I’m Migrating from Large Corporate Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter

In an unsurprising yet perplexing turn of events, my Twitter account was suspended “due to multiple or repeat violations of the X Rules.” Never mind the fact I’ve never even gotten a warning and that Twitter would not specify which rules I’ve allegedly broken even on appeal. But then widespread news and persistent rumours of arbitrary account suspensions point toward censorship, plain and simple.

I’m not gonna weep though since I already had one foot out, periodically telling my followers to migrate to other platforms following Elon Musk’s takeover which led to the network being flooded by trolls. Just like the countless users who either left of their own volition or were forced out by rabid moderators, I’m not looking back.

But it’s not just Twitter I have an issue with. For example, Facebook has been blocking news for Canadian users for a while, and while the block isn’t really difficult to work around it remains a real drag. Not only that, but recently many of my posts have automatically been taken down under the most bizarre of rationales, such that I’m spamming my own feed with irrelevant posts (?), that I’m engaging in cybersecurity violations (??), or that I’m trying to steal users’ private information (???). Not only do appeals go unheeded, they’re limited to narrow lists of option boxes, none of which amounting to the obvious “Huh?”, the closest choice being “It’s not a violation of the rules” because “It is an important matter.”

Civil rights advocates have been sounding the alarm on corporate ownership of social media, with Meta alone controlling Facebook, Threads, Instagram, and WhatsApp. In addition, rich trolls like Elon Musk and Donald Trump have shown they can own networks for the sole purpose of controlling civil discourse—or rather make it less civil.

As if it weren’t enough, AI content moderation is simply broken, and large content networks seem to consider this a feature as long as it reduces costs. The only thing more infuriating than arguing with a human automaton is to try reasoning a software one instead.

This has led me to revise my social media strategy. For starters, consider every remaining account I use on major corporate networks deprecated. I mean Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Youtube. I urge everyone to migrate to either Mastodon (https://kolektiva.social/@rulebreakers) or Bluesky (@rulebreakers.bsky.social), which are far less susceptible to the whims of cranky billionaires. I’ve also just created a Telegram channel.

You can also follow my blog via its RSS feed, which you can subscribe to using a dedicated client application, although all one needs is a web browser: see how to do it with Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera.

I’ve also set up an email subscription form, which unfortunately works only for the desktop version, not on mobile. I’m looking for a solution which will also work for the AMP version. If anyone has an automated solution to propose which doesn’t cost a hundred bucks, let me know. In the meantime, mobile users can use this link to wordpress.com then click on the “Subscribe” button.

As for picture albums and videos, I’m looking around for platforms other than Facebook and Youtube. Right now I’m dependent on the latter because I embed video clips in my articles, but I’m sure there’s an alternative out there.

Last, but not least, allow me to point out that social networks that censor Palestine advocacy such as Meta and Twitter are obvious BDS targets, along with the likes of McDonald’s and Starbucks.