Recently I heard an excellent analogy that our online social media profiles are like an online “living room”. You wouldn’t open the door and let just anyone into your physical living space, so why would you do it online? It made sense to me and reinforces what I’ve always believed with is “my wall, my rules” or the more succinct “blocking is self-care”.
But where you set your primary online “living room” also says a lot about who you are. For example as someone who prefers Mastodon over Instagram, you could, rightly, assume that I’m more techy and prefer text-based social media to photo-based. (The good news is you don’t have to be technical to use Mastodon, and I highly recommend it for the very engaging writing community.)
Let’s take the analogy deeper.
What your preferred online platform does matters
We don’t have a lot of choice these days in corporate-owned social media or online platforms, so I understand that in many cases there aren’t any “good” choices. Even on Mastodon, not every instance moderates well, or at all, and it can be difficult to move your account.
But in 2024, I believe we should know about make appropriate decisions about not placing our activities on a bad platform. I could go on about X (formerly Twitter), but frankly that topic has been done to death, and there’s nothing new really to report. It is continuing as it’s been continuing, and other than keeping your handle so you keep control of your brand, I continue my encouragement to find communities elsewhere.
Let’s talk about Substack. This is a newsletter platform that a lot of people use, and while I plan on doing some separate reporting on it, the truth is the company is very happy to make money from actual natzis, giving them a platform to promote their beliefs.
I have spoken for decades ad nausem about why it’s vital to own your platform as much as possible and when it comes to your newsletter, including a newsletter you can monetize, I give a very strong HELL YES you must own your own platform. That means not using services like Substack, or if you do (for example we offer Epona Mail), know what they will allow or not allow on their platform.
I think this year’s resolution should be know to whom you’ve giving your money and what they’re promoting with it. Make sure you know who is being allowed in your online living room.
