John Oliver launches "Make yourself less valuable to Meta" website, suggests Signal, Mastodon, Pixelfed, and BlueSky as Meta alternatives
John Oliver cited a 5000% rise in search queries related to leaving Meta and deleting accounts. Among the topics mentioned in the analysis, attention was drawn to early Facebook's naivete with regard to moderation requirements, the constitutional framework, and a history of governmental interference.
Oliver debunks common right-wing "cry censorship" talking points, as well as the objective difficulty of moderation endeavors, and how direct threats by Trump may have influenced Zuckerberg's turnaround.
Oliver went on to suggest Signal, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Pixelfed as alternatives that "do not seem as desperate to fall in line with Trump". For those reluctant to completely ditch Meta, Oliver revealed a new site with step-by-step instructions to "make yourself less valuable to them".
The guide was a collaboration with the EFF, and includes settings' tweaks for Facebook and Meta, whose 98% of revenue comes from micro-targeting ads, the host previously cited, to increase privacy, and recommends Firefox, Privacy Badger, as "other measures" to take in order "to block advertisers and other third parties from tracking you".
The segment culminated in a mock advert, in which the new Meta's approach to moderation is coined as "Fuck it", and hints to racism, internet scams, and calls to genocide running rampant on Meta's platforms.
The clip reminds the origins of Facebook as a site to "rank college girls by hotness", and its implication in genocide in Myanmar, which was more thoroughly discussed in an Oliver's previous special on Facebook in 2018.
Good, glad it's getting some main stream attention. If more people start taking advantage of these settings and alternatives it's going to hurt Meta's bottom line eventually
Just hurting Meta's bottom is good enough for me
Meta has been quite naughty indeed
They'll just bury the settings, or remove them. Who's going to stop them now?
one can always delete their accounts
As if Meta actually deletes anything
Makes sense if there are. Facebook knew my phone number in advance without me having provided it. Enough friends had given permission to access their contacts that they pretty much knew who I was in advance
I guess that's what the alts are for
I don’t want to get my hopes up but is this Facebook’s MySpace moment?
My personal MySpace moment for Facebook was 10 years ago. Best choice ever made.
MySpace was way smaller than Facebook, it wasn't even available where I am for most of its (meaningful) existence (I never had a MySpace despite being the exact target age range).
Nobody left MySpace because of enshitification
I don’t think so. There’s no good alternative to Facebook that is worth leaving it for. When MySpace died, there was a significantly better alternative (FB). Even if people quit using Facebook regularly, they’ll need to keep it.
What do people use Facebook for these days? (I deleted my account about 10 years ago so I'm not sure what it's for now)
I've been gone from FB for about 3 months but for me it was the groups. You could find groups for anything, but I miss my local groups most. Particularly the No-Buy and vegan and political activist groups. Finding an equivalent outside of FB is sub par, if it even exists at all.
Yeah that does actually sound pretty decent.
So much of Facebook is just automated accounts responding to automated accounts in order to milk gullible advertisers. If everyone logged off tomorrow, I don't know if Zuckerberg would notice.
i have certainly notices a SHARP downturn of new content being added to insta and facebook by people i actually know over the last few years.
All that seems to be left is AI Slop and ragebait. a venn diagram that overlaps considerably
Seems like a win tbh. Meta stops influencing people and collecting their data, while dumbass corps waste money on ads nobody will see.
Meta will still influence people, because a lot of the influence is through news aggregators automatically ingesting what Facebook shows as "Trending" and regurgitates it elsewhere.
There's literally billions of people on Facebook, so probably not. But maybe it's a start.
*Billions of accounts. Hard to tell how many are real people and how many are just slop throwing bots.
Even better. It’s the fediverses Facebook moment.
Not immediately or probably for some years. Facebook's main problem is the fact its got an aging population and no young people joining. That's why Meta bought Instagram and is desperate to get their grubby paws on TikTok or force it to close down in the West.
I think internally, over the next decade, FB will start to die off organically as Meta put ever increasing focus on retention and young people.
John Oliver's show is doing amazing things, including the Drumpfinator addon.
