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Fediverse @lemmy.world
SorteKanin @feddit.dk

Sounds crazy but... maybe you shouldn't delete Facebook just yet

Please, put the pitchforks and torches down. Hear me out.

You (yes, you!) are a front-runner. You are a first-mover. You came to the fediverse while most people don't even know it's a thing.

In the last couple of weeks/months, there's been an increasing sentiment to boycott the established social media (Facebook, Xitter, Reddit, etc.), due to their rollback of fact-checking and hate speech protection. This has resulted in a lot of new users for a lot of instances lately.

Feddit.dk has gotten over 50 new users in the past few weeks, which is about a +50% increase of the monthly active users, a big deal for a small instance like ours.

This is a great opportunity to teach others about the fediverse and get more people to move to a more democratic, sustainable internet. But all these potential users are still on the corporate social media - we can't reach them unless we are there!

You, the first-mover, is exactly the kind of person we need to stay on Facebook, just for a while, to guide people over to the fediverse. Feddit.dk was actually posted in a Facebook group a few weeks back and we got a few users that way! We've also gotten a lot of users via Reddit recently, as people on /r/Denmark have been mentioning Feddit.dk. Guiding people from corporate social media to the fediverse has been the most successful way to get more users so far.

We can't get second-movers if the first-movers leave everyone behind. So maybe, consider not deleting your Facebook or Reddit account just yet, and if you don't, try to look out for people that are looking for alternatives. You can be their guide.

(and if you want to delete Facebook regardless, I totally respect that choice btw)

55 comments

  • Your heart is in the right place but you don't know about how Facebook works. It artificially makes people not see alternatives while giving them all the reasons to stay. Worse, those who aren't as secure in their views might go back. Facebook is pure poison.

    Forget it. Delete your accounts and move. Talk to people IRL and tell them where to find you.

    Because if you can be found on Facebook you will be a reason to stay.

    delete Facebook and xitter account now

  • My first thought was, how the hell are people still on Facebook?! 🤣

    I see your point, but the most repeated reason/excuse for not leaving Meta (or other big tech platforms) is "I can't, all my contacts are on there". So the longer anybody stays on that dumpster fire, the more they add to the network effect.

    My suggestion would be, announce that you're leaving, posting links to where people can find you going forward, and log off for a couple of weeks' grace period. Then login only to download your data and delete the account.

    That way, you've given your contacts time to find your new profiles (and maybe their first glimpse of the fediverse), and you're off the treadmill — the contacts who will miss you enough to follow you off FB are probably the ones worth keeping 😉

    Edit: added a comma and closed a quotation for clarity.

    • Is there any real benefit to deleting the account? I don't see what harm a dead account could do. I have a instagram account that has my real name on it, and I'd hate to have someone potentially impersonate me. I instead posted a link to my personal website and also linked my Bluesky account in the bio, stating that I will no longer be using instagram or regularly checking it.

      • Is there any real benefit to deleting the account?

        I will no longer be using Instagram or regularly checking it.

        I think you answered part of the question there: An inactive account is just bait for you to return and be sucked back in by the network effect. That's basically what "not regular checking" implies — that you may check less often but still log in occasionally.

        On the other hand, deleting the account sends a message to Meta (who don't care about you individually, but mass exodus will be noticeable on their bottom line) and more importantly spur your contacts to move as well. Also, you make up your mind instead of keeping the abusive relationship with Meta an option.

        Edited to add: Orphaned, unmonitored accounts are often the source of pwned passwords, which makes them an attack vector especially if you're not using strong, individual passwords for different sites. /end edit.

        Impersonation is a tiny but possible risk, I guess — depending on how valuable you would be as a mark for scammers. Most people probably wouldn't even be on their radar. It's not something I would take into account, especially as Facebook and Instagram become less trustworthy or secure platforms in and of themselves.

        So yes, there are benefits, per OP's point about first movers motivating others — and showing decisive action rather than leaving a door ajar (i.e. a dormant account) in case Zuckerberg shows slightly less oligarchic tendencies next week.

  • OP I appreciate the reasoning.
    But I'd advise against it,
    and would recommend users to delete their Facebook account asap.

    Why? 4-5 years ago I already noticed the "illusion of free speech" on Facebook.

    The platform is a data farm,
    but I'm a data privacy advocate,
    so I regularly posted data privacy articles/tools.

    Which went against the best interest of Facebook, so they simply held back that content from nearly everyone's feed, resulting in it getting nearly zero attention.

    But if I posted a dumb meme,
    it would get a lot of attention.

    I've asked around to friends back in the day who where scrolling online if they saw my data privacy posts, none did.

    So staying on the platform to advertise things that go against Facebooks best interest, will likely not yield good results.

    However deleting your account,
    is a great conversation starter that can easily be directed into WOM (Word of Mouth) marketing, to teach your friends and family about Fediverse tools.

