Please, put the pitchforks and torches down. Hear me out.
You (yes, you!) are a front-runner. You are a first-mover. You came to the fediverse while most people don’t even know it’s a thing.
In the last couple of weeks/months, there’s been an increasing sentiment to boycott the established social media (Facebook, Xitter, Reddit, etc.), due to their rollback of fact-checking and hate speech protection. This has resulted in a lot of new users for a lot of instances lately.
Feddit.dk has gotten over 50 new users in the past few weeks, which is about a +50% increase of the monthly active users, a big deal for a small instance like ours.
This is a great opportunity to teach others about the fediverse and get more people to move to a more democratic, sustainable internet. But all these potential users are still on the corporate social media - we can’t reach them unless we are there!
You, the first-mover, is exactly the kind of person we need to stay on Facebook, just for a while, to guide people over to the fediverse. Feddit.dk was actually posted in a Facebook group a few weeks back and we got a few users that way! We’ve also gotten a lot of users via Reddit recently, as people on /r/Denmark have been mentioning Feddit.dk. Guiding people from corporate social media to the fediverse has been the most successful way to get more users so far.
We can’t get second-movers if the first-movers leave everyone behind. So maybe, consider not deleting your Facebook or Reddit account just yet, and if you don’t, try to look out for people that are looking for alternatives. You can be their guide.
(and if you want to delete Facebook regardless, I totally respect that choice btw)
Here’s my problem: I don’t want the general user base of Facebook to move here.
I may have used Facebook as a bit of a provocative example here… But even on Facebook, there are certain groups that could enjoy the fediverse.
The fediverse should be for everyone.
Even trolls, Nazis and other actively malicious people?
Unfortunately, I say yes. And hear me out first please.
The Fediverse in my eyes should be free. Free to have instances for everyone, including those we disagree with. Because in my opinion, the right to say and think what we want is very important (absolute free speech). And unfortunately, i think that means everyone should be allowed to say what they want. HOWEVER, free speech does not mean free of consequences. The option of federating with those groups or not is up to each community and fortunately I think many would not be okay with including them.
I’m always open to hearing input as these are personal thoughts so by all means add to or let me know the errors in my thinking. Thanks!
Current platforms like Lemmy are NOT ready for massive amounts of users. They have very poor moderation controls, no effective strategy to combat bots, and no money to pay people for it.
The only reason Lemmy is usable right now is because it has nerdy people using it in good faith. If it were to gain critical mass it would collapse under the deluge of trolls and bots.
It’s a quaint little place, and I like it for being that.
And it has enthusiasts running and moderating things that are just about able to keep up with the userbase.
It wouldn’t take much more to be overwhelming.I’m actually not sure how federated lemmy hasn’t already been destroyed. Wouldn’t it just take one bad actor to start spamming all the other instances with nonsence? If you deferate with the instance the bots are coming from they can just open another, right? Like a DDOS attack
Wouldn’t it just take one bad actor to start spamming all the other instances with nonsence?
In principle yes, one bad actor could start spamming a lot. But they usually get banned pretty quickly.
If you deferate with the instance the bots are coming from they can just open another, right? Like a DDOS attack
Well, you’d need a new domain so at least you’re forcing the spammer to spend money on a new domain, which probably breaks most of these attempts. Also if the spammers are really bad or posting illegal stuff and they’re registering domains, you could maybe report them to their domain registrar and possibly get them to shut them out or maybe even get law enforcement involved to figure out who registered the domains.
As a last resort, you could go to allowlist federation, where you are by default not federated with an unknown domain.
Thanks for the explanation. Yeah, many domains being required probably is annoying / prohibitive enough to stop distributed botnet attacks.
“General” Facebook user base is not a thing.
Every social media has its own varied bubble on them.
Even Fediverse has its own bubble of malice people.
I still use Facebook because all local community on them (people never heard Reddit or even Lemmy), and people are generally nice to each other. Shares hobby and stuff just like Lemmy and the entire fediverse.
