I hate Instagram. Because every post results in Meta knowing more about me and getting better in manipulating me and society. Locked in because of the critical mass. For now, it’s the only way to keep in touch with international friends.
Would you be willing to make a Pixelfed account? Today? And double post everything for a while, on Insta and Pixelfed?
It’s the only way to make this work, I think. Slowly creating a critical mass without dumping Insta rightaway. For the moment you and your friends won’t miss out on anything. Along the way mention from time to time on Pixelfed there are no ads, no manipulative algorithm, …
There are tool to import your Insta posts with hashtags and timestamps. Although, apparently, these don’t work perfect yet.
Continue doubleposting until half of your contacts have done the same. Then start only posting to Pixelfed, simultaneously posting an Instagram post saying you and most others have switched and why.
Could this work?
EDIT : perhaps my question is : How can we make this into something trending?
EDIT 2 : if you already switched. Did you manage to convince some of your contacts?
I think it’s important to dump insta right away. It’s not just about feeding the new network content, it’s about depriving the predatory network of content.
The end goal is certainly leaving Instagram. I believe it won’t work doing it cold turkey, though.
I went cold turkey, transferred everything to Pixelfed, and not looking back. Meta gives me the creeps.
It will work for some people, for others maybe not.
Essentially we’re talking about a social media addiction here. I was addicted to Reddit, until I recently got perma-banned for talking shit about AI and Trump. I know how hard it can be to break the habit even when you want to start using the fediverse more.
You’re gonna have to figure out what works best for you.
Yes. Reddit sucks. Obvious political agenda. Also perma-banned. I left a long trail of Palantir and Israel posts. Got banned because of an /s joke.
Yep. Also banned for an obvious joke equating drawing a comparison between generative AI and dog meat hamburgers. 🙄
Whatever, the last push I needed to use the fediverse more.
I also recommend the LeechBlock browser addon, which can restrict time on certain websites.
Easier to rip the bandage off and start fresh.
yep. it’s meta-march. ditch that shit.
resist and unsubscribe.
I basically did that for a while. I’ve never had much of a following, and since it’s a hobby, not something I monetized, it was an easy thing to do. Eventually, though, I stopped posting on Insta entirely and went to Pixelfed exclusively. I kept my account, since like you, I have friends and family who are there and will never move away from it.
Turning this into a mass movement won’t be simple. Most people don’t think all that deeply about the implications of using a Meta product. They go where their friends or favorite celebrities are. If you could get someone with a huge following to make the switch, you might see some momentum.
On the one hand, this might help fence sitters that are like “there’s no content there”.
On the other, I just don’t personally care for a stream of random images like Instagram et al do.
Yeah, that’d work, go for it.
Sure, I’d stopped using it because it just didn’t have much content. But I reinstalled the app and logged back in.
Here’s my profile, let’s all see if we can nudge it along a little. https://pixelfed.social/imakethingsforu
Hey, I’m following you now (or rather, my dog is https://pixelfed.social/dobiedogj).
I think the big question is what kind of IG user are your contacts. If they are on the platform to look at what the Kardashians are up to, or the big influencers, then lack of monetization on Pixelfed means your contacts will miss the content from IG.
If it’s people that exchange pictures and don’t care what famous people do, then maybe switch to Pixelfed and continue posting a reduced amount to IG, with the information that most of your posts are on Pixelfed. And maybe, once in a while you could post a screenshot of your Pixelfed feed on IG, so that people can see the quality of other people’s content.
For me personally the question was only “who can I only contact through Instagram that I want to keep contact with”? I think the app is really replaceable besides that. I basically used my chat history as a checklist and deleted chats until the dates were far enough back then pulled the bandaid
I tried making a Pixelfed account weeks ago and it didn’t work. I never got any signup email. Might have been hard filtered by Google intentionally.
I went to Loops for my short video content though.
I find Pixelfed to be a much better experience overall. I got rid of insta a while back. I only use Facebook because of a couple specific groups whonhave massive inertia.
Do you really have a choice? I left meta about a year ago, am using Pixelfed, never regretted it.
i have a pixelfed account but i haven’t been doing enough photography to post anything to it. Deleted my instagram alrdy so can’t double post. Forgot to backup all my IG posts.
