As a freelancer at the beginning of their career, you always sort of have to do self-promotion, to make sure you’re visible, etc. Social networks seem to be a good tool for that. For instance, among all the scribblers and ink slingers I am now a part of, a microblogging network such as X (formerly Twitter) has long felt unavoidable. But as every other tool, it is not neutral, and its recent evolution is extremely alarming.
Indeed, early this week, on January 20, the inauguration of Donald Trump happened, and the 47th President of the United States brought to the government far-right billionaire Elon Musk (who supports the AfD in Germany and does nazi salutes to “throw his heart to the crowd”). That’s why the HelloQuitX initiative, launched by members of the CNRS, has picked this very day to incite everyone to leave X, which Musk acquired in 2022. Now he’s part of the United States government, the billionaire answers even less to their justice department, and can freely manipulate the network’s algorithm to suit his sordid political ends. Indeed, under the guise of “freedom of speech”, X has been flooded by extreme speech and fake accounts that make it more or less unusable. Besides, for some people, remaining on X also means refusing to oppose Musk’s fascist turn. That is the reason why many famous media outlets decided to quit it.
Quitting X, then. Why not? But to go where?
One of the main draws of social networks is numbers: from a given critical mass, you’re more or less sure to find your audience. It could thus be a good idea to move to other great historical social media, like Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s company. Sadly, he has also demonstrated how Trump-compatible he is. By announcing the end of diversity initiatives within Meta as well as all fact-checking measures, Zuckerberg aligns himself with the libertarian and “anti-woke” attitude dear to Musk and Trump. He too, then, rolls out the red carpet for the far-right.
But what should we do, then? And why leave? Each and every one of us should balance a few parameters: the actual use derived from a given network, the political positions of its owners and how much you can’t support them, and the impact it can have on your mental health. This last point shouldn’t be neglected: these companies have pushed us to scroll for the past fifteen years or so, and the effect it has on your attention span are well known. Personally, I’d already quit Facebook and X before January 20, mainly for these last reasons. But on the other hand, even though it’s not a social network, I still use Whatsapp (also owned by Meta) because it is my only way of remaining in touch with a number of friends. You always have to found the right compromise.
There are less politically problematic alternatives, which also don’t push you to watch ads or content you didn’t ask for. Bluesky, for instance, created by Twitter’s former CEO and building up to be the anti-X though it is still a private company, or Mastodon, an open source tool whose instantiated structure ensures a modicum of independence, though it is more compartmentalised. However, if the recent evolutions of the main social networks tells us one thing, it is how risky it is to depend on the whims of billionaires.
Indeed, when I quit Instagram a couple days ago, I realised that a number of accounts I followed over there (artists, publishers, etc.) had no other presence on the web. And so they’ve lost me because of this network’s owners. If this shows us one thing, it’s that we need to take back our data, our presence on the web, by having our own website, our own blog, self-hosted if possible. This can be daunting, but solutions exist, and you probably know someone who can help (hi to the one hosting me! You know who you are). What I’m saying is obvious for those who fight for our digital emancipation, like Framasoft. Step by step, we end up listening to them even though it’s not the easier way. Step by step.
So, you only need a website to self-promote? Not so sure. While we wait for a return to the decentralised web of yore, the compromise I’ve reached so far is to be (rarely) present on Bluesky, Mastodon, and LinkedIn, in order to keep up with the news (because many of my clients have accounts there) and to share my blog posts. And to get in touch with specific communities (of readers and game developers), I use Discord (yet another private company). In the end, whatever use you make of social networks, the most important is not to put all your eggs in one basket, and, as one Virginia Woolf 2.0 would probably say, to keep a web of one’s own.