Folks, when we are building spaces out here, please please please remember that people from marginalised communities who have built an income by participating in centralised social media, can't just drop everything there and start again. They will be extremely aware that every second they continue to use it, feeds the oligarch machine, but they need to feed, clothe, and house themselves. We do not all have the ability to just up and abandon established spaces.
These oligarch driven machines are extremely aware of this, and they make it difficult to leave on purpose.
Rather than saying DUMP THAT AND COME HERE OR YOU PERPETUATE FACISM, help create spaces for them that feel welcoming so they can grow new places here. This means making sure you don't fuck up early on and forget about people who aren't white nerdy blokes (I like white nerdy blokes too, but a lot of you need to pay attention!)
An example would be when Bluesky was still in invite mode, they failed BADLY to make sure racist usernames and the like could be deployed at sign up. You'd hope that disallowing slurs of ANY kind would be implemented from the get-go, but they weren't. When the Black trans community spoke up about it, it went ignored for too long, and all the while the platform contined to grow.
If you want people to come and participate in spaces where oligarchs don't reign, then make sure it's safe for everyone. There's no excuse for not doing this, you can't claim ignorance to this, and then ask people to abandon hard built spaces. You should know better.
Building new things means paying attention to things far outside our own experiences. If you don't know what to do, then hire someone who can educate you. Don't skimp on this, because it WILL bite you in the ass, as the saying goes. #decentralised #decentralized #fediverse #getfedihired
Edit:
One excellent example of feeding the machine but can't stop, is #substack. It's an Andreessen Horowitz product, and they're directly linked to funding those terrible fascists currently taking a wrecking ball to America. So many people on the left continue to use it, because they've built a platform there. I've had to check MYSELF recently because I loathe seeing it used, but it's not as easy as that unless you're wealthy and just writing for funsies.
Tools like Sky Follower Bridge help you reconnect with your network, while Please Nox lets you bring over your Twitter threads. Whether you're looking to migrate your following or preserve your content, there are options to make the switch smoother.