Still, I still regularly on Facebook to recommend people to join local Misskey and Mastodon instance.
First rational argument I’ve seen in this thread. I fully agree with you. I don’t know that we have to worry about that. The Facebook crowd still hasn’t had their introduction to Reddit probably. Maybe they can go over there
For the love of Christ, stop supporting these assholes.
Hell no. Get off of that shit now.
OP I appreciate the reasoning.
But I’d advise against it,
and would recommend users to delete their Facebook account asap.Why? 4-5 years ago I already noticed the “illusion of free speech” on Facebook.
The platform is a data farm,
but I’m a data privacy advocate,
so I regularly posted data privacy articles/tools.Which went against the best interest of Facebook, so they simply held back that content from nearly everyone’s feed, resulting in it getting nearly zero attention.
But if I posted a dumb meme,
it would get a lot of attention.I’ve asked around to friends back in the day who where scrolling online if they saw my data privacy posts, none did.
So staying on the platform to advertise things that go against Facebooks best interest, will likely not yield good results.
However deleting your account,
is a great conversation starter that can easily be directed into WOM (Word of Mouth) marketing, to teach your friends and family about Fediverse tools.It is a matter of engagement. People like engaging with dumb meme more than data privacy stuff. Especially when people don’t understand the ramifications of poor data privacy or understand fundamentally what the even means. Heck, even I don’t understand what companies harvesting my data will mean for my personal life. I am guilty of ignoring data privacy posts in favour of dumb memes too.
It sucks, but thats why the term edu-tainment was coined. To educate people, you must also entertain them.
But I deleted my Facebook account in 2009.
I’ve been posting about it periodically.
I’m pushing the “buy Canadian” angle by promoting Fedecan, the non-profit running Lemmy.ca and now Pixelfed.ca.
Also, reminding people that American companies are making money off your data, and these servers are Canadian owned social media, in a way.
I still have no followers on Pixelfed, but 🤷♂️
You’re doing your part :)
I had someone post in the r/saskatchewan subreddit about lemmy.ca, and I had forgotten all about lemmy or that I even had an account on here already until they mentioned it.
Other social media sucks for sure, but OP has a point here. Lemmy is still at the stage where people only enter if they are told/reminded it exists. I genuinely thought lemmy died already. People finding lemmy naturally is very unlikely at this stage. It’s word of mouth, so the people here gotta start wording and mouthing about it.
Glad someone guided you back!
I heard about Lemmy.ca from R/ehbuddyhoser. Not going back.
I was thinking that lemmy.ca needs a ehbuddyhoser on here. It is insane how that sub is the most patriotic canadian subreddit on reddit aside from buycanadian lmao
I lately stumbled over a discussion of Lemmy on Reddit (linked from !fedibridge@lemmy.dbzer0.com, I guess), and some of the people in the discussion seemed to genuinely believe that Lemmy had completely died off following the first few days of interest from the Reddit community, similar to Tildes and whatever other services popped out through the years.
It’s pretty fascinating, as I wouldn’t think it takes that much to double check and realize the community on here is pretty vibrant.
I think part of the reason this happens is that the front page on Lemmy is less sensationalist and appears more slow moving, and there are of course fewer votes as we are not millions of users.
Which is where I spiral into checking what this comparison looks like in reality, and this comment becomes truly off-topic:
This is top five on the front page of Lemmy.world at the moment, not signed in:
- 1 day ago, 1.67 k upvotes: “Used to consume not produce”. A meme about the kids not knowing what a C drive is.
- 13 hours ago, 570 upvotes: “Democracy is when the White House boasts about its king”. Screenshot of white house tweet stating that Trump is now king.
- 2 days ago, 758 upvotes: “Europe preps huge defense package in boost to Ukraine: ‘Never been seen’”. An article about European aid to Ukraine
- 1 day ago, 469 upvotes: “So, is the USA screwed?”. No stupid questions.
