Leaving FB and looking for new semi-social media

[Madmarcus]

Like many people I'm interested in leaving FB. Mostly I stay on FB for a few things

1. Old college friends
2. Local buy nothing and neighborhood groups
3. Hobby related groups (both for scheduling events and for conversations about the hobbies)

I like the connection to old friends but it isn't a huge loss but both kinds of groups are positive things. The algorithm isn't great and I often have to visit the actual group instead of waiting to see things on my feed but in reality that feels natural to me because it is sort of like clicking on a forum like to get to the discussion. It's how I use Reddit also. It probably feels natural to me because is is more or less how I used a threaded Usenet reader back in the 90s!

Clearly very few of you guys can suggest replacement for local groups but does anyone have any experience with Lemmy or Mastodon? I tried Mastodon over a year ago and it seems like there was very little content that I cared about. Looking at Lemmy right now seems to show the same thing. I'm looking for communities on things like historical cooking, cheesemaking, charcuterie and smoking meat, ceramics, and so forth. Additionally I want something that feels like a conversation including people of many skill levels; I specifically do not want to simply follow a few influencers/big names because Youtube (and websites for some of the hobbies) covers that well enough.

[Scraper]

I can't help you with suggestions. But I can say I left Facebook and all other regular social media 6 years ago and I don't miss it at all. No Facebook, no TikTok, no X, none of it. The end result is much less hatred of other people for being stupid and I don't stare at my phone all day like 70% of the people seem to do these days. It's much better for my mental health.

[Madmarcus]

I've never done Instagram, Twitter/X or TikTok. In fact until I retired and became more active in hobby related things I barely used FB. Which might be part of the problem because the new social media options are, as far as I can tell, focus on following people and that isn't what I want.

[Scuzz]

Instagram is what both my daughters do. The younger generation doesn’t trust facebook. My wife does facebook because of friends, family and hobby groups. I am also sure that some of those have led to scammers, innocently or not.

This and QT3 are as close as I get to social media.

[Skinypupy]

For the things I'm interested in (board games, metal bands, pinball, and video games) I haven't really found a good alternative to FB. I've bought and sold a ton of board games, found out about bands touring, get a ton of good reviews/previews/etc. It's just a good aggregator resource for that sort of thing. It also keeps me connected with lots of people I otherwise wouldn't. Granted, I probably don't need to be connected with those people, but it is pretty cool to see the goings on of old friends and family. I've used it to coordinate several get-togethers that would have never happened otherwise. Thankfully, I very rarely see any politics or "news" on FB at all (either people's posts or ads) as I've purged nearly all the people that share that sort of thing.

All that said, if that starts to change and FB becomes more MAGA-fied, I'll certainly start looking for alternatives. Wife stares at Instagram for hours every day, which drives me a little nuts. It's all just animals, clips from comedy shows, and other trivial nonsense, but she completely loses track of time while she's on it.

[Jaymann]

I was never on Twitter, Tik-Tok, Instagram or Facebook (except briefly as a joke). But I really like Bluesky. It seems they have learned how to do it right, and are not beholden to he-who-shall-not-be-mentioned. Not sure how it works connecting with friends and family, but it is now my go-to.

[Madmarcus]

Does BlueSky have active hobby groups? I have one contact who is really pushing Bluesky but his description makes it sound like you are following individuals not interest communities and that isn't really what I'm looking for.

[ImLawBoy]

You can follow feeds on certain topics, but it doesn't sound to me like that's what you're looking for. Might be worth trying it just to see, though.

[Smoove_B]

Does BlueSky have active hobby groups?

It doesn't, no. I use FB to follow a few different hobby groups related to board gaming and painting. I maintain a fake profile and I don't see anything objectionable or political. I also run FB in Firefox with all kinds of plug ins and blockers active; I'm sure that's helping. I guess there are weird ads in my feed, but I only see those if I'm scrolling "what's new". Just going to the pages I follow is totally fine and actually rather helpful.

I haven't found anything even remotely similar to what the hobby groups on FB provide, though I'm guessing so much of it also comes down to the moderators and (maybe) the hobby community you're looking to be part of.

All that said, FB is absolutely evil. My wife has a similar fake profile and she just shared an email with me where FB is recommending to her that my fake profile would be a good friend match. Other than a shared IP address, there's no reason FB should be connecting our damn accounts. But I also get friend suggestions for people I know, which tells me it's definitely creeping through my gmail address book or somehow otherwise matching me to people I know as my profile does not have any friends.

