Simon Woods

I think pushback against Instagram is coming, as more people who have already left Facebook also remember that Instagram has the same leadership, and the platform is far enough off track that even the founders have left. It’s a good time to be posting photos to your own blog instead of Instagram.

– Manton Reece, Breaking up Facebook is up to us

One of the things that always keeps me away from going back to the “easy” option of just using social media is the reminder that the same people who like to brag about “indpendent thought” and “independent speech” also use Facebook heavily for promotion and the like. A platform that so readily allows this illogical behaviour to thrive, and cause so much destruction, is never a platform any actual independently motivated person ought to invest in let alone trust.

I look forward to the continued growth of a diverse, independent ecosystem of small and flexible platforms to replace mainstream social media. Now more than ever we need the people making these platforms to understand that people do use these big platforms for real, practical reasons and the only way to move power away from such deeply flawed platforms is to provide usable alternatives.

We are only at the beginning of these efforts but speed is of the essence; the mainstream platforms hold sway over enough of the right people to damage the lives of millions of people, and those of us privileged enough to be born into the ill-gotten wealth of the tech-heavy Western world must lead the charge for higher standards across the board.