- 2 days ago, 868 upvotes: “Joe Rogan dethroned by anti-Trump podcast in the charts”. Newsweek article.
Meanwhile, on Reddit, also not signed in and incognito for good measure:
- 2 hours ago, 15k upvotes: “The shower in the apartment I moved into self-destructs”. A video of a shower that has been assembled wrong.
- 4 hours ago, 20k upvotes: “Thursday’s front page of the British Daily Star. Putin’s Poodle”. The front page of a British tabloid.
- 20 hours ago, 18k upvotes: “What will Americans do if Social Security is reduced or done away with?”. Ask reddit.
- 19 hours ago, 9k upvotes: “Trump finally calls out the Ukraine scam”. Fascist propaganda from the conservative subreddit.
- 8 hours ago, 40k upvotes: “Trump can’t end birthright citizenship, appeals court says, setting up Supreme Court showdown”. CNN article.
So of course, if you’re used to the pace of Reddit, the Lemmy frontpage will appear slow, as if the site is half dead. Meanwhile, seen from Lemmy, the Reddit frontpage looks like it’s a dangerous fucking tool made and controlled by capitalists to pacify and brainwash the masses, spewing out bullshit at an alarming pace.
But yeah, point is, no wonder they think we’re dead, there’s an article from two days ago on the front page.
Anyway, glad to have you back!
Tbf, my first foray into reddit-like federated alternatives was Kbin, and that did actually die.
Originally lemmy just did not interest me because it felt like the only early adopters of it were the CS and techbro crowd. But now two years later I’m seeing what seem like regular people that I’m more able to relate and discuss with, with more variety in content and communities available. Plus, I’m browsing lemmy using the old reddit format which I am still stubbornly using to this day on actual reddit. So now I am using lemmy in a format that is identical to how my reddit usually looks. I could have lemmy on one monitor, reddit on the other, and not tell the difference. Maybe petty, but its a big deal for me.
There is still a pretty big lapse on communities relevant to me tbh, but there is still enough to warrant me to visit lemmy more often. For example, I am a historian/museum professional, and the history communities heres are practically dead to non-existent. Many of the communities I am interested in are simply forking posts from reddit or simply posting news article links. But, I suppose that is the part where I stop being a lurker and be the change I want to see in the world. It is a bit more enticing and exciting to make posts knowing that a much smaller but more engaged community will see it. On reddit, it feels like pointlessly screaming at the void.
Regardless, after two years it is kinda clear that lemmy is here to stay. It seems to have survived the great filter that most other federated alternatives did not during the initial reddit api buzz.
Anyways, thats just my perspective as a completely random not technologically advanced person views and viewed lemmy.
People complaining about Facebook on Facebook is profitable for Facebook
Delete it, stop being part of the reason other people are there. If you can realise it’s a cesspool and get out, so could they.
I encounter a surprisingly large number of people who seem ashamed about their Facebook usage and say things like “but I need it for […]” or “but I only use Messenger” or some other way they rationalise it to themselves
Just get out.
Lmao what? I deleted Facebook 5 years ago.
I deleted Facebook when the boomers got on.
Best decision I’ve ever made.
(Did miss some birthdays though)
I realize that Mastodon doesn’t track birthdays for security reasons, but it would be nice to have a “special day” that popped up in friends’ news feeds. It’s probably the nicest feature of FB, to get birthday wishes from friends.
Add them to your calendar
It seems the boomers are beginning to migrate to Instagram now as well. I took that as a sign to take the plunge and migrate to BlueSky, PixelFed, and Lemmy.
My reddit account is used soley for shilling the fediverse, and the odd r/subredditdrama post.
I changed my profile picture to one of the Fediverse graphics: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/36806080
I deleted my facebook like 8 years ago. I don’t understand why people still use social media like that. It makes no sense to me.
I’m largely still on Reddit to direct people towards the fire exits.
