This has been in the news a lot lately, people leaving Facebook and Twitter in droves, for the supposedly better, fairer new platforms. The intention seems to be to stop supporting corrupt oligarchs. As well as to escape from the increasing enshittification of the existing platforms.
As for my feelings on this subject, I say we’re in an imperfect world and we have to work with what we have. As long as most of the people we want to reach, and learn from, and support economically, and build community with, are still on the “incumbent” platforms, many of us are finding we want to stay where we are. I am in this camp.
And here’s somebody who summed it up really well:
“Have any of you considered that the changes to Twitter, Meta, etc. are intentional to get you to abandon the communities you have cultivated? Communities that have shown themselves to be powerful and they intentionally make these changes to destroy our communities. They don’t care about losing money — they have enough $$. They don’t care. But WE care and WE need these spaces to stay connected. NONE of them are actually “good”. We been doing the best we can.
Block. Mute. Go”
(Transcribed from a screenshot of what appears to be a Twitter post, by feministajones. I would put a link but I can’t seem to find her account.)
And this, from Black Table Talk on Facebook:
“This app [referring to TikTok] was letting too many Black people find alternate income away from slave wages.”
Yes, it has been quite evident that TikTok has been serving that function for Black people (as well as indigenous people and other people of color), and I 1000% want to stick around for that until it is completely demolished.
This is very important to me because TikTok, for a lot of us, was a huge learning portal (and still is? for the moment, to a degree). I learned how to curate my feed to prioritize content from Black people, indigenous people, and other people of color. Learned more about USA history and society in 2 years of being on there, than in my years of history and social-studies class in school. And later on I started finding fellow like-minded white people – lefty anarchists, decolonizing permaculture ppl, etc. I use TikTok as a booster channel, for dismantling colonizer / supremacy culture.
Update: Ugh. OK, it’s official, it’s real. The TikTok ban is actually a full ban. I had heard that it was just banning app updates. Very sad and angry, and horrified. Not really surprised deep down though, the way things have been trending.
Why is TikTok banned? What’s behind the law that shuttered the app? (CBS News) (And, I really don’t buy that China is a threat in the way they are saying. Our government has always tried to get us to look at China as bad guys. Is it to deflect attention from something else closer to home, one might be tempted to wonder.)