Hey, what’s up?
Today, I wanted to share why I’m deciding to delete my Instagram, Threads and Twitter/X accounts and switch to Mastodon and Pixelfed.
If you’re trying to avoid large social media corporations, considering decentralized social media like Mastodon and Pixelfed or if you’re wondering about the current state of the internet especially for social media, then this could be for you.
That being said, I am NOT going to talk about advanced topics like Fediverse or ActivityPub.
Before we start, I just want to say that I studied computer sciences at University, and I’m currently an online entrepreneur. I make most of my money on the internet. I say this because these are topics that I take very seriously.
Let’s go right in!
1- MY USAGE & EXPERIENCE
The first that I wanted to talk about is my own usage. Now, I don’t consider myself an influencer in any way, but I do use social media from time to time, and I am considering growing my online presence.
Let’s first get Threads out of the way. I don’t use it and I don’t care about it. I have an account because it uses the same Instagram account. That’s it.
Next is Instagram. I mostly use Instagram for chatting and DMs. I don’t seriously follow anyone. I might check some reels or some short videos from time to time, that’s all. I have around 70 followers.
Next is Twitter, and this one is a bit interesting. I use it more than Instagram, and I mostly use it in my free time when I have nothing to do. On Twitter, I always feel, there’s something to do or learn. I also follow some people that I care about. As of right now, I have around 300 followers.
2- DATA COLLECTION & ADS
Large companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and X are known to collect a vast amount of user data. In most case, they use this data to sell advertising or to train their own AI. Now, I understand that when you’re using the internet, you need to share data. Personally, I don’t mind give the necessary data as long as it’s not too exaggerated. But if I have the option to not give any, then I’d prefer not to. That being said, I won’t go out of my way to be completely private, what you do on the internet is public anyway.
What I’m really against though is advertising. I spend a lot of time on the computer and on the internet, and I can’t stand advertising. Even if it’s targeted with my preferences. I think it’s creepy, and it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Mastodon and Pixelfed are non-profit. They don’t care about your data. This means that they do not show ads and they only take the necessary data. That being said, you can’t entirely escape data collection. The administrator of the instance or server might have access to more necessary data and rules like IP addresses, but I think it’s very reasonable. Just make sure that you trust the server that you’re joining. If you’re not happy, simply create your own instance and own everything.
3- CENTRALIZATION & ALGORITHM
The main issue with centralized corporations is that they are in control of everything. The users have very to say. That means that it is them that chooses on content moderation, bans, regulations, policies and algorithms. One thing that I dislike particularly about X is that they allow pretty much everything to be posted in the name of “free speech”. That includes pornographic posts. Now, I respect the value of free speech, but not everybody might agree with that, but you’re still stuck with it.
You’re also at the mercy of hidden algorithms that might influence everything that you see or not see. The goal of these centralized social media is to keep you as long as possible on the platform by showing you content that you will watch and interest with. But you do not realize that because the algorithms are closed source and probably under very high security.
The purpose of Mastodon and Pixelfed is to be free, open source and decentralized by creating independent instances with their own rules and values. The ultimate goal of using these platforms is to literally create your very own social media, where the owner or administrator create their own rules. There are also no algorithm that might influence what you’re seeing or not seeing. What you see is that you get. All those things means that the users are actually in power and in control of everything. You can deliberately choose the community that you want to be in and the content that you want to see. And not one organization.
4- SUBSCRIPTIONS & VERIFICATION
I understand the benefits of subscriptions and verification. A subscription allows a business to make money, and a verification makes sure that the account is authentic.
Firstly, the fact they offer a subscription is already messed up. They are already making money from all the data that they collect and resell too. So they take all your data AND you also have to pay for it. I don’t think this is good.
Another thing is that when you do, that is that you create a separation between the people, and you hide some features behind a pay-wall. If you’re not paying that subscription, you’re probably not prioritized in the algorithm. In video games, we can that pay-2-win, and I absolutely hate that business model.
Having the “blue tick” is then seen as superior and gives a certain status. In actually, it doesn’t really mean anything because anybody that pays the subscription can have it. It simply means that you have money to waste every month.
Mastodon and Pixelfed are non-profit, so it is not limited by the structure of a conventional corporation. Their purpose is to actually work for the people. It also has a verification process that is a bit different. You add a small line of code on your website. There’s no blue tick, meaning that it’s actually for everyone.
5- YOUTUBE & FACEBOOK
The two other major social medias that I haven’t talked about yet are YouTube and Facebook. As of right now, I don’t see myself not using these two platforms. I’m assuming that it could change in the future, hopefully.
I’ve been using Facebook since I’m like 12 years old. I think it was the first ever serious social media to come out.
All my real life friends and family are using the social media. I feel like befriending people on Facebook to be quite a huge thing. If I don’t personally know you, I don’t want you in my Facebook friends. In other social medias, it is much more impersonal. You can follow and unfollow people without much trouble, but I don’t think that applies with Facebook.
Because of that, I am using very much the Facebook Messenger app because of that, to chat with relatives. I also use the Facebook Marketplace very much. As of right now, I don’t see any alternatives or replacements for these features. That being, I would appreciate it if Facebook could stop collecting so much data.
I’ve also been using YouTube also for many years, probably since I’m 12 as well. The generations before me, like my parents and grandparents, were and are still watching the TV.
I think my generation is much more using YouTube because the internet appeared around that time. In my case, I never really watched TV, nor I never really used services like Netflix that much.
So far, I think YouTube will still exist for a while now. Yes, there are decentralized alternatives like PeerTube, but I think we’re still very far from people hosting their own videos, websites and social medias. Mostly because video storage, sharing and streaming are pretty expensive.
6- THE FUTURE
As technology advances and people become more and more tech-savvy, I think that everybody is going to have their own personal server.
To be clear, I don’t think the internet is going to be entirely decentralized. But I do hope it will decentralize a bit because as of right now, large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, X, etc. control most, if not all, of the technology and internet spaces.
To solve that, I think most people should think about building their own personal servers at home because by doing so, the people will gain their own power instead of being at the mercy of these corporations. Maybe at some point, we’ll simply be using our phones or some brain-chips that we can bring everywhere. Who knows. The ultimate goal, though, is to be in control of our own data by hosting our own cloud storage, websites, social medias and online services. But also fight advertisements and algorithms that are completely hidden from us and that are probably working against us.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I decided to delete my Instagram, Threads and X accounts because I don’t like the direction that they are taking. In my case, I don’t have much to lose. My social medias are quite small.
Instead, I will be using Mastodon and Pixelfed which are free, open source and decentralized. Before deleting my accounts, I will make sure to check if I can transfer my data if possible.
That being said, I think more, and more people will be needed to host these decentralized instances. As of right now, it seems a bit hard to host personal servers because it requires some technical IT skills. In my case, I have a background in computer sciences, and I’m also an entrepreneur, so I could definitely learn, see how it works and present it to the public.
From here, I think my goal will be to create my own server and host everything myself. I will probably create my own NextCloud storage and host my own instances of social media in the Fediverse.
If you want to follow me, please do so on Mastodon and Pixelfed. This is where I’ll be from now on.
So that’s pretty much it, I hope this was helpful to you. If this blog was valuable to you, you could consider following me on social media and if you have any thoughts or comments, you can leave them below.
I hope this helps, peace!
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