We’ve all seen the pictures from Trump’s inauguration – Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram; stood in the front row. And of Musk giving a Nazi salute. The CEO of TikTok was not in those pictures, but he was also there. The collaboration has already started. Facebook has already helped arrest and prosecute people for abortion.
Ditch WhatsApp
Get Signal instead. I’m on there. Find me via my phone number or send me an email.
Ditch Insta
The hot new platform is PixelFed. You pick an “instance” to join and then can follow any other PixelFed user on any instance. I’m trying out Pix.lgbt, which is run by a trans woman.
Pixelfed is part of the fediverse. (keep reading for more)
Ditch Twitter (or Threads)
As in, actually delete your X account. Don’t just stop using it. You need to deactivate the account, wait 30 days and then demand that the data actually be deleted.
The popular replacement for twitter is Mastodon. But don’t just pick an instance at random, because they all have different moderation policies. For queers and allies, a good one is https://lgbt.io. If you’re a musician, you might enjoy https://sonomu.club/. If you’re Jewish (and get on well with liberal zionists), https://babka.social/. If you’re not sure, just do lgbt.io. It’s extremely easy to move your account between servers, so if you decide later that you should have been on a different server, you can move. However, your early experiences are going to make you feel happy or not, so do get a recommendation for an instance. The flagship one has moderation problems and puts many people off.
Mastodon is part of the fediverse. (keep reading for more)
Ditch Facebook
You could just join Mastodon, but for people who like nicely threaded replies and discussions where you can see who has replied to what, people like Misskey (or the million sub-variants of Misskey). I’m trying out https://blahaj.zone/ which is very queer friendly.
Misskey is part of the fediverse. (keep reading for more)
The fedi-what?
Mastodon, Pixelfed, Misskey and several other platforms all interoperate. If you join any of them, you can follow anyone on any of them, on any instance. The differences between them are the interface, the moderation, and the community that is local to each instance.
In practice, this means that wherever you join, you can follow me: @celesteh@lgbt.io. (You can also follow this blog: @celesteh@www.celesteh.com )
This is important because it means that this network cannot just be purchased by Elon Musk, even if he buys this blog, he can’t buy every single Mastodon server. This network can never be fully captured by oligarchs.
Getting started
I just wrote a thing about how to sign up at another blog yesterday, so go read that.
Once you’re signed up, upload a profile image, fill out your bio and write a little #introduction post.
Then follow me. Send me a message if we know each other online or in real life.
Tell your friends where you’ve gone. And why. If you want to post this message to X or any Meta property, you’re going to need to be cryptic, because they will not let you link to their competitors in a post.