I did have a chat with someone about getting off Facebook and they reckoned they could get the majority of friends and family off Facebook onto Friendica but would struggle to give up Messenger and Marketplace. I pointed them to Matrix and Flohmarkt but also appreciated that it might not be possible to make a clean break but the important thing was to get at least one foot out of the Big Web even if they aren’t fully out yet.
Messenger is the big one for me. There’s no way I can convince my family to switch to something else. We see eachother like once a year or every other year (we live in the north-, middle and south in DK respectively). It’s the only way to stay in touch with them.
I don’t use Facebook though. I wish I could boycott them completely!
Too late for me haha. I already went off the grid. I think over time I will talk friends into using things like Signal and with family I’ll just let them know how and why I left Meta. Almost no one I know uses reddit or even know it exists so it wouldn’t make sense trying to pull them onto Feddit.
Most of my family members use Meta platforms and are generally indifferent to the problems with that. It is easy and convenient for them and I don’t think they care all that much about it. As far as I know, I am the only one in my family who is “terminally online” for better or worse and most of my family members have a very superficial relationship with the internet - for better or worse. I will only say something about why I left, how I left and what alternatives are if it ever comes up at family gatherings. No one wants to listen to someone who’s trying to push something on them, so casually talking about the hows and why’s I did this and that will be my strategy.
The only one in my family who has always been based (if that word is still okay to use) is my dad. He has been ahead of his time with almost every single issue we all deal with today. Environment, politics, social media, you name it. He told us all super early when Facebook was still new that he wanted no pictures of him on that thing because you never know what they will use people’s information for. He regularly sends me pictures over MMS of articles about current events and today he sent me a list of american products to boykot. I still believe the most important American products to boykot is social medias and not coca cola, toothpaste and body wash. Sure those products are american originally, but they are produced locally by local companies with a license so we would probably hurt local businesses more than american businesses by boycotting them.
Online platforms however, is directly given and monitored by America and leaving them would take away Zuckerburger’s, Bezo’s, Musk’s and Pichai’s power. And by extension America’s power. They have an almost monopoly on the internet today, have discouraged us from seeking and destroyed the growth possibilities for other platforms. In that sende I am grateful for Trump that he is such an insufferable cunt that some of us has finally had enough.
I think, though, that the change will have to happen organically. I will rather talk with friends and family about it irl than return to Meta and play missionary for people who either don’t care or don’t understand what is actually happening right now. I believe the big shift will happen among the youths. They are the future of the internet after all, and they already have made the move to walk away from American platforms and are mostly on tiktok today. I’m sure that if they find that there are other alternatives that restrict them less and allows them to create and speak their minds without massive censorship, they will go there. I have faith in the youth.
Very nice thoughts! I think you’re right that organically convincing people IRL is most effective, but getting people over online from Reddit and Facebook is also a part of the solution I think. But definitely not the whole solution.
Totally agree! I’m not 100% opposed to your idea, I’m just not a good sales person so if I tried to convince people on Facebook to move away from that platform, I would most likely end up being seen as a conspiracy theorist or something like that.
Before I left facebook I did post a comment in my feed where I announced I’d be leaving Facebook within a certain time frame and that people could find me this and that place, at this or that email and on the phone if they had my number. Wrote a bit about why I had had enough of Facebook, didn’t make it political, but focused instead on how Facebook no longer felt like a place where I could interact with family and friends, but more like an advertisement platform where I may be lucky to see one or two posts from people I care about inbetween an endless scroll of ads and brainrot content.
My biggest surprise was how quick some of my friends were to reach out to keep in contact and some were eager to move to Signal so we could still talk conveniently in the future (lets face it, text isnt always the most convenient communication form lol). That was a surprise because I literally thought no one would care that I left.
I will do my best to share things like Signal and the European alternatives with people I care about irl and leave the online convincing to the pros xD I could probably spread the word about feddit on reddit since I haven’t deleted my profile yet, just the app. I feel like reddit would be more open to this since more people on there are invested in online communities unlike most people on Meta who just use those platforms to connect with people they know irl already.
