Self Preservations Vs Social Media

This week Meta announced they are removing moderation for hate comments, scrapping their internal DEI team and removing fact-checking.

I put this on my Instagram and was shocked at how many people hadn't heard this news. Some people even said it was all hearsay and made up, but it has been widely reported on and is even in their own new terms of service.

As a creator, I grew on Instagram. It gave me my most powerful years of sales and engagement. I topped out at 50,000 followers, I was getting thousands of likes on posts and reels, and I fed the beast. I made content and threw time and effort and money at the App in order to get more people seeing me.

Aside from those days being well behind me anyway - engagement on Instagram has plummeted for everybody in the last few years - there is a time when you have to balance your own beliefs and morals against those of the places you need to work with, and you have to decide: "is this worth it?".

It's easy to be on the wrong side of progress when it has personal or financial gain. It's so simple to follow someone else's view and go along with the ride if you're going to get something out of it. It takes a lot more time and thought to face up to something and decide you want no part of it any more, even if you haven't worked out what is next or what is replacing it. And this was a battle I'd been having with myself for a while.

At what point do we walk away and say "not in my name". And at what point do we do so in such large swathes and numbers that it makes a difference. Surely that has to be now?