A shift in my social media usage

Around a year ago I made the statement that I would be spending a lot less time on Facebook and focussing on other social media platforms. More recently I began signalling that this was happening.
I have not been entirely successful in keeping to the intent of those statements. I would have to grade myself a C on it.
During 2017, I have been trying to ensure that any original content that I post is posted to my blog and linked to on Facebook. I dislike the implied gift of IPR to Facebook in their Terms and Conditions. I also have taken periodic timeouts from the platform whenever the online temperature rose, which has happened two or three times since last year’s election.
I tried returning to The Well, one of my long-time favorite online hang-outs, but The Well is a declining place, with no updates to what is an antiquated UI. I am actually, unlike most people, prepared to pay money for curated well-managed social media platforms, but The Well is too archaic and clunky for me, so i let my newly re-activated membership lapse this Summer.
I am behind schedule on way too many other things in my life right now, so Facebook is taking a back seat for the time being. I have a book project to finish.
I recently joined Mastodon, which IMHO is a much better place to be than Twitter. I am winding down my personal use of Twitter, although my Corporate Realist and White Cat Publishing accounts will be active this year and next as I plan to publish Corporate Realist Volume 1 next September.
Mastodon has more character space than Twitter, which allows for a move away from the soundbite pathology that I heartily dislike.
In the current toxic and polarized social and political climate, I have little interest in spending time on media platforms that are actively adding to that level of toxicity by their refusal to understand that they have to curate content if they are to have any chance of surviving and remaining credible and relevant. Facebook and Twitter, in their different ways, do not care about that, because their entire business model is based on volume, not quality. They don’t care if their platforms are infested with bots, trolls and assholes, as long as the click numbers keep rising. Both platforms have essentially been compromised by cyber-subversion.
The announcement by Facebook that it intends to hire 1000 people just to screen adverts is laughable, since it misses the point completely. The problem on Facebook right now is not adverts. It is lies, misinformation and trolling. Those require aggressive content and user privilege curation, but Facebook does not want to go there because it will impact volume, and also because it will undercut their Common Carrier defense to copyright claims. Twitter is impaled on the horns of the same dilemna.
Right now, Mastodon is not infested with bots, trolls and misinformation campaigns being directed by malevolent actors. This could all change of course. If it does change for the worse, I will move on. The distributed instance model for Mastodon provides a measure of protection. it was designed as a distributed platform where the users can set up curated private instances of Mastodon that function as islands of sanity in a sea of madness. Whether Mastodon as a platform can evolve sufficient defense against cyber-subversion in the medium term remains to be seen.

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