Facebook > Friendica

Instagram > Vernissage as well

Spark.so seems dead btw.

Personally I’d prefer no social media (depending on your definition of social media)

The illusion of being “connected” to people online has shredded the social fabric. Why talk to someone on the train or at the bar when you can message the same 5 people and post memes in your special interest group?

The only half useful thing that social media does is allow people to disseminate important information to a large group instantly, things like news that others are trying to suppress. But that’s only because social media has a large reach. If centralised social media dissolved then that use would go away as you’d just be shouting to your instance and other federated ones.

Anything that “everyone” uses will become a target for manipulation and control by bad actors. (Mainstream media, metaverse, twitter)

Federation isn’t perfect either. We complained that centralised social media forced us into echo chambers but with federation(and defederation) all we do is curate our own echo chambers.

Even if a federated service becomes hot, people will try to control it, no matter how hard that seems (there are people, right now, trying to compromise more than half of all computers that are mining bitcoin with the goal of getting them all to push their own version of the blockchain, once more than 50% have the compromised blockchain all others will agree with the consensus. It’s a crazy goal but they try.)

I don’t know if people consider lemmy/reddit social media. I have used both only for information exchange, maybe a bit of shit posting but never with the goal of connecting with any individuals. I also didn’t see the point of twitter or following people I don’t personally know.

Meta will never go away, they hold the critical mass and as such are the preferred social media. If you are on lemmy then you probably used reddit a lot and think it’s a big deal but it has 875 million user per month. Facebook and instagram have 3 Billion each per month.

I guess what I’m saying is “reject modernity, embrace your neighbours” Even if they aren’t people you really like. Even if they are odd or awkward. Focus on building community in the real world. That’s where misinformation can be fought, that’s where we can break social media’s chokehold on this planet.