Backseat Social Media Driver

[lb_lee]

 Mori: we have no dog in the social media wars so have mostly just watched Reddit and Twitter burn down with a detached, "watch that hurricane spin on the horizon, man am I glad we ain't closer," but we do appreciate the people who have moved to cohost.org because that's the only damn one of them that doesn't require an account to view AND allows RSS. (Meaning we can follow along with your sweet hamster pics.)

Bsky and tumblr both require accounts to view (though tumblr's real unpredictable on that count, sometimes it cuts you off after a few posts, sometimes it doesn't) and Threads... look, Instagram is the worst, I dread people linking me their stuff on Instagram because it's a coin flip whether I can see it or not, I would rather eat lard straight than go to Threads.

Some handy articles by Kiriska:

• How to Build a Personal Website
• The Only Way to Beat the Algorithm is to Retrain Your Audience
• Freedom from Algorithms: How to Use a Feed Reader

Comments

[starfallhaven]

Is cohost, like, decent as far as data security? I know our account with tumblr makes that a very funny question to ask, but still. -Ai (she/her)

[hungryghosts]

I wouldn't put anything on there without first thinking about "what are the consequences if this leaks?" but tbh that's advice I give for pretty much every social media. My impression of Cohost staff is that they're pretty competent and well-meaning on the whole, but there's no such thing as totally bulletproof security.

So, overall, I don't put any identifying info there, not even on a locked account, but it's been perfectly fine for shitposting, fandomposting, and low-stakes socials.

edited to add: Also, they don't have any of their own tracking built in (no guarantees about any dependencies or embedded content from other users) and the only things they ask for on signup are an email and password, with the option to turn on 2FA after.

[hungryghosts]

Oh, Bluesky is kind of a clown show: https://cohost.org/jkap/post/2218949-ok-i-realize-that-i

I'm biased too, but I have to echo the sentiment of "why on earth is anyone using that site"

[lb_lee]

Wait, wait, block lists are public??? D8 but that's such a terrible idea!!!

Sneak

[hungryghosts]

RIGHT??? Absolutely baffling!

[lb_lee]

Sneak: I am baffled and horrified by anyone who would make ANYTHING that puts many people together without considering how it could be gamed for harassment. This is 2023! That should be like, step one, unless it's just a few friends knitting or something!

[silvercat17]

I'm sticking with Tumblr just because I've been there. I'm on Pillowfort, which is very eh, and otherwise I'm just waiting for something to win out (besides Mastodon). I think everything so far has had some fair criticism (I don't remember what the problem was with co-host and I'm not going on Twitter to find it again)

[lb_lee]

Sneak: we can RSS some tumblrs but not others! There seems to be some weird major difference between username.tumblr.com and tumblr.com/username, and all username.tumblr's also have tumblr.com/usernames but not the reverse? We are perplexed by it. Regardless, only username.tumblrs seem to allow RSSing or viewing for more than a hot second without an account.

All we can say is, thank goodness we developed the habit of downloading everything we like years back. -_- we learned from tumblr in 2018!

[acorn_squash]

I looked into this a while back for the sake of the Tumblr account that I refuse to use! tumblr.com/username is the version of the blog that doesn't have a theme. (This is convenient primarily because a bunch of themes are unreadable.) If the blog hasn't enabled a theme, it won't have a username.tumblr.com url.

[silvercat17]

I don't know why people don't set up a theme, although I almost never look at something if it's not on my dashboard...

[acorn_squash]

I really wish more people would set up themes! I hate logging into Tumblr.

[lb_lee]

Sneak: that's it?! That's so... so... PETTY! I thought it was a privacy setting or something! Augh!

Rogan: my beefcake... :(

[acorn_squash]

In my experience, Mastodon also lets you view posts without an account, which is nice.

[lb_lee]

Sneak: So far, nobody we read along with has moved to primarily Mastodon, so we haven't had a chance to check if it RSSes okay. We'll probably find out eventually!

[minoanmiss]

* takes motes*

[we]

There is a reason why we've operated an independent plurality website for over a decade—we don't trust social media platforms to be honest, and we don't trust them to keep our websites the way we designed them. No account required, no personal information collected, no existence at the whims of social media companies that care more about profit than their users.

We're still on Reddit for now, but who knows how long that will be. We left Twitter last year after Elon Musk bought it.


~J.

[lb_lee]

Mori: Yeeeeeah, I'm feeling less and less bad about us not being on social media or Amazon. At least healthymultiplicity.com can just sorta... STAY where it's at, and continue being useful, despite its age and slow updating.