Wrenching out of the morass of Meta

There have been valid reasons to shy away from social media for years and years. I've respected and supported others' decisions to steer clear, but I've been online for 30 years now (!!!), and I knew how to be careful. I always carried with me a healthy bit of skepticism. I unfollowed or unfriended or ignored any folks who were... let's say, less thoughtful in what they were posting and sharing. I never stopped considering the source of the information crossing my field of vision, and while that's been more challenging with the doomscroll onslaught of modern social media, it's been manageable.

But not anymore. Facebook and Instagram have shoveled so much "recommended for you" content into my feed that I didn't ask for. Pages and groups all over my feed with absolutely zero quality control or vetting. Unlike an acquaintance I can filter out by unfollowing, hiding these intruders is futile. They are infinite.

Algorithms like the ones at FB, Insta, YouTube, and Twitter, they reward extremism. The more provocative the content, the more "successful" it is, a natural consequence of the combo of an ad-based revenue model and an emotionally-driven content algorithm. There is zero structure in place to value truth or thoughtfulness over knee-jerk reaction. It doesn’t have to be something that inspires offense (though that’s darned effective), just as often it can be something painfully cute or artificially inspiring. But it’s taking us further and further from what’s real and important. This is a tinderbox situation, and we've been rewarded with the flames for a long while now.

These apps make more money when you are lulled into setting aside the best of what makes you human. A lot more money.

More than 10 years ago, a friend of mine who had gone to work at Facebook quit when she found out that FB was experimenting with toying with people's emotions through various manipulations of their newsfeed algorithm. Pretty gross stuff, horrible, and yep, I would have quit the job, too. But I didn't quit the app, because I felt I could still get the positives out of FB while limiting the risks of manipulation by using the control I did have: keeping my feed restricted to sources I trusted, people I had personally vetted.

But now, with that ability to have some control out the window...

AND having understood for more than a decade how Facebook has the capability to manipulate intentionally...

AND with the example of what happened at Twitter when Musk decided it was fun and profitable to not just sneakily put a thumb on the algorithm scale but to jump up and down on it...

AND NOW with Mark Zuckerberg doing his full weirdo dramatic villain turn...

Well... I'd say it's time to reassess the risks, wouldn't you?

(Oh! And this doesn't even touch on the generative AI bullshit that's being rammed down our throats all over the damned place. With the pollution of garbage info that's out there thanks to people playing loose and fast with AI, I need to tighten up my scrutiny more, not less. It would take a nearly infinite aside here to share my thoughts about the damage AI is doing in our world, I'll save that for another day.)

What's been keeping me there

There are two things keeping me tied to Facebook: connection to old friends and access to useful narrow-focus groups.

I truly do like the groups I'm in on Facebook quite a bit, but it's because I'm in groups that have thoughtful moderation. Thankfully, one of the biggest ones just announced a few days ago that they're building their own community platform off of FB. Hooray! I would love to see more of that. (Also, a lot of the info that can be found in FB groups can also be found in other places, like Reddit.)

The old friends one is sadly kinda self-resolving. It's had an end-of-the-party stragglers feeling about it for a long while now; fewer and fewer friends are active there anymore. And note I said "old friends"—it's pretty unusual for any of my new friends, friends I've made in the last five years or so, to ask to connect on FB. So it's not even reflecting my current social life. But I still do want to have some bit of contact with those old friends, I love them.

What do we need?

We need social connection, but people who turn away from the social apps report they felt more connected to the people around them, not less. There are other ways of being and staying connected to friends. And, as mentioned, they’re not to be found on the Meta apps nearly as much these days anyway.

With the formidable challenges our society faces in the coming years, we also need to connect with others so we can build a new, better world together. We need to be ready to be forces for positive change. FB and Insta provide a convenient illusion of a venue for that connection and change. You can consume-consume-consume content, like and like and like, and feed into that machine, and feel like you're part of something, you're connecting, maybe even making a difference. But are you?

There was some real life change that happened with Me Too, and Black Lives Matter. Those came out of Twitter much more than Facebook. But the forces those movements were pushing against are in the power position, and making sustained change requires sustained action. That's how standing up for the rights of the oppressed works: it's not a one-time event, it's a never-ending process. I still care. I still want to keep changing and acting on the systemic issues Me Too and Black Lives Matter brought to the fore. And so much more: climate change, trans rights, disabled rights, broader racism, colonialism. All of those issues are about community at their core, real world community.

The people who feel threatened by that change, those are the people steering the discourse now, steering the algorithms. And now, with their controlling what you see in your feed far more than they once did, what do you think they will be doing with that power?

They benefit from providing you with an action sink. Just as a heat sink soaks up the heat generated in an electronic device, dissipating it harmlessly, Meta provides an action sink that dissipates your caring into harmless, impotent actions. Democracy dies with a million meaningless likes. With a hundred thousand videos of kittens and puppies snuggling together. The modern-day opiate of the masses.

Meta and other platforms wield massive power over our society. They are given that power by us, and we can revoke that power—but only by leaving.

I don't know what the answer is, but I know I can make better choices.

I can choose what gets my attention, and I'd like it to not be dictated by Meta. (I already entirely bailed on Twitter a couple years ago, when Musk came in.) I've taken the apps off my home page and I'll only be poking my head in sporadically.

I'm liking Bluesky, for now. You can find me on Bluesky as @Humuhumu.com. It's where I turn first now for social media. Bluesky will have its turn to become rancid, no doubt, but for now its positives are outweighing the negatives. A big, big difference there is the very different way algorithms are handled. I use the Following tab, which has no algorithm at all, and it sounds like this is how most people choose to use Bluesky. There are algorithms available, but my understanding is that they are open source, and you have some power to choose which algorithm you want. It's got some growing pains in store; the same thorny questions about content moderation will get thornier, but for now, it really does feel like Twitter at its best.

And credit where it is due: Me Too and Black Lives Matter grew out of the Black Twitter community. The best of Twitter was Black. And the best of Bluesky is Black, too. The Black community has deep experience in fighting systems of oppression, and I love learning from them. (I would actually be on Bluesky all the time even if it was an empty room with only Saeed Jones in it. He is hilarious and ridiculous and a genius.)

I'm keeping an ear to the ground in case Pixelfed takes off; that's an alternative to Instagram that's been getting some traction in recent days. But honestly, I'm not feeling a big Instagram-shaped hole in my life right now.

I'm being more intentional about my focus being on real life actions. Connecting in my local community, sharing food, meeting up in person. Direct communication with friends. Making changes in my life to line up better and better with the positive changes I want to see in the world. Trying to, anyway. It's hard! But I keep trying.

And most of all, I started this blog. It won't keep me connected to friends in at all the same way Facebook once did. (But maybe some of them will start blogs, too! Go start one on Ghost, I love it!). But if I want there to be some corner of the internet that has goodness in it, I have to play my part in creating the goodness, and this is my way.

I can have a voice here that isn't subject to the manipulation of algorithms or the whims of Nazi sympathizers. I will have the teeniest of audiences, but it'll be about quality over quantity. (I'm not holding my breath for Google to drive any traffic here. Ah, who cares. Google is pretty useless for searching anymore anyway.) It's not sullied by bids to get eyeballs, there are no ads here, no algorithms, just me and my words and pictures, nice and simple.

If you're a friend, old or new, and you're reading this, I'm so, so glad you're here with me.