So it’s no secret that I have been promoting the idea of moving back to the personal website, and having less reliance on sites like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. In fact, I have so adamantly believed this notion I am pretty sure my wife has gotten tired of hearing me talk about it. But nevertheless, social media companies have proved time and time again that they do not have the best interests of their users at heart, and all it takes is for some excentric rich billionaire, or bank to come along and mess everything up. It happened to Tumblr, OnlyFans, and now the latest drama is all about Twitter.

Now I am not stupid enough to believe or even think that social media is going to implode. I’m not running around with a tin foil hat on proclaiming the end of days here. Social media in one form or another is here to stay, and I love social media. I have spent many an hour scrolling through posts, images, and videos, and loved all that I saw. But for far too long we the people have been beholden to the all-powerful algorithm and whoever holds the golden key to that special piece of magic. Further, on most of these social media sites, you yourself do not OWN the very content you create. Once you hit post the very social media platform you are using owns it and can use it however they see fit.

So, for the last several months I have been encouraging people to start taking ownership of their own content and posting their writing, images, music, and video onto their own crafted and curated websites. Now I have no idea if anyone has taken that advice seriously or not, but it made me feel better about my opinion when none other than the great author himself, John Scalzi, posted this on his Twitter account.

He even went on to talk about it on his own website and writes about it here.

So the bottom line is this…You don’t have to leave social media. I am not suggesting that you delete your accounts and only post on your own website, but as John mentions…

“Just carve out some of that doomscrolling/toiletscrolling time for your own space, that you control, too. And when you do, then link to your own site from that other social media, and invite your followers on those services to visit you in your own place. And link to other people’s personal sites, so your followers can visit them, too. Make social media work for you, and not just for the amoral billionaires.”

— John Scalzi