Unfriending

posted Feb 9, 2019 | about 2 minutes to read

Historically my personal posts have been few and far between on this blog, and I think at least part of that has to do with my activity on social media. If I’m interacting with people there, then what purpose does a personal blog serve?

I didn’t really feel a need to explore this for a number of years. I posted a few sporadic personal updates, but for the most part I was happy with social networking as an outlet for those posts. However, I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the way that the major social networks use (and exploit) my data in sharing with advertisers and with their predatory and unethical business practices - or just the toxicity and lack of moderation - and as part of that have been making a concerted effort to pull back from those networks. Having a centralized platform that I control, alongside limited social networking activity on platforms that aren’t beholden to advertisers and that protect my data, feels like the right choice for me.

To that end, I’m going to be making a point of primarily posting new updates here, and then federating them to the limited other social networks that I will be using. As for Facebook and Twitter, I’ll only be using them for blog federation, and will be implementing a comments system on this website to make social interaction possible. I’ll still be reachable via any method listed on my contact page, as well as by phone and email.