Meta is getting rid of factchecking. If you want to leave Instagram, what are your alternatives?
Meta is getting rid of factchecking. If you want to leave Instagram, what are your alternatives?
Meta’s decision relates to just the US so far, but it may affect users in Australia who follow a lot of US-based sources
“[For] people who live in the country or in remote areas or minority groups or [who have] small businesses, that is a really good way for them to communicate and reach other people,” she says.
“It’s just not possible to set up an alternative at this point in time. So, to put it bluntly, we’re in a bit of deep shit, to be honest.”
No mention of Pixelfed, but I can understand why. Will it only be seen as an alternative once a critical mass of users move there? And can that happen if they don't see it as an alternative? Chicken and egg. I'm trying out, but it's a little vapid when everyone I know is on Instagram.
.... just don't use instagram?
I never have, and I don't feel like I'm missing out
I asked a younger coworker something similar about Facebook and facebook messenger a few years ago in relation to cyber bullying. I asked her why the younger generation doesn’t just get off social media if they’re being bullied, and her response was that these platforms are how people communicate now. Without them, you don’t find out about parties, trips, events, etc. Without them you get left out. If you abandon them, you’re essentially ostracizing yourself.
After hearing that I understood why just giving them up is difficult.
It's not just younger people. A lot of my fellow GenXers only communicate via Facebook messenger.
Can confirm. I'm a bit older, but when I stopped using social media it was like my aquaintances forgot I existed. Sure, close friends would usually still invite me to social events, but even that tapered off after a while. When I'd call someone out for not inviting me, their response was always "but you never shiw up to anything". It's not like they don't know that I'm not on Facebook. What, you think that when you don't invite me that I'll just magically know it's happening? I'm finally getting some people to use Signal groups but that has been an uphill battle.
Without them, you don’t find out about parties, trips, events, etc.
Ding ding
I don't use anything besides discord and my phone number. People that care enough know how to get in touch with me.
I understand that logic, but "being the product" must not really be that bad for them. They might complain, but if it was truly distasteful, they'd do something about it.
And being exploited for profit and explicitly knowing it is about the saddest thing I can think of for my fellow humans. It's no wonder the billionaires just take and take, because people let them.
This stuff was happening even in the early days of Facebook let alone now so I get it.
For a while, it was full of pictures. Only pictures. That "lunch" thing was trendy but not at all the main content. Whatever you wanted, it was there. It was no different than any other platform. Some great content, some bullshit. Now it's shitty "reels", ads, and fraud. You'd have to sift through a lot of forced garbage to find your subscribed content.
If you are interested in photography there are alternatives.
and just like FB, reddit, xitter, tiktok, et al, you're not. it's just another place for the vainest, most vapid, self-absorbed fucktards to post pictures of their lunch (in between selfies)
-post pictures of their lunch
That was Instagram 5-7 years ago.
It's just american TikTok now
Yep I was thinking the same. I guess it's a generational thing. Instagram is maybe like water to some young people, can't be without it or life is sad.
No, it's not because life without Instagram is sad. Read the other reply for a real reason. People stay on platforms to keep in touch with others and those others do the same.
It's only "generational" because half the world didn't grow up with the Internet as their primary form of communication. But I'm against that label because it's true for anyone who uses a service a lot.
I would LOVE to stop using Discord but there's no way I'm convincing all my friends to run two chat programs (Matrix for me, Discord for their other friends)
when it's your main place to see friends photos, and where all your friends already are its difficult to just not use it.
you don't use it and never have, so naturally you won't feel left out. but those that use it frequently absolutely will.
the old curmudgeon "These dern kids and thur instagrams!" isn't really all that helpful, I feel.
i was addicted to facebook. i started getting away by just not looking at it for longer periods of time: 1 day, 1 week, month, etc. it stayed like that for a long time. then i went through and deleted everything i ever posted, replied, commented-- yes it took forever, but it ended up as just a blank profile with my name on it. finally i deactivated the account, then deleted it
time wasted on facebook: way too fucking much
time spent regretting deleting it: absolute zeroi've seen enough vacation/cat/baby photos to last 10 lifetimes, and if my friends can't talk to me through texting, then i guess they must not have anything important to say
fuck facebook
i'm just glad i immediately found insta, twitter, tiktok, all the other bullshits boring and pointless right off the bat, so never dealt with those
the fact that people are so obsessed with social media that they cant even realize the simple option of just stopping all together really says how toxic and addictive social media is.
