- Use distributed, federated services like Lemmy, mastodon etc.
- Support the hosts with our own funds.
- Moderate our own communities.
The second point is the most important. Reddit happened because they are a corporate entity seeking profit. Let’s own our social media platforms by actively contributing funds to them.
Well, I checked out Reddit yesterday without logging in and I was reminded why I don’t miss it. I should have taken a screenshot of what I saw, which disgusted me. It was a thread with very vile comments on a post by a person who was in an unfamiliar country asking questions about the hospital his teenage son was admitted to. As I scrolled down I saw another one in which a French waiter was complaining about foreign customers, particularly Germans and British tourists (he called Germans “Germs”) and what followed was a huge thread of people saying outrageous things based on stereotypes of nationality. That’s what I got when I opened the page not logged in, it just gave me “hot posts” based on my location (Western Europe). Reddit may have more content, but is it worth my time viewing? I don’t think I have time for that kind of stuff. Granted, I deleted my account, and the subs I was subscribed to didn’t have content like that, but on the other hand, if what I wasn’t looking at is actually more representative of Reddit in my region, perhaps it’s best I deleted my account and started using the Fediverse.