I've never been a fan of the enshittification of the internet. I've watched things I love be put through a meat grinder, turning it into flavorless gruel to feed advertisers. I've watched platforms try to appeal to sex workers, to the LGBT community, to people of color, and to creatives, only to toss them away like a used tissue as soon as they can make more money condemning them. We've watched it happen with LiveJournal, with Discord, with Matsodon.social and .art, with Reddit, with Pillowfort, with Tumblr, with Twitter, with Pixiv, with Deviantart, with FurAffinity, and with more sites than I could name in my lifetime. We are living in a world where privacy and individual rights are stripped away to help those in power make more money than you could ever hope to spend, and I, for one, do not want to contribute to their coffers.
In times like this, more than ever, it is imperitive we break away from the larger social networking sites. Our data is being sold to governments that want to legislate us out of existence while using children as an excuse to police what adults do in their free time behind closed doors. Hypothetical children who, might I add, are being used as target practice at schools, and who are also having their rights stripped away from them in the name of "protecting" them. None of this is normal. None of this should be normal.
Obviously, we can't break free overnight. We can't claw back all we've lost, and we can't undo the harm done to our communities by those who want us erased. But, I believe there are some ways to band together to at least try to push back against the enshittification.
1.) Screw over the advertisers. Block all ads. Install extensions to fuck with them. Make them fucking hemmorhage money. Same for any site selling your data. Remember that anytime billionaires try to make themselves seem relatable, they would tear you apart themselves if it meant they could get more money. No one running any of the major social medias care about you. They only care about filling their pockets. Reddit doesn't care about you. Tumblr doesn't care about you. Discord doesn't care about you. You are a piggy bank of data to them.
2.) Make your own space as free from their influence as possible. Join smaller communities. Joining a smaller Matsodon instance has been a gamechanger for me. You could probably get involved in IRCs and forums, but I'm not as familiar with those. You don't have to stop using larger social medias, because for some of us, it's the only way to keep in contact with some people, but limit yourself as best you can. Do not fall for the endless scrolling algorithm. Build community elsewhere. Don't give in to FOMO.
3.) Get fucking weird online. This is perhaps the most important point on this list. In a world that wishes to wash away the odd-looking and grody bits of us to make us presentable to those who wish to take everything they can from us, it is a moral imperitive to become so weird they don't know where to start. Do whatever you can to wash away the white paint they're trying to put on you to sell. Convince others to do the same. We need to become unpalatable to those who wish to chew us up and spit us out for the sake of their bottom line.
tsuinosora.neocities.org was founded on these principles, especially the third one. If this compels you, welcome. If it doesn't, that's okay too. I still welcome you here, and hope you'll enjoy your stay on my corner of the net.