[Lassr]

I'm still on Facebook, but spending more and more time on Bluesky.

[Pyperkub]

Facebook private groups seem to be the least enshittified piece of FB I've seen. I don't get spammed with sponsored content, they don't stuff the reels garbage at me every few posts, etc. I'll still look at regular FB feed a few times a week tho.

[Zaxxon]

Facebook private groups seem to be the least enshittified piece of FB I've seen. I don't get spammed with sponsored content, they don't stuff the reels garbage at me every few posts, etc. I'll still look at regular FB feed a few times a week tho.

This. Although the overall experience is still enshittified to the max. It seems like the majority of my feed these days is stuff that is NOT from my friends, groups I'm a member of, etc. Rather it's ads, stuff Marky Z thinks I should see, etc. I haven't dropped it entirely because I still do get some value from sharing with family/friends I don't see in person much anymore, and seeing their posts. But my annoyance at mostly *not* seeing their posts continues to grow.

I do like Bluesky, and I think their custom feeds do allow some level of 'following hobbies/topics,' and I think it's worth checking out. But the closest thing to FB groups I can think of that's still un-enshittified would be Reddit.

[LordMortis]

I installed and configured "Social Fixer" as a plugin and I'm much happier for it. I didn't want to begrudge FB ad eyes for my free feed but it go so bad I opted out. There have been multiple times where it blocked 18 ads out of the first 20 things my feed.

All that said, FB is absolutely evil. My wife has a similar fake profile and she just shared an email with me where FB is recommending to her that my fake profile would be a good friend match. Other than a shared IP address, there's no reason FB should be connecting our damn accounts. But I also get friend suggestions for people I know, which tells me it's definitely creeping through my gmail address book or somehow otherwise matching me to people I know as my profile does not have any friends.

I put up a FB fence and it helps but it's not perfect. I also wouldn't let it near my phone. Google already has access to my phone for my convenience and it already manages to port tons of data between phone and primary computer which is then cross referenced by MS, Apple, Amazion, FB, and I dunno what else. So much is mined and mined and then crossed by IP that my two other computers which have no identifiable measures other than IP, regularly see ads for the things I've been looking at/researching/being exposed to on my phone or primary PC. Like, "hey you browse Meijer. You browse heart monitors." On this totally non related but in the same home laptop when you open MS Edge on the home page is an ad for heart monitor from Meijer. Data scraping is downright offensive. Makes me really fear/be annoyed the geotracker on my phone which T Mobile mandates is something they can scrape data from and sell for ad purposes and when I break down and get a new car, it sounds like all new cars do. Ever app on my phone insists things will be better, especially from Google if I let them know my location at all times.

[Pyperkub]

Social Fixer installed! Thanks!

[LordMortis]

It may require a small amount of tweaking to get what you want but it's a very straight forward tweaking.

[Skinypupy]

It seems like the majority of my feed these days is stuff that is NOT from my friends, groups I'm a member of, etc. Rather it's ads, stuff Marky Z thinks I should see, etc. I haven't dropped it entirely because I still do get some value from sharing with family/friends I don't see in person much anymore, and seeing their posts. But my annoyance at mostly *not* seeing their posts continues to grow.

I've seen the same trend, but think that more because I'm not friends with a ton of people and most of those people simply don't post very much. So there's really not that much content from my friends to show me, even if it wanted to. I'm the same way these days, trying to limit posting to the occasional family picture/update/funny meme just a few times a month.

My feed is pretty good about showing stuff from my groups. Right now, almost my entire feed is posts from board game groups I'm in. It gets absolutely dominated by Utah football groups during the season.

[Kraken]

Social Fixer installed! Thanks!

Ditto. Haven't tried it yet. I browse FB in Firefox with ad blockers and Facebook Container running, and I virtually never see ads there. But I look forward to being able to tweak it here and there anyway.

I use FB mostly to keep in touch with family and a few old friends, sharing photos and jokes and memes. I've probably put 500 photos on FB over the years. I read the daily Heather Cox Richardson post there. I check the local government and restaurants groups. I also spend around half-an-hour a day scrolling the news feed for science-tech and history posts. Sometimes I even open the comments to marvel at the flat earthers and global warming deniers; unmoderated science pages are overrun by anti-science people. But one can easily avoid those by not clicking any post with the laughing emoji. I often find the Dull Men's Club fascinating as well.

