers via Google to things that your having issues with. I have found some very good info for solving IT related issues on Reddit. So while I may not participate like I used to, it is still good for posting issues your having or finding solutions to problems that you are having.

Reddit was the most difficult, and the only thing i really wanted to replace instead of delete. I'm happy with the fed and only really use Reddit now when looking for info. I only used Twitter for following my favorite bars, restaurants, and music venues to see what's going on and happy hour info, so that was pretty easy to wander away from. Funny thing about Instagram - I made an account years ago just to see what it was and recently deleted it. I use fake birthdays on random websites and apparently had done that on Instagram. When i deleted it, Facebook picked up that fake birthday and i spent several days getting birthday posts. I feel like i have to keep FB for family connections. I check it 2-3x/wk. It takes about one minute for me to be disgusted with the marketing. I've never tiktokked - I have friends that use it and I don't really get it. Sometimes they talk about getting news from there - I don't understand spending the time watching videos from random idiots about the news when you could just quickly skim an article from a reliable source.
- Thats about how often I check Facebook as well. TikTok I like for the food recipes and some out of left field facts and info(that I check for validity of course and deeper reading), but news? No way.
  
  Why TikTok for food recipes instead of a different format? I've seen a few TikTok pages from people sending them to me and their video player is atrocious. It doesn't have any controls, you can't maximize it, and about 20% of it is covered with hearts, usernames, and other random stuff. I don't understand how such a thing could have ever caught on, since it's a UI travesty. Is the app a different interface or something?

Don't have a FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc. And I never contributed too much to reddit. Did more lurking, reading articles, and looking at pets than anything. So now I just do that here instead. Trying to comment a bit more, the atmosphere seems less toxic.
- That is something I have noticed. You wouldn’t see it by glancing over, but when you look at some of the deeper comments in some threads on Reddit, and they are easier to notice on Subs that match your interest, some of these comments are very….well it feels like they are looking for conflict. Like your either wrong or wrong. The atmosphere here does feel more relaxed, but I also don’t think there is enough people here for it to become confrontational and I hope for it to stay that way, even when/if Lemmy grows in popularity.
- I’m exactly the same, didn’t have any socials, I did answer some niche 3d printing problems on Reddit occasionally but beyond that didn’t post at all. I edited/deleted all my posts from Reddit July 1 and haven’t looked back. I am trying to participate in comments much more to help build the communities here.

My issues with Facebook come from constantly changing how the timeline works and it got to a point to ONLY seeing pages I had liked and ads and not even seeing posts from anyone on my friends list.
This is such a shame too. Facebook was genuinely a good service for those of us who only had real life friends and family in our friends list. It helped us stay in touch long distance and keep up with each other's lives. Now, despite the fact that I've never "liked" a single public account, group, or page, never subscribed to one, and actively block them, I can hardly see any of my friends and family posts. I'll see like one post from a friend and then it's 15 posts from random groups that I have no interest in, and don't want to see. You can't block enough of them to get your feed back either. For every one you block there are 1000 more just like it, waiting to take its place. Zuckerberg has taken what was a great product for friends and family and turned it into a junk yard that we have zero control over. There's a Facebook Purity plugin for Firefox that did allow you to regain control of your feed, but Facebook just broke it again recently. I don't even go there anymore. It's just a constant onslaught of ads and trash. What a fucking shame.
- So as I had mentioned, I did go through the trouble of "unliking" every single page I had liked and did regain my Newsfeed considerably. There is another section that has influence over the newsfeed that I could go through and take care of, but after all of the work I just did I am not sure I have the motivation to do so AND do I really want to spend time doing it.
  
  They've changed it to where now they just force it upon you. Like I said, I've never liked or subscribed to any of this stuff.

Basically use the fediverse less than reddit. My social media addiction is outrageous.

Mine is probably a major nerd/geek move, but it's basically been taking as many of the organizations I followed on corporate social media, finding their RSS feeds (if they had any), plugging those in to different RSS readers and then by & large unplugging. I hadn't really used corporate social media for the social part in forever, so it didn't make much sense to keep putting up with their changes aiming to maximize ad views & exposure as much as possible.
The part that I've been struggling with from here however is just how to reach folks anymore as I don't necessarily want to have to have like 4 or 5 different messaging apps to do so. Unfortunately SMS feels clunky for anything beyond basic texting & I would really like to have a chat app that displays messages on both my phone & PC so I can respond from either depending on what I'm doing.
However the most popular apps with that kind of functionality are either tied into Meta/Facebook (WhatsApp/Messenger), gaming themed (Discord), or kind of clunky for chatting (Snapchat), and they're all centralized & trying to find ways to shove ads at you or sell you something.
- IRC still works, it's what slack is built from. Unfortunately you'd be hard pressed to get all of your friends and family to use it. It seems that most people won't use anything that doesn't have massive marketing campaigns telling them to use it.
  Edit: it looks like there's a client called Element which I guess is a decentralized IRC client for Riot, that has some market share. I don't know anything about it though, I just found it right now.
- I don't mind the many messaging apps. What I do have issue with is with I delete say, my Facebook, there is no option to keep my account JUST for the messaging aspect. Snapchat now I only use as a Group Chat between My Wife, myself, and our family that is out of State. Whats App I never got into, but I know it has a lot of popularity with folks outside of the US and iirc it is because text messaging rates are different in other countries, so a lot of people use something like WhatsApp to avoid those fees.

20 comments