Fuck mainstream social media

Why? Because mainstream social networks are evil, they don’t respect you, your privacy and your data, furthermore your data is not only not respected but also used for their own profit. Everything you post is content that attracts users that will see their ads which will fatten their pockets, you are working for them. For free. Not only for free, they ever make even more money out of you by selling your data.

But I like to use social media!

Fair enough! We all have our guilty pleasures. Hell, the person typing this have social media account, but I use free ones, not mainstream things. Allow me to introduce you to the fediverse. The fediverse is a virtual place where several communities can communicate with one another despite being hosted on different websites, to use websites you know of as an example imagine if twitter and facebook users could see one another’s posts and interact with them without having to make an account on the other website.

A simil anti nazi propaganda from WWII with what looks like a nazi in a high rank military uniform wearing a monocle, the monocle has a facebook thumb up icon upside down, the hat has the swastika replaced with the facebook logo and below it’s captioned “This is the enemy. Everything you share with your friends and loved ones is not private, will be used, will be sold. Break the chains of enslavement and make your data your own. Abandon the slavers and join the fediverse instead. Your brothers and sisters in arms are waiting for you.

What’s the fediverse like?

There is a lot of variety, depending by your personal taste you can find anything. Some websites are similar to instagram, some similar to twitter, some to tumblr, some to reddit, some are like facebook and others are their own thing, you’ll have to explore a bit to find your cup of tea and, when you find it, you may have to look a bit deeper to find the specific community that suits your personality because each community has it’s own rules.

If you want to get started with the fediverse you should take a look at this list where you’ll find most if not all the options at your disposal. Pick your poison, find something that suits your needs. You just wanna post pictures with little to no text? Pixelfed is a good option. Looking for a youtube alternative? You might enjoy peertube. Looking for a twitter altetnative? You might like pleroma.

Once you find the software you like it’s time to find a dedicated instance. The easiest way to accomplish this is probably looking up the software you chose followed by instances list or something along those lines, like peertube instances list.

Now check the list you find, look for something that seems would fit your personality or the type of posts you plan to make. It can be overwhelming at first, but take your time, make sure you pick what suits you. In the worst case scenario keep in mind that no one chains you to the first instance you find. I actually changed twice before finding a place where I stayed on a longer term and I felt accepted and welcome. If I managed so can you.

Another WWII propaganda changed to suit the theme of the page, this time a soldier is charging and piercing with a bayonet the twitter logo. The soldier’s helmet has the fediverse logo. A caption says the bird was never your friend.