I know this has been a regular topic of discussion lately, as Facebook users are looking for alternatives, but there is a harsh reality I think netizens of the fediverse need to acknowledge that will keep the majority of Facebook users locked in. That is the personal social graph that Facebook has built up for users over the years. No other site on the web has a way to find nearly anyone you have ever known, from high school friends to long lost family members. The reason for this is because of the format of Facebook being “you” on the web. Your profile is your name, your personal info, and it is even linked to your phone number and contacts, making social networking incredibly easy.
The closest that exists for this on the fediverse is Friendica, but it is more of a reddit/twitter hybrid imo, and while you can make your profile page personal, the posts you make will go to the entire fediverse. This lack of privacy and tailoring of your messages to a particular audience is what is going to make Facebook unbeatable for the foreseeable future. People want alternatives, but these alternatives simply do not exist.
I would be very curious to hear about efforts to make sites on the fediverse more personalized and enabling of people to control their audience, because this (along with improving user experience) is the biggest thing I think is keeping people from making the switch.
I remember the steady turnover of social media networks leading up to Facebook—the joke was that kids would migrate to a new platform every time their parents joined their current one. I think there’s a kernel of truth there that’s still a potential weak point on Facebook: people want to have distinct, non-overlapping online personas for different social groups (family, work, friends, etc) without the overhead of maintaining multiple accounts. That seems like an avenue a potential fediverse Facebook alternative might exploit.
Kids aren’t on Facebook nowadays. It’s definitely an “old person thing” for them
That’s somewhat of a myth. 43% of Facebook users are under 34, and nearly 20% of them are under 24.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/187549/facebook-distribution-of-users-age-group-usa/
80% over 24 is pretty solidly an “old people thing.”
As an old man I demand those 20% get off my facebook and turn down that 101 gecs!
I mean, on the flip side, about 60% are under 44. I think 40-50 is the cutoff for being considered “old” these days. I say this as someone who is quickly approaching that first cutoff, lol.
From kids perspectives it is different. For young people anyone over 25 is old, solidly adult, not “with it”, washed, etc. Contrasts that with almost 70% of tiktok users are under 24, with over 50% of creators in the 18 to 24 range. That’s solidly a young people social network. Facebook is in comparison made of old people. Most young people who engage with Meta do so through Instagram, and have a Facebook account because IG nags them to create one. But they aren’t going there or spending any significant amount of time engaging with Facebook itself. Facebook follows the global age distribution more closely, but users and active users engaging are entirely different things.
Ask a teenager how old are the people he/she/xe consider old, 24 shouldn’t be too off
The generational divide is just one instance of a broader phenomenon—similar divisions exist in adults between our constructed personas for family, work, friends, interest groups, etc.
I think an option on login for “personal account” vs “anonymous account” would be great. Personal accounts could require a phone number and allow import of contacts to help find personal accounts you know. There is a so much untapped potential here, we just need to make it a thing.
Or maybe a server that lets you create multiple, “connected” accounts at the same time, together with a client that combines the accounts into one view.
I suspect the large majority of people who use the Fediverse don’t want to be publicly trackable in this way. It would be fine for me if the people who did stayed on Facebook. To me, it’s not a goal that 100% (or any %) of Facebook users move to the Fediverse. What is important is just that the Fediverse has a critical mass of activity that it doesn’t completely die.
Also, maybe it’s just me (I’d be interested to hear what others think) but I think trying to track down old school or college friends is really something people only want to do for a few years. By the time I hit my mid 20s I didn’t really care anymore. There are people from school I sometimes think about and wonder where they are now, but ultimately, if I never tracked them down and they never tracked me down in the years since, the connection was clearly not that important.
It may be true that a large number of current users do not want to be publicly trackable. To be clear, I am not saying that all of the fediverse should be public personal profiles. However, the people on Facebook who want alternatives are going to be sorely disappointed. It’s not so much of meeting a goal as it is fulfilling a need. People want this, and it would be good for society if they had it. The infrastructure is here, it’s just a matter of building it.
On the second point, I’m in my late 30’s and have found a great deal of value with connecting with my friends and family. I was disconnected for a lot of years and it was extremely socially isolating. Reconnecting has been therapeutic for me, and it is one of the big reasons I will probably not be deleting my Facebook any time soon.
Recently i’ve been wondering if that is even a thing anyone wants. Being connected to everyone I’ve ever known — for me Facebook stopped being a place I posted on around when my graph exploded to everyone.
