Leave Meta’s Platforms
we cannot rely on facebook, instagram, threads, whatsapp, or any of them
To put this in the most stark terms possible: we cannot stand in a room owned by someone with bad intentions, with the air itself controlled by them, and hope to win a fight against them. Staying in the room with our communities is not a solve. We will suffocate.
We have to migrate, and help our communities migrate. We have to work to reduce and remove ourselves, our businesses and lives from meta’s platforms (facebook, instagram, threads and all).
Like an offline migration, not everyone is willing at the same point in time, or at all, to migrate. People have businesses and lives wrapped up in these platforms and may suffer, truly suffer, if they try to just walk away today. And sadly that means some members choose and end up left behind.
(I wrote some guides on how to migrate from twitter to mastodon, and hopefully we, collectively, can help people migrate away from meta’s systems too.)
But standing on a platform actively hostile to us is not a good way forward.
This does not have to be all or nothing. We can start building our communities, businesses and our entire digital existences as non-meta presences while working to taper down our use of and dependence on the meta platforms.
During the writer and actor strikes, Pinkertons, either literally employed by the Pinkerton company or functioning as if they were, were infiltrating the Facebook group I was helping moderate, trying to confuse and fragment support for the strikes and for unions in general.
Someone on the company side hired a company/group that was oddly coming up as based in South Africa for the profiles they sent.
And that was for a labor action zuck wasn’t invested into.
Now, with him actively supporting transforming the meta platforms as twitter has been and continues to transform, us waging an info war when code of the apps, servers and systems we are trying to use is becoming designed against us prevailing is not going to succeed.
We can, even need to, make our digital lives independent of meta’s systems even as we are still in some ways active on them. I have been investing time, energy and attention into trying to build a community, friendships and connections elsewhere expressly to have more control of my future, but many people I’d love to have connections to in those places aren’t there yet. It is heartbreaking.
I imagine leaving one’s country is difficult not only because of the unknowns and such one is stepping toward, but also because of everyone and everything one is stepping away from. I feel a bit overwhelmed at the idea of trying to shift from meta’s systems. So many people I care about are not online anywhere else.
Not sure who said it, but any conversation between two people which has a third person with a plan for that conversation functioning as sole intermediary is going to be a manipulated conversation.
We have always, always, been at the mercy of the platforms’ owners. The communities we are part of there on meta (facebook, instagram, threads, and more) were only ever in existence at the pleasure and permission of zuck. We cannot, simply cannot, maintain those communities on his tools against his wishes. That is simply the reality of them being his tools.
Please join me on my email list, Mastodon and Bluesky. And if you want help shifting away, let me know; I’m happy to help however I can.
© Copyright January 14, 2025, David August, all rights reserved davidaugust.com
David August is an award-winning actor, acting coach, writer, director, and producer. He plays a role in the movie Dependent’s Day, and after its theatrical run, it’s now out on Amazon (affiliate link). He has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, on the TV show Ghost Town, and many others. His artwork has been used and featured by multiple writers, filmmakers, theatre practitioners, and others to express visually. Off-screen, he has worked at ad agencies, start-ups, production companies, and major studios, helping them tell stories their customers and clients adore. He has guest lectured at USC’s Marshall School of Business about the Internet.
