Recently, it seems as if centralized platforms have been in turmoil. Besides, Twitter is becoming full-on “Truth Social” or 4chan/8chan and a cesspool of hate, including rampant racism and queerphobia. Now, there is turmoil at Reddit, where third-party applications are at risk of shutting down with people threatening to leave.
With interest rates rising, causing VC funding to dry up with persistent inflation, the negative moves made by corporate-run, centralized platforms will impact content creators and followers. Still, people are reluctant to join the Fediverse since it seems complicated. It doesn’t have to, and I will disprove this myth.
Note: I’m making yet another post since WordPress finally released Autosharing to Mastodon today. Therefore, I want the Aniblogosphere become aware of our instance at Sakurajima where a good number of Anime Bloggers are already there.
Why are Centralized Platforms in turmoil lately?
Centralized Platforms seem to be making many unpopular decisions lately besides Twitter, which has been a train wreck for various reasons. This ranges from allowing a transphobic propaganda film from the Daily Wire, a far-right publication, to post their film on Twitter. This caused the Brand Safety and Ad Quality, along with the Head of Trust and Safety, to leave. After all, if they allow rampant hate speech, especially LGBT people who have to deal with their rights taken away in states held by Republicans in addition to hate speech on Twitter.
I left Twitter in December not only because of the debacle with Elon banning third-party social media links and future instability. It’s a decision I didn’t take lightly as this meant cutting myself from mutuals who haven’t joined yet. Still, I cannot, with my conscious, share my blog posts or content that don’t correctly moderate and outright allow hate speech (racism, queerphobia, etc.). After all, it makes sense since I review LGBT (primarily yuri-genre) titles. Of course, Twitter killing Third Party clients would make me leave too.
Reddit is facing the same issue over pricing the API too high. This will not only kill third-party clients since it’s not financially viable, but also moderation tools moderators use. In short, Reddit can become a worse cesspool like Twitter as Reddit decides to chase after profits.
It’s not too surprising, as interest rates are going up while VC money dries up. Since social networking sites hardly bring enough profit to be sustainable, they have to make unpopular moves. They do things by making developers pay for API access and even pushing subscriptions while making the free option worse. Of course, these decisions end up driving users away and towards alternatives.
Why Join the Fediverse, especially Sakurajima.
The Fediverse provides a means for users to share and interact with other people. At the same time, the platform is owned by the people, not corporations. The Fediverse is powered by a protocol called ActivityPub, which exchanges messages with other servers. This makes federation between other social network servers possible by running software like Mastodon or Calckey.
Sakurajima (Sakurajima.moe for Mastodon and Sakurajima.social for Calckey) is a project I started in October to create a dedicated space for content creators creating works or reviews around Japanese media and Japanese media fans. We only have recently met full compliance with the Mastodon Covenant as we are listed on fedi garden and are in the process of having our server added to JoinMastodon. Many anime bloggers, Japanese artists, and other popular accounts (tech tubers, news sites, influencers, etc.) are discoverable on our instance.
I worked hard to make the place safe and reliable for content creators and Japanese media fans and tried to convince people from Twitter to join. It’s one of the most difficult aspects, as some people are reluctant to join. Maybe because there are not enough people or it’s too complicated.
Thankfully, using Mastodon and the Fediverse has gotten easier. Besides front ends that give the look and feel of Twitter and the various Mastodon clients, WordPress finally introduced auto posting to Mastodon. I urge Anime Bloggers to give Mastodon a chance and perhaps join Sakurajima. Even if you don’t plan to participate in Mastodon yet and use it as a backup when Twitter collapses, you can still share your blog posts there. Just set up auto-posting to Mastodon so users on the Fediverse can know when you release a new post.
Believe it or not, WordPress is embracing Mastodon and ActivityPub. This is unsurprising, as Twitter priced them out of their API. With WordPress buying the ActivityPub WordPress plugin, adding a Mastodon share button, and finally, adding an autoshare Mastodon function, they are fully committed to the fediverse.
I know it’s hard to move communities but trust me, it’s a better experience over Twitter. I managed to get posts to become viral throughout the fediverse. Not only that, but I finally surpassed my followers count on Mastodon on Twitter. This proves you can make it on the Fediverse if you give it a chance. Just bring your friends along too. Not only that, but the interactions also there are a lot better.
Suppose you decide to join Mastodon or our Calckey instance. In that case, you can see them at sakurajima.moe for Mastodon and sakurajima.social for Calckey. If you plan to use the Autoshare to Mastodon feature or Mastodon clients, you should join our Mastodon instance instead. Note that timelines from both servers are available on either one.
You can find me at @chikorita157@sakurajima.moe on the fediverse. Suppose you are on Mastodon Social or Online. In that case, it’s recommended that you migrate to a smaller or medium server such as ours or a different one that better fits your interests. Mastodon Social and Online are being silenced (hidden from public view) or blocked entirely due to poor moderation and being too big. You can always comment on this post if you need help migrating or joining.
I hope people will reconsider and perhaps try the Fediverse or create a backup there and set up autoshare. After all, I don’t want you to lose your connections when Twitter collapses completely, which it will with the impending EU ban on Twitter.