  • I had someone post in the r/saskatchewan subreddit about lemmy.ca, and I had forgotten all about lemmy or that I even had an account on here already until they mentioned it.

    Other social media sucks for sure, but OP has a point here. Lemmy is still at the stage where people only enter if they are told/reminded it exists. I genuinely thought lemmy died already. People finding lemmy naturally is very unlikely at this stage. It's word of mouth, so the people here gotta start wording and mouthing about it.

    • I lately stumbled over a discussion of Lemmy on Reddit (linked from !fedibridge@lemmy.dbzer0.com, I guess), and some of the people in the discussion seemed to genuinely believe that Lemmy had completely died off following the first few days of interest from the Reddit community, similar to Tildes and whatever other services popped out through the years.

      It's pretty fascinating, as I wouldn't think it takes that much to double check and realize the community on here is pretty vibrant.

      I think part of the reason this happens is that the front page on Lemmy is less sensationalist and appears more slow moving, and there are of course fewer votes as we are not millions of users.

      Which is where I spiral into checking what this comparison looks like in reality, and this comment becomes truly off-topic:

      This is top five on the front page of Lemmy.world at the moment, not signed in:

      • 1 day ago, 1.67 k upvotes: "Used to consume not produce". A meme about the kids not knowing what a C drive is.
      • 13 hours ago, 570 upvotes: "Democracy is when the White House boasts about its king". Screenshot of white house tweet stating that Trump is now king.
      • 2 days ago, 758 upvotes: "Europe preps huge defense package in boost to Ukraine: 'Never been seen'". An article about European aid to Ukraine
      • 1 day ago, 469 upvotes: "So, is the USA screwed?". No stupid questions.
      • 2 days ago, 868 upvotes: "Joe Rogan dethroned by anti-Trump podcast in the charts". Newsweek article.

      Meanwhile, on Reddit, also not signed in and incognito for good measure:

      • 2 hours ago, 15k upvotes: "The shower in the apartment I moved into self-destructs". A video of a shower that has been assembled wrong.
      • 4 hours ago, 20k upvotes: "Thursday’s front page of the British Daily Star. Putin’s Poodle". The front page of a British tabloid.
      • 20 hours ago, 18k upvotes: "What will Americans do if Social Security is reduced or done away with?". Ask reddit.
      • 19 hours ago, 9k upvotes: "Trump finally calls out the Ukraine scam". Fascist propaganda from the conservative subreddit.
      • 8 hours ago, 40k upvotes: "Trump can’t end birthright citizenship, appeals court says, setting up Supreme Court showdown". CNN article.

      So of course, if you're used to the pace of Reddit, the Lemmy frontpage will appear slow, as if the site is half dead. Meanwhile, seen from Lemmy, the Reddit frontpage looks like it's a dangerous fucking tool made and controlled by capitalists to pacify and brainwash the masses, spewing out bullshit at an alarming pace.

      But yeah, point is, no wonder they think we're dead, there's an article from two days ago on the front page.

      Anyway, glad to have you back!

      • Tbf, my first foray into reddit-like federated alternatives was Kbin, and that did actually die.

        Originally lemmy just did not interest me because it felt like the only early adopters of it were the CS and techbro crowd. But now two years later I'm seeing what seem like regular people that I'm more able to relate and discuss with, with more variety in content and communities available. Plus, I'm browsing lemmy using the old reddit format which I am still stubbornly using to this day on actual reddit. So now I am using lemmy in a format that is identical to how my reddit usually looks. I could have lemmy on one monitor, reddit on the other, and not tell the difference. Maybe petty, but its a big deal for me.

        There is still a pretty big lapse on communities relevant to me tbh, but there is still enough to warrant me to visit lemmy more often. For example, I am a historian/museum professional, and the history communities heres are practically dead to non-existent. Many of the communities I am interested in are simply forking posts from reddit or simply posting news article links. But, I suppose that is the part where I stop being a lurker and be the change I want to see in the world. It is a bit more enticing and exciting to make posts knowing that a much smaller but more engaged community will see it. On reddit, it feels like pointlessly screaming at the void.

        Regardless, after two years it is kinda clear that lemmy is here to stay. It seems to have survived the great filter that most other federated alternatives did not during the initial reddit api buzz.

        Anyways, thats just my perspective as a completely random not technologically advanced person views and viewed lemmy.

    • Glad someone guided you back!

    • I heard about Lemmy.ca from R/ehbuddyhoser. Not going back.

  • Facebook is a bad example, I'm betting most of us left that cesspool a decade ago. Marketplace is prob the only thing it has going for it. I def don't want the curtain twitchers and the cope I'm so hard posters of FB here.

    Things like Lemmy work because the users have to actively seek it out.

55 comments