Are we stuck on Meta?

In thinking through social media exit strategies, I decided to slow down and consider in more detail why leaving is so damn difficult for most of us. Fully aware of the irony of using the very tools I advocate against, I turned to Instagram Stories and asked a few questions about what's preventing us from leaving Instagram or Facebook; I hoped for a few responses, I received a small flood. Tapering off at 56 responses, the almost unanimous reason for not being able to leave was "work, family, connection". None of those reasons came as a surprise, but the speed and volume at which they were provided affirmed my thinking that maybe it isn't just me or you who feels pretty damn stuck right now.

And reaffirmations kept coming as friends tapped through others' responses and commented they didn't expect everyone else's thoughts and feelings to reflect their own so closely; we are all indeed feeling stuck in the same game, and we all hate it. Free to leave if we choose, but after two decades of sharing and community-building, the stakes are now higher than any of us foresaw them to be.

As the first questions timed out and the responses slowed, I asked one final question: "Who should steward/oversee the spaces we build our communities on?" So far, no responses. But it's a critical question I think we all need to answer. 

Our communities and the vast social ecosystems they're a part of simply cannot be trusted to private interests.

Now that we can see the past twenty years of our data locked into those spaces—our lives, businesses and relationships held hostage by platforms whose leaders are promising to flood our spaces with ai slop and fake accounts while ending fact-checking—the question of social media and the inherent social responsibility that comes with it is an imperative one. The Zucks and Musks have proven to be grossly unworthy stewards of our communities, and in the event that an alternative space eventually has a shot at competing with Meta, would its leaders be any more qualified than Zuck was? Our communities and the vast social ecosystems they're a part of simply cannot be trusted to private interests. We must learn this lesson before the siren call of greener grass beckons us to any alternate space.

In the meantime, Meta has done a thorough job of disengaging our once-vibrant communities by corroding the communication lines they were built upon. For organizations, small businesses, journalists and cultural institutions, reach is harder than ever. Competition for audience attention spans is fierce. The noise includes corporate mega-campaigns and bot army-amplification, and when we do pay to amplify community content, the messages are quickly washed away by algorithms designed to bury posts in constant reshufflings. Connection between community-builders and the audiences they serve is continuously obscured in increasingly convoluted ways. This is the platform shareholders preference, by the way, since that's how a profit-driven model supports itself, especially when exponential growth is the aim. There must always be something "new" to drive more engagement, which drives more data, which drives more monetizers who then sell our data back to us.

The platforms have narrowed our definition of "community" down to "shared interests", and nothing else.

Reaching the audiences we built through relationships, trust and quality service should be our social right, but instead reach is a near-futile game. Organic options are being methodically, quietly rescinded and paywalled while our audiences slowly and surely forget about libraries, museums, culture, and any organization that drives social good. Our audience's capacity to care erodes steadily through environments that overstimulate and tranquilize in rapid, relentless loops. And on top of these disruptions, distractions and grifts, the platforms have narrowed our definition of "community" down to "shared interests", and nothing else. This is all having a disastrous impact on our social fabric.

Real communities thrive through complex ecosystems of institutions, organizations, businesses and citizens, and every group and player carries different social responsibilities across their shared neighbourhoods, associations, clubs, economic districts, arts centres, etc. Real communities—the ones that feel vibrant, secure and healthy—depend on diversity. They depend on differing perspectives and experiences that build culture into something rich and rewarding. Real communities have a place for everyone. They're living entities that breathe and evolve. They don't bow to gamed algorithms or surrender to social monopolies run by angry tech bros. Are we really just going to resign our communities to these predators?

In the short series of questions I asked in my Stories, another one was, "what features do you miss the most (from the beforetimes)?" and across the board, every response said some variation of "no ads, chronological posts, just friends/community". The platforms as they existed ten years ago actually worked really well for our communities, and their simple UX is widely remembered with longing and nostalgia. Yet we're being dragged against our will into engagement functions we didn't ask for and convoluted UIs with labyrinthine privacy settings. Nobody wants this. We have no choice.

In reading all the responses, I was also struck by the thought that it's actually okay to need social media! It makes sense! We've literally been in those spaces for twenty-plus years. They're an integral part of our day-to-day personal comms toolkits, they're baked into our routines and feelings of belonging. I've always carried feelings of guilt and shame because I'm still on social media while being so simultaneously opposed to its effects. But there are a lot of very valid reasons people stay, and those reasons shouldn't make us feel failure on top of everything else. If you have to stay, you're not weak or wrong for doing so. We just need to keep thinking toward solutions and options.

Social media tech is currently so obsessed with data monetization and ai, and so sure their users are locked in, that the coming years will no doubt involve a barrelling forward of UX updates that will be ever-more hostile to community-building efforts. A body of socially responsible stewards could step forward and offer the simplest, most 2010ish platform for us to migrate to and many would eagerly jump in, but who those stewards might be is still the crucial question. For my part, I'd really rather it wasn't some idealistic tech startup pals from Silicon Valley who have no idea what my community's social ecosystem actually requires to thrive.

I do genuinely see a path towards breaking free from Meta and the network of apps within its influence. Maybe not immediately, but I have a clear vision of a slow-build strategy that could take us to a better place. Ultimately what I see is a broken comms system, and broken comms can be fixed. The strategy requires identifying who holds different levels of social responsibility within our cities, towns, regions etc, and organizing a fulsome, integrated communications solution across all of them. I know that sounds vague and possibly even deluded, but I swear I can see it. There's a lot of learning to do and a lot of pieces to consider. 

And if you take nothing else from this entry, I hope you at least realize you're part of the broad majority who wants something else and who feels stuck. Please prepare yourselves for the real choices coming that will either benefit or exploit the future of our social fabric as we know and love it.