Given the total shitshow that is currently happening on the social media formerly known as Twitter, and the announcement on Meta regarding the end of fact checking, it is time to remove yourself from toxic social media. These sites are also being used to train data for many AI products. Since you are the product they are selling to advertisers (if Twitter can sell ads to anything with a damn), you can make your displeasure known by either greatly reducing or eliminating your activities on these platforms.

E(X)Twitter - I have nearly eliminated interactions with the site. While I have not deleted or deactivated my account, I have taken the following steps to extricate myself from the site. I was not a Grok user, as Elon Musk does not need my money.

• Delete the app from your mobile device.

• Limit your site access to one device

• Download your Twitter data if you want to keep it, and can be very helpful for the next step.

• Delete your old tweets. There are mechanisms to do this automatically.

• If you feel up to that, you can then either deactivate or delete your e(x)Twitter account.

Meta is about to make changes that will make the place with less factually accurate and more toxic with some of the comments that will be coming up. Meta is more pervasive throughout the internet, including but not limited to:

• Facebook

• Instagram

• Threads

• WhatsApp

• Messenger

• Meta AI

• …and a variety of virtual reality and otherwise enabled wearables.

So….how am I changing my usage with the Meta platforms:

• Threads - The weakest of the Twitter replacements, and I posted a whole 3 times on that piece of garbage. Account easily deleted, along with the app from my devices

• WhatsApp - Only used once when Nicole was traveling to Peru. For end-to-end encrypted messages in cross platform situations. Account easily deleted.

• Instagram - Again a barely used account. I have downloaded the data from Instagram. Will deactivate first while deciding about deleting.

• Facebook - This has more use, both for personal to keep up with my family and friends that are not local, along with watching for scams on our work page. Like I did with Twitter, I will limit access to just one or 2 machines/browsers and minimize access. No posts will likely be upcoming, but I will be monitoring both messenger and on Facebook.

• Never used Meta AI and our daughter currently has our Meta Quest, so no usage in the near future.

So what do I actually use for social media and communication in the near future?

• This site - I will be posing more on my blog and our family blogs. I will keep political and technical commentary, and our main page for family based news. These stories will still be linked to some social media sites….much of which will be listed below:

• BlueSky (@cepheus.us) - If you liked Twitter in 2014, then BlueSky might be the platform for you. It is on a open decentralized system using the AT Protocol, which is designed for account portability, but has few apps using the protocol.

• Fediverse, and in particular Mastodon (@cepheuskb@infosec.exchange) - The older decentralized platform based on ActivityPub, where there are numerous smaller hosts and apps that are available to use. You can find other Fediverse apps through Fediverse.party, including alternates for Instagram (Pixelfed), YouTube (PeerTube), Facebook (Friendica or diaspora), Reddit (Lemmy), and other platforms. Outside of the Mastodon hosts, many of these are under 500,000 total accounts. These are much smaller that most social media platforms, but you can access other servers through the federated system.

• Signal (cepheus) - Encrypted end-to-end communication platform.

• I still consume information on Reddit, YouTube, etc….

You can also see my links at Linktr.ee