The Thing About Social Media, Part 1

So … where do we go from here?

Delete Forever. Rinse. Repeat.

I spent last weekend deleting hundreds of posts from Instagram and still have to do so on Facebook. I am not surprised that Meta believes training their AI on our content is okay; as will be selling that product as a service later. Their collective mindset is that they own our content and can use it as they see fit. Always has been, always will be. 
I keep my social accounts as lean as possible and it was time to delete older posts anyway … any posts that the AI trainer might be interested in will already be cached … . But it feels different to be opted-in and forced, at least outside Europe, to agree to this.  
So I am looking into alternatives, but I have fallen into the trap of opening accounts on a rush too many times and own dead accounts on Mastodon, Threads and Bluesky* and I am sure a few I forgot about … none of these apps bring joy or connection into my life and I will close them. 
I used to be a social media person, but ads and click bite interrupting my ‘entertainment time’ is not working for me—I stopped watching TV when they introduced ad breaks—a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. For the last few years, I have been using social media as an online gallery space to exhibit my work and share my process, but that online space is no longer—and likely never was—a safe space to do so. 
I still plan to re-focus on Pinterest and re-start my YouTube endeavour—the two platforms I use personally, and Pinterest is the only platform that shows results in promoting my artwork. 

I’ll continue on Instagram and Facebook, doing stuff … just less with shorter lifespans … I guess.

—

I changed my mind and will keep my minufreitag.bsky.social account … for now.

Other news

The first locally printed New Zealand edition of The Fragments is be available on my website. It looks amazing … if I say so myself.