What is that URL, though? I'm guessing I'm know it if I (happily) watch the episode?
it's an inside joke of the show where he presents himself as a """secret""" furry that loves rat erotica. The content of the link is legit though.
with the sometimes quite insider-y references, there absolutely is at least one furry on the writing team
::: spoiler mildly NSFW?
:::
Just imagine being a artist, doing furry because you love it or maybe just because it pays your bills. And then someone from HBO contacts you about commissioning a picture of John Oliver as a horny otter in skintight jorts.
😏🤤
My app. Connect for Lemmy on android, switches between hidden text/visible text. I cannot click on the link.
This is one of the reasons Lemmy is not ready.
Or maybe just your app isn't ready, and you should switch apps (it renders correctly as an image hidden behind a toggle on Voyager).
Oh, absolutely! That's maybe why the jokes feel so pure and not disrespectful.
huh
Why don't stories like this EVER mention Lemmy?
Well, I get that Lemmy is an alternative social media, but it's not really an alternative to Facebook. Anonymous usernames, text-based posts, you can't follow people, Fediverse is somewhat confusing.. I'd recommend it as an alternative to Reddit, but probably not the website where boomers want to check up on their neighbors and friends
Challenge accepted
He said "Lemmy" but probably meant "Threadiverse", and mbin does support both the Twitter-style following user model and the Reddit-style forum model.
To use fedia.io as an example:
https://fedia.io/people
I dunno about piefed, haven't used it.
What are the best mbins these days? I'm out of the loop.
That's what Friendica is for
I guess the hate for Reddit isn't as great as for Shitter and Fakebook. (yet)
it's not an alternative to any meta platform
Because Lemmy is nowhere near as ready for primetime as other platforms.
I reckon Lemmy is actually pretty good. I wouldn't know if the mobile apps are good, because I don't use those - but for me the core functionality of Lemmy on my computer is smooth and functional. I don't see any obvious low-hanging-fruit.
I ditched reddit for Lemmy during the whole API crackdown bs. I've only used Voyager, but it seems quite comparable to RIF, which is the only way I ever viewed reddit.
I used RIF, but ended up using Jerboa for some random reason I can't remember. Will check out Voyager.
I think Jerboa was being pitched as the best RiF alternative super early on in the exodus. I also found myself on it but it never clicked for me.
I was on Connect for a while but there were some things that were a bit harder than they needed to be with different account/instance/filter management. Moved to Voyager and I'm quite happy with it, very smooth experience.
Lemmy is good for the size. It took a while for Lemmy to adjust to its current scale, with major instances having uptime issues.
If we keep the servers up, there is still issues with spam and moderation. We don't have the tools that Reddit built and I expect further pushes towards defederation as the standard for users hasn't been developed.
Voyager ist amazing
Boost is great for Android.
Boost on Android works well. It does for me at least.
Eh, Lemmy is way more mature as a platform than PixelFed is, and he mentioned that.
I think the explanation being in relation to what it's intended to replace is more likely. He doesn't care as much about getting people off Reddit as he cares about getting people off Zuck and Musk's platforms.
Clean cut kids do not find Lemmy very palatable.
I don't find Lemmy very palatable. I'm still here because I like to hear different perspectives. Lemmy as a whole seems to hate different perspectives, it's like many go out of their way to keep it closer to a hive mind. 80% of the world's people would not fit in here. I don't either, but I don't give a shit.
Let's hear your different perspectives
"People who disagree" saying "things you don't like" energy
Agree. I am not an open socialist and my top 5 issues probably don't align with the usual stuff I see at the top of Lemmy communities. Still, it is a worthwhile source for some tech/privacy info and some other niche content.
It's not just the tankie stuff. Tbf this place at times feels like the far left version of 4chan, and I say that as a very left person. Reddit's upvote system has always had an issue with brigading/dog piling leading to hostile discussions and echo chambers. In Lemmy, the issue is worse because it feels like most of the people who were drawn here are deeply tied to that culture from Reddit. By contrast, Reddit has a lot more young and innocent people to soften things.
I quit/deleted my Reddit account many years ago, before Lemmy's rise in popularity. I just come here every once in a while because I like decentralized/fediverse stuff, but the Reddit formula really does turn me off. I can't imagine the average person having the stomach for this brand of internet discussions, regardless of political leaning. It's quite hostile and combative.
