Losing Community?

[diffrentcolours]

I haven't posted on Facebook for about a year, since they announced that they were no longer even pretending to moderate queerphobia. But I've checked in there about once a week to catch up on close friends, and it's been a useful source of events. Since they've now insisted that users pay or get even more stalked / used to feed the LLM / GenAI machine, I've decided to just download my data (including photos etc.) and delete my account. I'm aware that I'm cutting myself off from some people this way, but most of them I've got other ways to talk to - mostly via Signal or WhatsApp.

This is happening about the same time as Discord are announcing various changes. I'm already using a SOCKS proxy based in Germany to circumvent their age restriction requirements, but that may stop being effective soon, or they may again be feeding everything into the GenAI behemoth. There's a good chance I'm going to have to disengage with Discord in the next few weeks.

I'm worried that this is going to cut me off from some other communities. The Manchester-based Discord has been a bit dead since a big argument a few months ago caused a schism, and neither it nor its supposed replacement managed critical mass. So that's not much of a concern. And I quit the UTAW Discord when I resigned.

But the Doof uses Discord for its Thursday evening stream chat, and I'll really miss that. I've been suggesting to communities that they move to Zulip, who provide a free tier much like Discord, but which is also Free Software, self hostable, and supports migrating between installs. I even set one up for the Doof. But nobody's even interested in trying it out so far. Discord is also a place where some queer and Covid-cautious activism happens and I'll be sad to miss that too.

Still, concentrating on the positives, I have friends from real-life things like Queer Club and the gym, who I talk to over Signal or WhatsApp, and I've just prompted a meetup of local gym buds for brunch in a few weeks. I'm playing a D&D campaign with P and friends every couple of weeks. I chat with people on the Fediverse. Even if I do lose out on communities currently based on Discord, I'm not going to be totally cut off.

Comments

[otter]

I think there are many of us in similar positions and considering similar options. I don't imagine we'll all go slinking off to hide. Most will find alternate ways.