Leaving Another Social Media Account Behind

· 3 min read

With the coming TikTok ban, I’ve realised that I’m doing something that I’ve done since 1997, which is leaving another social media site.

My online social media prepense since 1997: AOL community (1997), Livejournal (2001-2004), Friendster (2003-2004), Myspace (2004-2006), Tribe.net (2005), Facebook (2006-2019), Twitter (2008-2024), YouTube (2011), Mastodon (2018), TikTok (2020), PeerTube (2024).

This was never a linear event cycle, I just kind of floated from one app to the next with a lot of bleed over. At each site, I met different people and formed community bonds. Some of those connections lasted through those journeys, some did not. But at each part of the journey, there was always a sense of fear at not finding community again.

Here we are at the beginning of 2025 and TikTok is being banned in the USA. I’ve known for about a year that I’d be transitioning off TikTok anyway, but the ban has made me self-reflect on my journey. Things I’ve realised:

  • I’ll find community wherever I go. There’s always the fear of leaving community behind. Some people follow have followed me, others don’t. That’s OK.
  • Corporate ownership has turned the social media into a fucking rubbish tip. Corporate social media sites like TikTok/Facebook/Twitter get clicks and views through drama/outrage/rage bait. This has made social media a public cancer on society.
  • not everyone can do it, but those that can, should own their own social media sites. Self-censoring on social media is a thing. You can’t say can’t say “rape” or “killed” or “porn”. You’ll either get no views on your videos, or you’ll get a Community Guidelines Violation (CGV) that effectively silences you. So instead of rape, you’ll say “grape.” Instead of saying killed, you’ll say “unalived.” Instead of porn, you’ll say “corn”. It’s so ingrained that I feel uneasy writing the words here, even though there’s no censor here.
  • Most Millennials, and the generations beyond, aren’t really concerned about digital privacy or have any concept have how that data manipulates their everyday life. They’ve lived most of the life that they remember as a product on social media algorithms.
  • since the ban, many people on TikTok are leaving for RedNote. A mutual recently said, “I doubt that RedNote will be a permanent option, and it doesn’t really matter whether it can be or will be. We still need to be able to have our own comms based on our servers, protected by our nerds and our security. We will need to have global capacity. Our ability to be safe and have our comms protected means it must be able to move. It must be asymmetrical. It needs multiple servers across the global to do that.” That ability is already in place with Mastodon. I can spin a masto instance in a matter of minutes. Going to another corporate owned social media site isn’t praxis. You’re just going to find a new overlord.

I don’t see myself returning to corporate social media. As I’ve said recently, I’m going to focus on building community in a very specific way, namely POSSE. I’m no longer going to worry myself about the people who don’t come along for the ride with me, but on those that do.