Idk, to me the comments on lemmy are generally less toxic and I feel like I see way more nuanced discussion than on reddit.
On Lemmy a comment gets a well thought out reply. On Reddit not even a vote.
You can join an instance that has downvotes disabled like Hexbear, or votes disabled entirely, or disable your ability to view them if that makes you more comfortable.
That doesn't fix anything due to federation. Dog piling discourages people from critical discussion or from asking questions from fear of having the angry mob turn on them too. It leads to shallow and one sided discussions, especially in posts with a lot of participation. The only productive discussions I've ever had either on Lemmy or on Reddit have been one-on-one comment threads in small subs/buried posts.
But Lemmy knows what it wants to be, and I'm not saying it should change. It just isn't really for me.
I think a large part of that is magnified by being on Lemm.ee, rather than a specialized instancd, like Hexbear or slrpnk or dbzer0. The most productive conversations generally tend to be between people who mostly agree but have alternative viewpoints, otherwise it becomes a shouting match.
I think we're too weird and niche.
Not as many grassroots advocates. Even on the Reddit alternative sub the consensus isn’t lemmy somehow.
Lemmy lacks a bit of polish
Yeah but lots of german.
Yes, those too
Not a very large userbase.
This is literally the answer lmao why are you getting downvoted.
Took a long time, but nice to see this topic getting mainstream attention.
good initiative but uh what's up with that domain name?
There was a whole saga of him buying expensive rat erotica artwork at one point, which is a sentence I never thought I'd write.
🤣 🤣
aah thank you! now I can make sense of those last jumbled letters, quite the unusual word combination for sure ^^
Newsweek - The True Story Behind 'Last Week Tonight's' Rat Erotica Painting (archive link)
Is that why my rat erotica artwork started selling at such high prices?
https://youtu.be/Jxb-Szj8jVU?t=1449
Fucken hilarious 😂👏
Oh, he just had that lying around
I think is some in-joke having to do with Facebook moderation. Or his typical goofassery with domain names. Can't help you there.
It's an in joke referencing some stuff he did in a previous season. I don't think there's any specific connection to Facebook.
His team over at Last Week Tonight pull lots of funny stunts like this and have made quite a few hilarious websites. I wouldn't be surprised if this one is featured on the next episode!
Edit: Hey look, it was! https://www.youtube.com/embed/nf7XHR3EVHo
Remember "Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption"? You can't get stuff like this in stores!
John Oliver for president ✊
He can't because he wasn't born here, but we could totally elect his wife and let him do the whole first husband thing while still advising if she needs it.
Yep after all that's how musk did it by using trump as the symbolic figurehead
He should have offered the motor coach to Trump instead
President Kate Norley and First Gentleman John Oliver.
You do know his wife is a Republican right? A proud Bush/Obama era Republican? They literally met at the GOP convention in 2008.
What is with liberals and playing fantasy games with politics? On the one hand liberals will say elections are important and have consequences and on the other they'll treat it like a game of putting in your celebrity faves without bothering to care about their actual views.
Who knows what Jon himself actually thinks given he married a proud Republican and the fact he's a TV comedian playing a character. For all you know deep down he could personally be a never-Trump Republican himself.
All I was doing was correcting a misconception and giving the actual path to what they wanted.
Nowhere did I say it was good or bad or whether I supported it.
Please take your words out of my mouth and keep them in yours.
She isn’t a Republican based on the last 30 seconds..
https://youtu.be/ESlnpceQ3zA
Hope it's true. I was fairly disappointed when finding out Stephen Colbert returned to catholicism after being atheist.
Death is scarier for some than being associated with an organization that actively protects pedophiles, I guess.
Nice! Just shared this (as a PDF without the domain name lol) with my family!
Coward!
Hey it’s a group chat with my grandma ಠ_ಠ
and now you’ve robbed her of her chance to sell john oliver her collection of valuable rat erotica
I’ve been wanting to try pixelfed but I haven’t figured out what to do: start my own for friends or join an existing one.
