I've been looking for a viable Facebook replacement. Nothing FB does is particularly difficult tech-wise - events, photo sharing, video sharing, etc.. and the ActivityPub / federated systems have a lot of promise.

Sadly, the best social sites are essentially just twitter clones. Don't get me wrong, the general concept of twitter like "digital town square" can be really useful social constructs.. However, the "Killer app" for Facebook is the "friend" system.

On the old twitter, and on mastodon and bluesky, it seems like all posts you make are world readable unless you block someone... and anyone can follow you (again unless you explicitly block someone. Blocking is great - I hear xhitter started letting paid accounts adn Elmo override that - what a mess

Anyway, the "killer app" for me is that two-way handshake - I request you as a friend and unless you accept, meaning it's two way consent, you're not a friend.. and I can post stuff that only friends can see...

I really love that feature because it lets people build a bit of a safe bubble.

There's been a LOT of talk about bubbles and how they're bad, and I used to subscribe to that view. However, I've developed a more Nuanced take on that of late - that if your bubble is an opinion / behavior bubble but is grounded in objective fact, then having a bubble can be a net positive.

Not to get too right vs left here but there is a HUGE amount of not just willful but prideful ignorance among a great number of people in the US (and the world but especially the US), and when they're not willing to agree on basic objective facts (I refer you to the "alternative fact" crowd.. ) and building upon a platform of lies and grift.. then yes that bubble is harmful.

However, the level of toxicity in the site formerly known as twitter got so bad, and deliberate changes to the system to amplify hateful voices and make them all but un-ignorable just completely failed the basic mission of what social media can and should be.

So, having a "bubble" where I've carefully curated my friends such that I don't get inundated with random garbage... (I mean sometimes my friends also can credulously share junk too - and the "unfollow" feature allowing me to keep a person I care about on some level in my life but not have to deal with their constant stream of woo or annoying but not toxic shares etc... ) where was I? right... the general idea of being able to ensure that only those people I have some connection to and have approved see my main social content. I post a few things publicly here and there but mostly keep it to friends and thus my FB has been mostly non toxic... The ads and sponsored content, the utterly broken AI powered moderation and fear that even typing certain words like "Garbage" or "Trash" might get one banned ... yeah, that's a problem.. and the recent announcements from FB that they're going to pull back on some of their banning etc.. may sound good except when you see it's politically targeted - if I call someone mentally ill for believing some kooky religiously inspired conspiracy or hater I could still get a ban but someone calling LGBTQIA+ people mentally ill is now OK (even though pretty much the entire Western Worlds psychological associations agree that being LGBTQIA+ is in no way a mental illness) goes unpunished?

OK so anyway long first post but I'm trying out Friendica to see if it's a platform that would work for a self hosted community - I had a 600 or so person community site from about 1998 until 2010 - I closed it down when most of the people had stopped using it in favor of Facebook.... That community (with a large number of LGBTQIA+ people and also allies thereof and generally left--of-center leaning freaks and geeks ... ) is collectively feeling very much like FB is not a place to be... so bringing that back may be worth it... I'm going to see.

Thanks for reading.
~Tananda