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)
My reddit account is used soley for shilling the fediverse, and the odd r/subredditdrama post.
Lmao what? I deleted Facebook 5 years ago.
But I deleted my Facebook account in 2009.
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.
I changed my profile picture to one of the Fediverse graphics: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/36806080
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 deleted Facebook when the boomers got on.
Best decision I’ve ever made.
(Did miss some birthdays though)
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.
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
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 honestly regret deleting my xitter account. not because i actually want to use it, no way in hell, but i got curious recently and saw that my username was retaken by someone else, so now any old links there go to them instead of me. would have been much better to delete all of my tweets and change my display name and bio to point people to mastodon. maybe even set up automated tweets telling people switch. even if i got banned for that, that at least prevents anyone else from squatting on my old id. oh well, you live and you learn!
If people aren’t switching when Musk does a nazi salute, they won’t switch because of your display name though
Your heart is in the right place but you don’t know about how Facebook works. It artificially makes people not see alternatives while giving them all the reasons to stay. Worse, those who aren’t as secure in their views might go back. Facebook is pure poison.
Forget it. Delete your accounts and move. Talk to people IRL and tell them where to find you.
Because if you can be found on Facebook you will be a reason to stay.
delete Facebook and xitter account now
Hell no. Get off of that shit now.
Here’s my problem: I don’t want the general user base of Facebook to move here.
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
“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.
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.
Too late, (un)fortunately
For the love of Christ, stop supporting these assholes.
I still active on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube and sometimes LinkedIn for work (never used Facebook and Instagram) and I like Lemmy and Mastodon alot but I see no reason to restrict myself to only use Fediverse. On a side note Maybe I’m out of the loop here but why do you guys call Twitter, Xitter?
Can anyone explain to me what the primary difference is between Mastadon and Bluesky? I never used Mastadon but it is meant to be a twitter alternative correct? It seems like bluesky is gaining much more traction than mastadon ever did, based solely on how I literally hear nothing about it ever. If I am wrong on mastadon not being widely adopted, do tell, I am genuinely asking.
Bluesky is not truly decentralized, in the same way that Mastodon is. Bluesky is effectively centralized and is still controlled by an american corporation and could in principle be bought in the same way that Twitter was. Lastly, Bluesky made their own protocol instead of using the already-standard ActivityPub protocol. That’s why a lot of people are skeptical and recommend Mastodon instead.
what the primary difference is between Mastadon and Bluesky?
Mastodon is in the fediverse (like Lemmy, which you’re using), while Bluesky is not.
It’s also way older than Bluesky (2016 vs 2023). So recency bias might have played a role.
It seems like bluesky is gaining much more traction than mastadon ever did, based solely on how I literally hear nothing about it ever. If I am wrong on mastadon not being widely adopted, do tell, I am genuinely asking.
You’re not wrong at all there. Mastodon currently only has 886k monthly active users, while Bluesky is in the millions despite its much shorter lifetime.
The fediverse is just unpopular in general. Mastodon is the most popular fediverse platform though, Lemmy has only 48k monthly active users.
I still active on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube and sometimes LinkedIn for work (never used Facebook and Instagram) and I like Lemmy and Mastodon alot but I see no reason to restrict myself to only use Fediverse.
I understand that - hopefully the fediverse can provide a viable alternative for all of those platforms in the future. Right now I don’t think anything like LinkedIn exists on the fediverse, for instance.
why do you guys call Twitter, Xitter?
I think the idea of Xitter is to pronounce is as “shitter”, because Twitter became (more) shit with Elon Musk’s rebranding as X.
Right. In my opinion Twitter was a shitty place before Elon bought it and now is even a shittier place if that was even possible