Yup, not everything needs to be replaced like for like. Some options:
- spend time on a hobby (video games, exercise, etc)
- in person relationships
- learn something new
Tons of options.
Just.... Don't use it. It's easy. I don't even know what Instagram actually is.
It's Tumblr with most of the features removed.
As someone who only used Tumblr for porn, this sounds awful. Especially because they banned porn forever ago. IG must be like a black hole or something.
You could just not share every little scrap of your mundane lives in its full photographic glory?
We really don't need to see another picture of a coffee with a little swirl on top, next to a mass produced bun.
You could just not share every little scrap of your mundane lives
We agree on that and I find people who do that really annoying -often muting them-, but that's not really how I use Instagram for myself. I use Instagram to post vacation photos or to share some unusual life news, maybe four or five times a year and that's about it with posting. I just checked and I posted 3 times in 2024 and 9 in 2023, all vacations, death of a pet or moving news - All worthy of sharing with friends, imo. Otherwise, my main use case for Insta is to track things locally, like restaurants, bars, clubs, shows, events, etc. Unfortunately there's not a better alternative for that sort of use case in another app right now. It's a bummer because I would love to move off of social media and use an alternative, but local stuff can't be accessed by things like RSS feeds and lots of businesses don't really do newsletters anymore - or in some cases don't even bother with websites.
There are a lot of people circlejerking in this thread about not using social media and patting themselves on the back, but people who like to go outside their house and who want and actually try to keep in touch with friends can find it pretty useful. Also, Lemmy and forums are practically social media - so stop being so hypocritical with your reality warped dissonance. I see too much of that already on Instagram and reddit.
That sounds like what Facebook was for before they filled it with nonsense, scams and racism.
Pixelfed is a federated image-sharing network.
Life?
“what’s your alternative?” the answer is always lemmy am i right guys 😎
Always has been
"But all the other lemmings are there! I can't leave or I'll be left at the top of the cliff by myself!" 🙄 Guess what, there's more of us up here who aren't jumping than you realize.
Sorry to be harsh, but that's how I feel about it when people say they have no choice but to enrich these social media oligarchs by participating in their exploitation machines. By contributing their "content" to be collected, sold, used for training their generative AIs, by viewing their ads, and by making themselves targets to be manipulated by propaganda of all kinds.
They already exploit us enough in ways we can't control, without us willingly participating in their schemes.
Amen
Gotta hop on that pixelfed!
Talk to people?
They don‘t talk back. Too busy browsing their phone.
Take their phone away. Power move.
Will it only be seen as an alternative once a critical mass of users move there?
I mean, yeah? That's how social media works.
Facebook/meta should never have been allowed to buy Instagram.
Not sure if you realize how long ago that was. Meta was not a thing. IG was barely a thing. They were a shadow of the monolith they've become.
Its easy to say in hindsight.
Most knew Facebook at the time and many knew what they were like...
Meta seemed partly a rebrand because of that unpopularity.
Instagram is like 15 different things at once.
Its a messaging service with a TikTok like video service and a pixelfed like photo sharing service.
The Guardian cannot spell "Mastodon", it seems from this "article".
It is nicknamed The Grauniad for a reason.
Flickr, Tumblr and Hipstamatic
What virtue signal. These don't have fact-checking either lmao
I love Pixelfed and the federated versions of it.
For artists and art appreciators Cara is a pretty good replacement for IG.
I use Instagram only to follow my friends, does pixelfed have private accounts ?
Yes it does! Check out pixelfed! It's a lovely supportive community, in my experience.
pixelfed.social seems dead from where I am. Keep getting a
502 Bad gateway.How can I delete my Instagram account like Facebook?
but but 9/11 /s
They just get rid of a bunch of so-called "fact checkers" deciding for you which posts you're allowed to see and which get banned/hidden/deleted. It's not the end of the world. You can still block people. You can still decide NOT to read posts.
What's your Pixelfed account? I'll give you a cheeky follow
Touch grass. No really. There's an ultra high def Instagram for free, for real. /outdoors
But what if you live in an ugly ass place?
Look closer.
l/outside
Still waiting for the climate change patch. Also I got stuck with my tech tree at the beginning, how change