Social media is dead. Long live anti-social media.

It’s been not quite 10 days since the coronation, and 2025 is already the longest year of my life. 

A few things have happened since then, too many to recount in one newsletter. But here’s one thing that happened within moments of Felon47 not putting his hand on the Lincoln Bible [1] and swearing an oath he has no intention of keeping. 

I got an invitation to follow these two people on Instagram:

If you heard someone screaming “ABSOLUTELY F**KING NOT!!!” in the distance, that was probably me. But it gets worse. Several Insta users reported that they were automatically added to the follower lists of Shady and Melanoma, immediately removed those connections, and were added back again. 

While all this was going on, the BBC published the following story:

I thought, that’s too brazen even for Zuckerberg. So I checked it myself. Here’s what a search for “republicans” produced:

Here’s the search for “democrats.” 

Meta spokes-humans attributed this to a “technical problem” the company was “working quickly to resolve.” There’s no way this was anything but a deliberate flex coming from the office of the Meta CEO. 

Remember the old voiceover intro to The Outer Limits? 

Do not attempt to adjust your social media. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next 4 years, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. 

It’s time to get the hell out, while we all still can.

Goose stepping towards the apocalypse

That was far from the only disturbing thing a tech CEO did last week. There’s this guy, who runs a social network with 600 million monthly users, going full Eichmann:

Was that really a ‘Sieg Heil,’ or just weird spasmodic convulsions due to Ketamine abuse? There was a multi-day debate about this on, believe it or not, LinkedIn. When the world’s most boring social network becomes a cesspool of political BS, you know it’s time to head for the lifeboats. [2]

Humorist Andy Borowitz reports that he was asked by Facebook moderators to censor a post praising the late Jimmy Carter. To wit:

On January 9, the national day of remembrance for Jimmy Carter, I received an alert from Meta to “please reconsider posting” a Facebook post I wrote praising the fallen president because it was “similar to others that have been reported.”

Confronted with this reprimand, I had only one choice: to share Meta’s absurd warning, verbatim, with my million Facebook followers.

After my post went live, my followers responded with tales of their own experiences with Facebook censorship, including this account: “The other day I had a post removed—I’d been replying to a fluoride conspiracist who insisted that there was zero scientific proof for its effectiveness. My post provided three links to science sites with study results. Meta took it down because ‘with multiple links, it looks like you’re spamming.’ And of course, they allowed the original post containing false information to remain.’

But apparently, even that isn’t good enough for Team Fascism.

Also, just for fun, Google decided to comply with Il Douche’s wishes and rename the Gulf of Mexico and Mt. Denali on its Maps products. I wonder what they’ll do when he uses a Sharpie to redraw US borders and puts Mexico, Canada, and Greenland inside.

This is not merely capitulation, it’s gleeful collaboration by the mega-tech giants that now dominate our social discourse and our daily lives, aka, The Nerd Reich. [3]

The rise of anti-social media 

As my colleague David Pogue has famously pointed out, there are only two industries that routinely refer to their customers as “users.” Both give their products away at first in order to turn people into addicts, but at least the drug dealers are more honest about it.

The reason these mega billionaires who control social networks believe they can get away with this is because they’ve created a situation where billions of people now feel dependent on their services. They are insulated by the cost of switching, and can write off people calling for boycotts as “virtue signaling.”

So what can you do about it? You could quit using social media entirely, or seek out alternative social media outlets that aren’t controlled by immensely wealthy sociopaths.

There are now a handful of decentralized platforms that aren’t owned by any individuals, known to the geekerati as the Fediverse [4]. The best known of these is BlueSky, a Twitter alternative that now has 27 million members. Others are Mastodon (another Twitter alternative), Pixelfed (an Instagram replacement), PeerTube (videos), and Funkwhale (music and podcasts).

I’m not gonna lie. With the exception of Bluesky (and maybe Mastodon) these social networks are more like local cable access channels – not really ready for primetime. Maybe they will be better one day. But all suffer from the same fundamental problem: In order to really replace FaceGramXitterTube, all your friends and your favorite strangers will need to make the journey with you.

But here’s another thought. Instead of giving up these platforms entirely, how about taking a month off? I, and many of my friends, observed Dry January (or at least attempted it). Why not Forget Facebook February? If done in sufficient numbers, taking a month away from all social networks would get the attention of the sociopaths who run these things, while also providing the rest of us a desperately needed reset. 

Ultimately, social networks need us way more than we need them. And after a little time away, you might discover you need them even less than you thought.

What social network would you miss the least? Offer suggestions in the comments or email me: [email protected].

[1] Probably because it would have burst into flames at his touch. Shame that didn’t happen.

[2] The Elon fluffers, which are legion on LinkedIn, tried to push the “it was really a Roman Centurion” salute canard. (Because we all remember those videos of Marc Antony from 44 BC, right?) 

[3] ‘Nerd Reich’ stolen from Bluesky user Trish (@omerta22.bsky.social), with her permission.

[4] These networks are federated and open source, which means you can use a single set of user credentials to access multiple networks. You can also set up your own servers and control who gets to come inside and play. The OpenVibe app lets you access a handful of federated networks from a single interface.