Mainstream platforms such as Meta and X have accumulated a near-universal audience that is the root of all their evil. From sentiment analysis mass experiments to propagandistic political advertising. Things are worse in third countries where they are even less moderated. So I was thinking that as long as FOSS/Privacy is just geeky and elitist they just keep doing business as usual, from enshitification to fascism. Additionally, people have moved their political posting, scheduling, discussion online, so this gives them more power. Like seeing anarchist groups on Facebook is cringe, but some insist that “that is where the mass is, perhaps we move to Instagram to get to more Zedders”. Whaaaat? Questions: What tactics could be used to move people en masse away from mainstream platforms, and more generally, do you think there is a point in it?
I don’t think its viable to post on Facebook (or whatever). with the goal of getting people to stop using Facebook. People on the site will quickly disregard whatever arguments put forward, because it is very hard to maintain credibility while you are on the site that you are arguing against. And if you do make an effort to maintain your credibility there, then you can end up having the reverse effect - in the sense that you are now a valuable contributor to the platform, and people will like and respect your contributions while staying on the platform.
Criticism one platform is more likely to be taken on-board if posted on a different platform though. For example, a lot of people on Reddit argue against Facebook - and I reckon it probably has an effect the people who read it. But obviously it isn’t the ideal target audience. You really want to arguing against Facebook to people who are actually on Facebook!
I can’t really think of a good way to get people to stop using particular social media en mass. (I’d written a couple of paragraphs about general strategies for changing people’s minds; but I don’t think it was helpful enough to bother reading.) I suppose the best option would be government regulation to undermine the targeted advertisement revenue streams. If these platforms were forbidden from collecting and using personal data for advertising, then the incentive for content-churn would be reduced. Without the money, the corruption would no long be self-sustaining. So political action to support strong privacy laws is probably the best way. Aside from that, probably the best way is to degrade the quality of the platforms. Don’t contribute any content to them. Don’t give them any kind of credibility by linking to them (for any reason, even negative attention). If you feel like being chaotic, I suppose you could create spam bots to just make the place worse, but that’s probably not worth the effort. Actual spam-bots are common enough anyway.
What tactics could be used to move people en masse away from mainstream platforms
Propaganda, advertising and other kinds of informing about the issues of the mainstream platforms.
and more generally, do you think there is a point in it?
Yes. Not just because of privacy issues but also because the algorithm is made to filter what a user can see (making their source of information heavily biased and incomplete) and to addict them to the platform (this shouldn’t be the main argument because people don’t really care about it now but it can be a nice secondary one).
this shouldn’t be the main argument because people don’t really care about it now but it can be a nice secondary one
I do think that recommendation algorithms are a big culprit for the widespread scrolling addiction epidemic. Smart phones and social media platforms have positioned the population in readiness to consume ads and propaganda. So, I think this is definitely among the main arguments.
Plus note people were arguably repulsed when it was leaked that Facebook performed a sentiment analysis psychological experiment on them.
Imo when you advertise (or anti-advertise) something, every argument matters but it’s important to structure the arguments well. It should be done by a skilled person that knows how to do it.
Agreed. This area of skills completely evades me though. So, yes, if you have some tips on that, they will be well received.
Nah I’m just an average elitist Arch user.
Questions: What tactics could be used to move people en masse away from mainstream platforms
Keep letting large platforms run themselves into the ground. Has been working with twitter, each substantial change is causing more and more people to ask why in the hell do I wanna stay. Other then that just push those you know to use alternatives
I was able to easily convince friends to switch to firefox from chrome when they announced all those changes to their ad system
convince friends to switch to firefox from chrome
Ah yes, you reminded me of this gem https://contrachrome.com/ (It is Scott McCloud’s Webcomic against Chrome’s data mining)
What a gem indeed.
don’t fight capitalist platforms with things they can match with money (advertising, cost, etc)
fight them with things they can’t control, like kind/intelligent communities
and technology which they can’t censor or control (lemmy/mastodon/ap, nostr, bluesky, freenet, hyphanet, matrix, tor, i2p, etc)
