New Year, can no longer rely on social media

Recently, because of Facebook/Instagram(IG)/Twitter banning Trump's account, many friends in Hong Kong have "moved" to MeWe and other platforms that claim not to censor speech.

In fact, as early as the eve of the election, my private IG account with absolutely no political content was suddenly banned - I was accused of violating certain terms, but the message of the ban did not explain which terms. I followed the instructions in the message and sent a letter to Facebook with a selfie attached to inquire about the reason, but still no response after more than a month. (According to friends who work at Facebook, there are so many cases to deal with lately that I have no choice but to be patient.)

I'm almost sure it's a bug in the algorithm that IG censors accounts, but instead of arguing with IG, how can we reduce our reliance on social media? It is their freedom to ban any user's account from social media. After all, the space for displaying content belongs to the social media company, not the user. We're troubled because they have so much influence -- but don't forget, their influence is precisely what the user gives them.

A collective "move" simply transfers the power to control (destroy) our network (and post content) from Facebook to MeWe. To solve the fundamental problem, we have to think about how to avoid a social media dominance.

Social media like Facebook is attractive precisely because it has millions of connections. Type a sentence on Facebook: "Facebook God, I want to ask XXXXXX?" Immediately, a bunch of "consultants" replied; when you are lonely, post a "discussing" status/story on Facebook/IG. I wish, there is no need to beg someone to listen to your grievances. Social media with few users cannot provide such convenience and will naturally be eliminated.

Facebook has existed for more than ten years, and it has changed the social model of users - they no longer actively browse the updates of different web pages/blogs like web users did more than ten years ago, but passively and lazily swipe Facebook Newsfeed sorted by algorithm. You think you've included the news of your friends you care about, but in fact they don't appear in the newsfeed at all, because the page is full of ads and grandstanding posts (these posts will make you scroll Facebook longer). It'll have to wait until you actively tap into your friend's Facebook to find out how much you've missed.

As a content creator who uses social platforms to promote, you have to rely on the platform's algorithm recommendation, so that other people can see your work. The Facebook/IG page is likely to be your only, one-way link to these readers you've never met. Once a page (like my IG) is banned, the links, refined content layout and interaction with readers that have been accumulated over the years are instantly uprooted.

(Before Xie Sunpi's Facebook page was stolen, it's really chilling. Fortunately, the Facebook staff in Hong Kong extended a helping hand, but this is still survival at Facebook's mercy… orz)

The events of the past year have made me feel that I need to break away from social media, both personally and creatively. Personally and socially, I have to regularly and proactively connect with relatives and friends; and creatively, I have to focus my creations on a platform that I have full control over. Even if the platform goes down, I'm able to migrate all my content to another platform - what I'm thinking of at the moment is: build a personal page *, put all the content on the personal page, and use social media as a tool for driving traffic, not The main body that contains the content. I hope to eventually be able to keep in touch with readers independent of social media through personal web pages and newsletter subscriptions.

As a post-80s generation, I have experienced the millennium - I miss the time when the Internet world was full of flowers: forums have the splendor of forums, and personal web pages have their own layout and unique style. At present, social media monopolizes the network ecology, so that we almost forget how to communicate with people online. But since we have come all the way, I am convinced that "returning to simplicity" and regaining the right to speak is not impossible as long as we are determined.

*I'm using Jekyll to build my personal web page on GitHub - Jekyll has improved support for Chinese web pages over the years, and I haven't had any problems using it for now. Hope to exchange more scripts/plug-in/templates with others using Jekyll ^^

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