Adventures in Social Media

It was about ten years ago when, whilst hanging my head in shame at a family member sharing something racist, that I deleted my Facebook account. “Why am I wasting time with this?” I remember thinking “I’m not even enjoying it”. Since then, I’ve tried to be more principled with my use of social media, and avoid using or posting things just for the sake of posting them. I can’t really say I’ve missed using Facebook since - I’ve walked away from other platforms since that I’ve found much harder to let go of, but walking away from Facebook simply had no negative impact on my life. Over the past year I’ve really leaned further into decentralising my social environment, so when the next billionaire decides to buy a platform as their own plaything I can simply walk away from it. What with it being the season of new resolutions and habits, I thought I would share a short overview of all the different platforms I use, what I like about them and what type of experience it is to use it.

First things first though – what’s not included. As mentioned I don’t use Facebook, but I also don’t use any of Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat or Twitter/X, so I wont be writing about any of them. Reddit used to make up the main bulk of my intent usage, but I deleted my account (again on principle) following the third party API changes. I’ve since created a new one that I occasionally use for professional research purposes, but I’m not going to include it here as I no longer consider it to be a social/community platform.

Bluesky – Probably the platform I use the most, a micro-blogging site built using the ATProto standard and part of the Fediverse. For those who are unfamiliar, the principle of the fediverse is that the user owns their data rather than the platform, and that anyone can set up their own server and community there. This means the platform cannot be purchased/controlled as happened to Twitter. In Bluesky’s case though there is only one (or at least very few) servers which somewhat limits that freedom, however it does make it a lot more accessible to the average person. This accessibility means that a lot of people have joined, including many journalists and celebrities, so it’s a great place to follow the news and sporting events. It also offers the ability to curate your own algorithms, so you can be served the types of content you want to see. For example, I have feeds based on Formula One, Gym and Fitness, and Arsenal depending on the type of content I want to consume at that time, which helps to build a sense of connection to those spaces.

Mastodon – a similar to bluesky micro-blogging platform that’s also part of the Fediverse, however this one is built using the ActivityPub protocol. I’m not massively technical so I’m not entirely sure why, but as I understand it the ability to set up your own server with ActivityPub is much easier than with ATProto, so there are far more servers to choose from. A lot of open source companies have set up their own servers here (I think the BBC experimented with one for a while), which can result in a higher barrier to entry with the platform as a whole. Its not a given that content on one server will be visible on another, so you need to know where the content is in order to find it.

LinkedIn – So…..the necessary evil. On the one hand, LinkedIn is the platform for sharing your professional profile, making and maintaining professional connections, and is probably the most useful place in terms of job hunting and recruitment. On the other hand, it is pumped full of AI generated slop, engagement farming nonsense, paid-for posts by people with nothing interesting to say, and an algorithm that doesn’t seem to know if its coming or going. Sadly its probably the platform I spend the most time on and professionally is the one I get the most value from, but I hate myself the whole time I’m using it.

Digg – If you are old like me you may remember the original version of Digg, which was blown out of the water by the rise of Reddit and promptly went out of business. Last year Digg was reborn, with a bit of a twist – the site was going to be built around using AI to enhance the user experience. Whilst these words generally make me shudder with horror, I do like to feel special and signing up to get an invite code to the currently closed platform did make me feel special. What’s it like? Well its like Reddit I suppose, but as its not currently open to new joiners its really quiet. There’s probably a few power users at this stage who make up the bulk of the content being shared, and you regularly see the same names cropping up. There are /communities in a format that will be familiar to most people, however at the moment users can’t create new ones so there aren’t many available. In terms of the AI, this consists almost exclusively of an AI generated summary of any links that are posted, and can be ignored/minimised if you’re not interested in them so they’re fairly unobtrusive. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when it eventually opens the doors to let anyone and everyone join, but for now it’s a closed off space that I tend to dip in and out of.