I mean, that’s good if you don’t want that, but I think a lot of people do. I abandoned facebook in 2017, but returned in 2022, and realized how out of touch I had become with everyone. I have friends, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc all added, and it is always nice to see what they’re up to. If you don’t want to keep in touch with people, then I guess I can see why you would not value that functionality and be fine with Friendica as is, but I think it is something a lot of people are looking for, and I would argue one of the primary values that social media provides to society.
Yeah we know. But it’s not really anything we can directly control, it just has to organically go viral. Marketing would help, but isn’t guaranteed.
I’m saying the reason it is not going viral is for the exact reasons I mentioned. The reason facebook went viral in the first place. We need either a potential modification of sites like friendica to make it more linked to your social graph (i.e., import contacts to find users, require proper names so people can find you, etc), or we need a new fediverse platform to come along that does that. So I would argue we can directly control it, by implementing these features that would make these networks valuable to most people.
Honestly the Fediverse is really better for connecting with strangers then locals. Not saying it can’t be done but yeah, everyone is probably still using Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and etc. and to them they might see it as “no one is using the Fediverse” because not too many youtubers, or friends of theirs are actively using it.
If you’re worth knowing, people naturally keep in touch.
The exact reason I’ve never had a facebook account.
but there is a harsh reality I think netizens of the fediverse need to acknowledge that will keep the majority of Facebook users locked in.
Would that be a bad thing?
Considering one of the biggest values that social media provides to society is being able to connect with friends and family…yes?
This is a very ten years ago argument, with facebook being you on the internet.
At any rate, facebook specifically, along with google, taught us that you should never be yourself on the internet, or at least only be some piece of you. Anything else is amateur shit.
What does look interesting is FUTO ID, a way to allegedly verify your identity securely. Might be a nice keypass for other fully or quasi anonymous things online. We’ll need to imagine something good going forward, not copy something bad.
I’m gonna have to disagree. Today, I am able to keep up with the goings on of my friends and family on Facebook. This is not a ten years ago thing. Nowhere else on the web can I log in and see my friend from high school posting a funny meme, a colleague post a picture of his family, or my mom wishing my brother and his wife happy anniversary. You may not use it for that, but many people do, and I don’t know how you could call that a bad thing. Isn’t social connection what social media is all about? Why would we want to not accommodate that as much as possible?
Maybe it’s just me, but that always struck me as a theater of connection, not actual connection. I know all my friends kids, even those who live abroad. Not because of an internet social network, but because we actually talk to each other on the regular, and share pictures and video calls, directly, personally. Not informally and creepily through a capricious algorithm. My good wishes to my friends and family on special occasions go directly to them, we don’t need a middle man to choose when and where they are going to see those things, and I don’t need to perform connection for people I barely talk to. Remember that the flip side of the coin is that social networks cause isolation by making all interactions feel impersonal and distant. Facebook literally caused a loneliness crisis amongst young people, who felt compelled to compete for attention and approval, distorting their expectations, altering their sense of self-worth, exposing them to abuse. Internet social networks have a very dark side.
How is it creepy to see what your friends post? I would also argue that you do have a middle man involved in any communication, even ones that are not on social media. Unless you are visiting them physically in person, you have some phone/internet providers mediating the communication. Social media is just another form of communication provider.
I would argue on the loneliness side of things, that having quit Facebook for a number of years, and then returned to it, I felt infinitely more isolated and lonely when I was off Facebook than when I was on it. Returning to it reconnected me with so many friends I had not talked to in forever, and I quickly realized how valuable social media is for social connection. It’s kind of sad that you view it as performative, because that is not how I view it at all. I now have a healthy social circle that is there for me if I am going through a hard time in my life, help me find a new place to live if I’m moving, etc, and who I can be there in a similar manner. That is real value that is a lot harder to maintain by texting people directly.
I’m not attacking your experience. Good for you, keep enjoying it. I’m just saying that it is not universally good for everyone, it would do us all good to avoid erasing other’s experiences or invalidating their emotions.
I also didn’t say it is creepy to see what your friends post. I’m saying that it is creepy that Facebook gets to see everything you do in your personal life. Remember that meta trains AI on what you post. At least with messaging you can use end to end encryption if you want to.
I fully acknowledge that it is not universally good for everyone, and for those who do not find it good, there is plenty of other options out there. However, for the billions who use it daily to keep up with friends, it is good for them, and there are basically zero good alternatives. I agree that we should not invalidate others experiences. Just because something is not good for you does not mean it is not good for others.
Totally agree on the private company seeing everything you do and using it to train AI and monetize your data. That is why I am here after all. Wouldn’t it be better if we got as many people out of that system as possible, and into more democratically controlled systems?
