Carrying On, Backing Out, Moving on
I’ve been thinking about backing out of my social media accounts again for some time. I’ve been here before. I’ve deleted, for instance, three or four Facebook accounts since 2008. I can’t remember when I stopped posting on Twitter but I deleted my account when Elon Musk bought it. And yet, I’ve always hung onto my Instagram accounts, not least because I signed up on launch day and felt, for many years — even after the Facebook/Meta acquisition — that it was somehow different from the other platforms. But it’s become clear that what distinguishes Instagram is that its users have been subjected to even greater manipulation than those of its related media.
I’ve always kept an eye out for the new thing: Facebook was new, Blogger before that, Friendster before that. MySpace was in there somewhere. There was Foursquare, With, Path, and no doubt several other VC-driven social networks I can’t remember, plus App.net and whatever other indies popped up. Glass is nice. More recently, there’s the crop of fediverse networks like Mastodon and Pixelfed; corporate-fediverse hybrids like Bluesky and Threads, nearly all of which function the same way. Corporate manipulation is only part of the problem. Dispensing with longer and deeper thought is another, joining a mob-minded culture is another, falling victim to political half-truths and outright lies is another.
Most social platforms eventually bring such detriment to their users. I believe this observation to be true, to be the rule in spite of its occasional exceptions, and if my belief is understood as little more than an informed hunch it is also described elsewhere in extensive study and reportage: we have in the course of the development of these platforms become, on the whole, lonelier, more despairing, more hopeless, more vain, poorer, less likely to receive adequate health care, more violent, less educated, more bigoted, and more prone to rash and destructive behavior. So much for connecting the whole world or whatever. The fact is, most of us were better off before all of this.
And yet it’s hard to deny the original intent of the web, of the internet, to connect people. Simple as that. It’s never been free of corporate investment and management but their presence was less prominent, less pervasive, less intrusive. Which might not matter to some people but it does to me.
As it happens, the two platforms I currently enjoy are Bluesky and Micro.blog. I enjoy them because they move at my pace, without algorithmic interference or exploit. I have no idea how Bluesky makes its money and assume it’s something I’ll find disagreeable at some point, but for now I’ve found people I want to follow so I’ll stay put. As for Micro.blog, its community pays to be on the platform. It’s a microblogging platform, mostly, and its founder wrote a book about what that means and why he believes in it. It connects to Threads and the other fediverse platforms, but it also functions as its own network. What I like about it is that its membership believes in the possibility of a different kind of social platform (no likes, no tally of followers), one that can, solely by virtue of its members, remain interesting, informative, and social.
But to my original remark, I’m backing out of Meta Corporation platforms. Maybe that’s all I mean. It’s the election, of course, and its campaigns. It’s the devolution of news and journalism and the rise of manipulative and untruthful media. It’s all kinds of things. Lies and propaganda leading to reprehensible and awful ends. Again and again, year after year, it’s one thing or another. Just a handful of examples might be Sandy Hook, Pulse, Parkland, Charlottesville, Tree of Life, George Floyd, Kenosha, January 6. All acts and incidents of delusion and hatred, all exacerbated by social media.
I’m not capable of or responsible for a broad and lasting solution but I don’t see how I can continue to be part of the problem and fail to acknowledge somewhere how dreadful and dangerous this culture has become.