Pixelfed – Ok so if you’re not familiar with the Fediverse bear with me here. Pixelfed is a bit like Instagram, so you get pictures and images from the people/hashtags that you follow. Its built using the ActivityPub protocols mentioned earlier when talking about Mastodon, and in the same way you decide which server you want to sign up to. You remember that the principle in the Fediverse is that the user owns the data? Well what’s cool here is that for some servers you can sign in with you Mastodon profile, so that your profile exists across multiple platforms. I actually find myself using Pixelfed as a bit of a screensaver for my brain, as its nice to have a stream of arty imagery without having to look at adverts or influencers or rage bait sprinkled everywhere. Its just a nice place to be

Lemmy – Right, now its going to get complicated, but it’s a good complicated. Lemmy is a federated social link aggregation and discussion platform (think Reddit). Lemmy is also built using ActivityPub protocols, but unlike Pixelfed YOU can’t sign in with your existing Mastodon account. Thats because in this case the SERVERS are connected, so as long as they are set to do so you can access and interact with posts and comments from either platform on either platform. Whilst this is very cool, my preferences lean towards separate access points for separate experiences, so I tend to use the Boost app (a former third party Reddit app that has evolved for the Fediverse) to access. I like it, the experience reminds me of Reddit when I enjoyed using it, and I find a lot of the communities that I can’t find on Digg there.

Substack – Sigh. Substack is a newsletter platform that wants to be a social media platform. It isn’t. I used to write a newsletter using it because it was incredibly easy to set up and use, however I got a recommendations email one week full of far right recommendations and decided it wasn’t for me. I can see why people like using it as it’s a good closed eco-system if you want to interact with an audience you’re attempting to monetise, but as I’m not doing that and don’t want to be monetised I very rarely use it

Nooki.me – Remember earlier when I said that Bluesky is easy to use because its all on the same server? ATProto isn’t as widely used as ActivityPub, but it is starting to get used with various different experimental things. For those in the UK the word nookie is used exclusively by tabloid journalists to describe the antics of milkmen and lonely housewives, however this is definitely not that. Its another Reddit-a-like link aggregation platform, and it’s very very small – like two or three posts a day small. What I like about it is that its really easy to sign in with your ATProto account (so your Bluesky account, for those getting confused) and connecting your profiles across multiple platforms. There’s not much there but I like it, purely because its different and experimental.

Monnett – Ok so I’ve only just started using Monnett, and I have to be honest I’m not sure what to think about it yet. Its supposed to be an Instagram-a-like platform, but is built in the EU. As I like to try things from outside the occasionally dystopian world of big tech I decided to sign up and try it out, and whilst its very well put together and polished, to be honest there’s not much happening yet and I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it

Nextdoor – Apparently Nextdoor is really big in the US, but my experience is one of a local Facebook group without the veneer of anyone having any self-respect. Your experiences may vary, but mine is largely people advertising gardening services, people requesting lifts to the tip, and one guy who is REALLY into feet and does not care if his neighbours know it. I avoid it unless I see something happening in the real world that I think will have upset just the right people and I want to go see what the reaction is.

Cara – I love artists. I love anything and anyone who is creative. Cara is a small still-in-beta platform which is built for artists who have a burning hatred for AI generated art, and instead are a platform for sharing their own digital (or analogue? Is that the right word?) talents. I don’t really interact as I have no artistic skills to speak of, but I really love the work that gets shared there.

Fishbowl – speaking of hating myself….when starting a new job I was once asked “have you ever worked for a big 4 company?” When I said no, they said “you might want to download Fishbowl and see the type of people you’re going to be dealing with”. Essentially a good idea, it is a verified-but-anonymous discussion platform based around different organisations. You verify you work of a company with your work email, and you can access their closed ‘bowl’ where you can ask/answer questions anonymously with other verified employees. It’s a good and clever idea, however its generally full of the worst people imaginable and I’ve never once felt the need to interact with anything posted there. Its where I go for a good old self-loathing hate watch.

Thanks so much for reading, if you’ve enjoyed this post I’d really appreciate it if you could share it - alternatively you could always buy me a coffee 🙂