I've fired up Bluesky a few times but it doesn't seem to fit any of those niches. FB's algo does a decent enough job of entertaining me, while BS makes you look for what you want. Still, I keep adding people I know in the hopes that it will eventually reach a critical mass.

[Isgrimnur]

I read the daily Heather Cox Richardson post there.

Available on substack

[naednek]

Does BlueSky have active hobby groups? I have one contact who is really pushing Bluesky but his description makes it sound like you are following individuals not interest communities and that isn't really what I'm looking for.

Bluesky didn't impress me when someone freely posted a picture of some dude spreading his ass cheeks and I saw was red flesh.

No thanks.

[GreenGoo]

Goatse freedom!

[LordMortis]

Ditto. Haven't tried it yet. I browse FB in Firefox with ad blockers and Facebook Container running, and I virtually never see ads there.

What ad blockers do you use? I use Ad Blocker Ultimate and without Social Fixer sometimes my feed is almost exclusively ads. Not just a distraction, which I would find acceptable, but some days I'd have to play spot my feed within the stream of ads.

This is not a knock on ABU. As example, the reason I run it for YouTube, again because YouTube ads are just stupid. 1) Too many are political/propaganda/attempts to scrape data or place malware. 2) They show intrusively show up in the middle of even short videos. Again, without ABU I wouldn't use YouTube, not because I don't think Google shouldn't present sponsorship but because they make sponsorship so intrusive that I'd find no value in subjecting myself to their videos.

[Kraken]

Ditto. Haven't tried it yet. I browse FB in Firefox with ad blockers and Facebook Container running, and I virtually never see ads there.

What ad blockers do you use? I use Ad Blocker Ultimate and without Social Fixer sometimes my feed is almost exclusively ads. Not just a distraction, which I would find acceptable, but some days I'd have to play spot my feed within the stream of ads.

uBlock Origin, AdBlocker Ultimate, AdBlock Plus. But I think it's mostly because using Firefox, DuckDuckGo, and Facebook Container doesn't give their algorithm much to latch onto.

[Smoove_B]

Bluesky didn't impress me when someone freely posted a picture of some dude spreading his ass cheeks and I saw was red flesh.

No thanks.

I've been using Twitter / X for over a decade and Bluesky for ~2 years and haven't seen any nudity. I'm not sure if you're raw-dogging the internet, but I can only presume my combination of ad blockers and the people/accounts I follow keep my feeds reasonable.

[Skinypupy]

Bluesky didn't impress me when someone freely posted a picture of some dude spreading his ass cheeks and I saw was red flesh.

No thanks.

I've been using Twitter / X for over a decade and Bluesky for ~2 years and haven't seen any nudity.

Same. In fact, any image that was even slightly questionable (someone in a bikini, for example) gets hidden behind a warning that you had to click to access “sensitive content”.

I truly have no idea how Goatse could just randomly pop up on someone out of the blue.

[Pyperkub]

Social Fixer installed! Thanks!

Ditto. Haven't tried it yet. I browse FB in Firefox with ad blockers and Facebook Container running, and I virtually never see ads there. But I look forward to being able to tweak it here and there anyway.

I use FB mostly to keep in touch with family and a few old friends, sharing photos and jokes and memes. I've probably put 500 photos on FB over the years. I read the daily Heather Cox Richardson post there. I check the local government and restaurants groups. I also spend around half-an-hour a day scrolling the news feed for science-tech and history posts. Sometimes I even open the comments to marvel at the flat earthers and global warming deniers; unmoderated science pages are overrun by anti-science people. But one can easily avoid those by not clicking any post with the laughing emoji. I often find the Dull Men's Club fascinating as well.

I've fired up Bluesky a few times but it doesn't seem to fit any of those niches. FB's algo does a decent enough job of entertaining me, while BS makes you look for what you want. Still, I keep adding people I know in the hopes that it will eventually reach a critical mass.

The other nice thing is that it blocks the sponsored/you might like posts too, tho they are click to show, so you can see the groups of 4-5 posts at a time which are effectively, tho not explicitly, ads, ditto reels loaded with videos of people you have zero interest in. Also makes your feed more chronological, tho I'm not sure how good it is at that (when was the last time you actually saw a chronological feed in FB?)

It also only loads X posts, so it's not always an endless scroll.