Moving My Social Media Presence

I will try to keep this brief.

Tl;dr: I’m moving the bulk of my social media experience to https://social.postworlds.com where I am admin and moderator. I’m looking to create a cozy community.

The Long Version

I have been dissatisfied with large social media sites. It has not been in their best interests to moderate for civility, nor for community. When moderation does occur, it is frequently extremely scattershot. Some people are banned for a lesser transgression while other people are permitted to stay even after committing more grievous acts.

And worse: All of the pain and fighting is monetized.

I have been a professional web developer since 2002. I have been online regularly since the mid 1990s. I was irregularly accessing online spaces for years leading up to that.

This behavior was absolutely admonished all the way until it became a profit center. This behavior destroys communities. This behavior leads only pain in its wake. It’s time to walk away.

Addressing the Problem

Large Social Sites Can Not and Will Not Moderate Abuse Effectively

This ultimately comes down to one difference.

Modern social media mega-sites exist for financial profit.
Genuine communities exist for community.

Modern mega sites are invested in receiving a return on their financial investments. People who form communities are invested in having their own communities. The answer, then, is to return to smaller communities.

The Unspoken Presence of Abusers

Abusers will always take advantage of moderation loopholes to abuse other people. When the moderation loophole is a “feature” you will always find people with abusive personalities capitalizing on the loophole.

Small communities often moderate abusers. Large social media sites permit the abuse. Large sites and awful moderators take the abuser at their word that “this is for your own good.”

Addressing the Answers

Leave large social media sites if possible. Their combined inability and refusal to moderate a healthy community has led to massively unhealthy communities. If you must stay then unfollow as many people as possible, set your privacy to restricted, and communicate

Take advantage of small sub-communities. Use Facebook Groups and ignore your timeline. Those Facebook groups can have an extra layer of moderation. Seek out small subreddits if you use that site. Don’t use Twitter.

Start your own.

Start Your Own

Discord

A Discord server is free to start. A Discord account is free to create. Likewise, a Discord account will give someone access to up to 100 servers of their own choosing.

Mastodon and the Fediverse

For less than a monthly Netflix subscription, you can set up your own Mastodon instance. This instance will exist under your rules (plus applicable laws).

It doesn’t sound like much fun at all to make a new account for ten new tiny social media sites. That’s covered, too.

The Fediverse permits communication between the smaller sites (called instances). Signing up to one can give you a homebase to engage with people on other instances — all with that single signup.

Other Options

Create your own message boards. You’ll only pay for hosting (often very cheap) and for a domain name (roughly $12 a year).
Start an IRC server.
Consider virtual worlds: Second Life, Alt-Space and the like.

Goodbye Large Social Media

I need community. I need friendship. I need places where the human experience can be shared. I’m moving the bulk of my social media experience to https://social.postworlds.com where I am admin and moderator.

Others like me should look into doing the same. Seek out small, cozy, and locally moderated spaces. Create your own. Organize with others to share spaces.

Keep focused on the civil, loving, and human spaces that you are looking for. They are within your reach.

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Andrew

Andrew is a web developer by day.He has played drums nearly all his life, creates music whenever possible, and always needs a hug.
He has worked as a level designer for a small online video game, as the grim reaper in a haunted house, and traded web design for concert tickets and tattoos.In years past, he could be found performing improvised comedy or stage magic in the south side of Austin, Texas.