Facebook divestment guide
- Created at
- 23 January 2025
- Last modified
- 30 January 2025
- Status
- 🌿 sapling
Facebook and Meta are toxic. I'm writing this in early 2025, following Meta's all-in support of right-wing values in preparation for the inauguration of Trump.
But: Facebook is an effective social network, which means it's ingratiated itself into our lives, making it very difficult for us to divest.
This is my list of tools and technologies we can use in place of Facebook.
General resources for alternatives
This page lists a bunch of fediverse apps and services - that is, services which are generally open-protocol and communicate well with one another.
In place of the Facebook wall/profile
Candidates:
- Your own website
There's never been a better time to learn html/css and build your own little website, shove it on Neocities, and off we go.
Obviously making your own website isn't the same as having a place where people can publicly post to your wall. But you can always just have your email address there for people to contact you. Email isn't going away.
In place of Facebook messenger
I'm using matrix. Matrix offers a decentralised, persistent chat experience, with clients on pretty much every platform. It has good support, it's using a federated model, it actively bridges to protocols which allow it, and it's continuing to experience growth.
Discord is also a common group chat platform - I feel it's displaced IRC as the group chat app of choice. However, it's closed-source and centralised - it's as prone to enshittification as the next thing.
In place of Facebook groups
Unsure at this stage. Unfortunately most FB groups I want to use are established groups on FB, and I generally don't have the ability to port them over.
A suitable Facebook groups alternative is one that:
- Allows the formation of small communities
- Is actively used by people in your area of interest
In place of Facebook events
Candidates:
This is the one I struggle with right now. I'm thinking that Mobilizon is likely a good replacement, but I need to try it out a bit first.
I'm currently on the lookout for a good Mobilizon instance which is fairly local (of course I could just use whichever instance has the most users, but they seem to be mainly French or Italian language servers - nothing like matrix.org here!).
I'm currently thinking about trying out this mobilizon instance, maintained by the NZ Open Source Society.