A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).
If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to !moderators@lemmy.world!
Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration), Search Lemmy
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.
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.
I left Facebook to preserve my mental health. I am never going back.
100% fair! Not everyone can muster the will to wander into that hellhole. Some brave few might try :)
Same. I think it's been 14 years since I left, and I haven't regretted it. Then I quit LinkedIn and Google in quick succession, and my quality of life went through the roof.
Unfortunately I actually just joined facebook recently. My professional field is a rather small one, and there are strong and established profesional groups on there that greatly benefit me that only exist on facebook. The older people in my field are unlikely to switch to anything newer. Set in their ways and what not. I am desperately looking for a job at the moment so I'd something I sorta have to grin and bear. I have an ad block and I don't even post or engage with any of the crap on there though.
It makes you one of our brave heroes in the front lines. Come battle with me, and be lavishly permabanned for mentioning freedom social media!
Maybe once I get a job first. I need to sell the idea of myself to my small field first before I start trying to convince them why a federated social media alternative would benefit them. Honestly, aside from sticking it to facebook, I don't think there would be tangible benefits. In all honesty, it would potentially fracture the field and weaken us even more by decreasing our professional network strength. I think if they migrate over here, it will have to be organically rather than coerced by me. Lots of people in my field migrating from twitter to bluesky though, so we take wins when we get them.
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.
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
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.
"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.
My first thought was, how the hell are people still on Facebook?! 🤣
I see your point, but the most repeated reason/excuse for not leaving Meta (or other big tech platforms) is "I can't, all my contacts are on there". So the longer anybody stays on that dumpster fire, the more they add to the network effect.
My suggestion would be, announce that you're leaving, posting links to where people can find you going forward, and log off for a couple of weeks' grace period. Then login only to download your data and delete the account.
That way, you've given your contacts time to find your new profiles (and maybe their first glimpse of the fediverse), and you're off the treadmill — the contacts who will miss you enough to follow you off FB are probably the ones worth keeping 😉
Edit: added a comma and closed a quotation for clarity.
Is there any real benefit to deleting the account? I don't see what harm a dead account could do. I have a instagram account that has my real name on it, and I'd hate to have someone potentially impersonate me. I instead posted a link to my personal website and also linked my Bluesky account in the bio, stating that I will no longer be using instagram or regularly checking it.
Is there any real benefit to deleting the account?
I will no longer be using Instagram or regularly checking it.
I think you answered part of the question there: An inactive account is just bait for you to return and be sucked back in by the network effect. That's basically what "not regular checking" implies — that you may check less often but still log in occasionally.
On the other hand, deleting the account sends a message to Meta (who don't care about you individually, but mass exodus will be noticeable on their bottom line) and more importantly spur your contacts to move as well. Also, you make up your mind instead of keeping the abusive relationship with Meta an option.
Edited to add: Orphaned, unmonitored accounts are often the source of pwned passwords, which makes them an attack vector especially if you're not using strong, individual passwords for different sites. /end edit.
Impersonation is a tiny but possible risk, I guess — depending on how valuable you would be as a mark for scammers. Most people probably wouldn't even be on their radar. It's not something I would take into account, especially as Facebook and Instagram become less trustworthy or secure platforms in and of themselves.
So yes, there are benefits, per OP's point about first movers motivating others — and showing decisive action rather than leaving a door ajar (i.e. a dormant account) in case Zuckerberg shows slightly less oligarchic tendencies next week.
For the love of Christ, stop supporting these assholes.
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 :)
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
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
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.
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 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
Facebook is a bad example, I'm betting most of us left that cesspool a decade ago. Marketplace is prob the only thing it has going for it. I def don't want the curtain twitchers and the cope I'm so hard posters of FB here.
Things like Lemmy work because the users have to actively seek it out.
Looks like it’s time for me to proselytize on r/Denmark!
Too late, (un)fortunately
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?
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
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.
Seems difficult to choose a server to join to engage on Mastodon. I want to support and choose a Canadian server, but it seems like sparse pickings, most of them have less than 100 people on them. But is that even a bad thing? I vaguely understand the emphasis that what server my account is created on doesn't particularly matter. But lets say that small volunteer hosted server goes kaputt, what happens to my account or my posts? And I see that these servers can "defederalize" from other servers. Does that mean that these guys I don't know can influence what I see and am exposed to on the fediverse? Feels like a really easy way to create a echo chamber for myself, if used maliciously. It feels like I should find a trustworthy server to create an account on.
Its also a little confusing seeing servers for specifically Ottawa, and other canadian cities, while some are just Canadian in general, and some are not even geographic but topic-based servers. How does the server I make my account on influence what my user experience will look like?