Goodbye OSM

I finally had enough. I was tired of seeing posts flagged by Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for content that disagreed with their digital perspectives. Then after the Capitol Hill Incursion on January 6, 2021, it seemed that Big Tech went into purge overdrive.

Some conservative accounts I followed on these platforms just disappeared overnight. Others saw mind-numbing losses of followers as these social media giants arbitrarily limited scope and reach. It was sad and felt like a heavy-handed approach and outright censorship.

When the Parler app was banned and outright prevented from having hosting services, I took a few more days to consider. And here’s what I’ve posted on my Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts:

“5 days.”

I have been disheartened by the role Big Tech and #OSM (Old Social Media) have played in creating more divisiveness (I didn’t think it was possible) by censoring and silencing voices on their platforms.

Yes, there are the obvious voices being silenced or removed from platforms but other more “ordinary” people like me are experiencing rapid and random losses of followers, decreased reach, and a more negative experience altogether.

As private businesses, OSM companies can make the choice to eliminate voices, but I recognize I also have the ability to choose. I have a choice – and a role too. I will be deactivating my accounts in five days.

This is my principled choice. It will be hard because I enjoy interacting with you here. It’s been fun. I’m looking forward to new digital adventures with new and old friends.

I’d love to stay in touch with you. You can follow me on my blog at journeyguy.com or if you Gab, look me up as @journeyguy.

In five days…

Strangely…

As I went to blog over at my normal blog to inform my readers there, my blog was GONE. I saw this message:

Yeah. That’s not fun. It got even stranger when I went to my host – nodestack.net and discovered they were completely offline as well. Their Twitter ID has also been deleted.

I’m pretty bummed about it and am hoping I haven’t lost this past six months of blogging… (ugh). In the meantime, I’ll be posting here and hopefully soon, journeyguy.com will be fixed, and you’ll be able to see past posts as well!

Update 1/15/2021

It's been a long three days. However, I was fortunate to have had a download/backup of my entire site via FTP from back in May. I moved my server to Siteground, and they were able to set me up in a day! So I've spent today tracking down posts I've made since then. Amazingly, Goodreads not only imports my blog, but also stores it on their servers! The Wordpress app on my phone also had downloaded posts since May, so I was doubly covered (and thankful!).