I heard there were some issues with a dev or something so I haven’t signed up for the original instance yet
I love the instance I'm on and it's fairly quiet. Come on in!
https://pixtagram.social/
I use https://metapixl.com as mine. Its active and reliable. Also, not having influencers polluting the timeline makes all of Pixelfed a really nice experience.
Are you able to stop your account from federating but subscribe to people who do federate? In other words, is there a way to create a private account
Honestly, I don't know. I'd suggest reaching out an admin of one of the instances that has the community guidelines that jive best with you. Their contact info is usually on the instance's home page. They would definitely know.
Try one of the existing instances. Pixelfed.social is probably a bad choice right now, as it's getting overloaded with new members and so importing from Instagram has been curtailed. The others at https://pixelfed.org/servers should be fine. If you later choose to host your own instance you can always move the data from your old one.
I’ve also been intrigued, but it seems like a harder jump to make than mastodon or lemmy. Like with twitter or Reddit I’m mostly interacting with strangers anyway, but I don’t really want my instagram to be photos of people I don’t know.
Would you try to get your friends to make the switch with you?
Yeah, that’s why I’m considering hosting my own, unfederated instance
I just do gram.social. works good enough for me and my cannabis account.
I've been using pixey.org for a year or so. No complaints
My Instagram is full of fitness content (and good looking people tbh). Nothing comes even remotely close on pixelfed. No offence to federated social media, but we all ain't good looking :) (or suck at using filters...)
It's still a very long way off from taking over Instagram.
Zuckerberg hung out with Trump at Mar a Lago and attended the inauguration, then got rid of Facebook and Instagram's fact checking, relaxed their rules on posting hate speech and discrimination, ended Meta's diversity initiatives, removed bathroom facilities at meta for transgender and nonbinary employees, made speeches in defence of Trump and expressed gratitude for finally being able to have "a productive partnership with the United States government", while removing communications channels for employees and threatening them with being fired if they talked to media about any of this. He has gone full MAGA.
This article covers some of it: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/technology/mark-zuckerberg-meta-trump.html
They've gone full mask off, which is why there's the sudden backlash. The hate speech rules now include a section that explicitly says that it's okay to call LGBTQ people mentally ill. They're the only group with a specific carve-out in the rules saying that it's okay to post hate speech about them.
This is the first time zuck has gone full ass-kisser with curly hair and a gold chain, though
Huh? Source? What country?
He only now was able to catch up with all the news with Meta moderation from a month ago. He is only a couple weeks back on air.
He decided to kiss the ring. People don't like that.
Meta declared hate speech is free speech. Lgbt folks and allies started leaving in droves
AFAIK no, but it takes awhile for everything to sink in, and hosts like John Oliver only have so much air time.
The site doesn't suggest any alternatives though or am I not seeing that?
The alternatives were suggested briefly in the segment, not the site. Oliver pointed to the site those people who can't ditch Meta right now.
Use Magic Earth or Organic Maps instead of Google Maps too. Neither will track you.
I've tried so hard but I don't think magic earth, organic maps, or osmand likes me
Organic Maps is fantastic except for one crucial thing. Traffic info. That is literally the only thing stopping me from using it instead of GM or Waze. I need traffic info, I don't want to be late to stuff because I didn't know an accident happened, or a road got flooded, or there's just high volume traffic, etc.
I'm not sure how they would implement it and keep everything relatively privacy friendly (well it's FOSS so at the very least they aren't selling our data ❤️), but I need it.
Have a look at Magicearth.com
Just tried it out yesterday and today, and thought it was pretty good! Compared the routes it showed me with Waze (GM data) and it showed similar/exact routes.
For others who are curious, the only issues I noticed were:
Other than that, seems great, has all the features Organic Maps does and more. Likely to be my permanent navigator app.
The problem I see with this is that a Meta employee literally came out on Mastodon recently and revealed that non of these settings do anything and are false flags.
https://misskey.de/notes/a3ax4tqomg
Why not just recommend adblockers? No ads, no revenue, no matter how much tracking.
Selling user profiling data is also worth money, even if you're not shown ads because of ad-blockers you bring value to the dataset by increasing it's size with useful demographic data.
But the thing is out of the big companies, basically none of them are in the business of selling the data they have. They are much better off if they don't allow competitors to grow by keeping all the data to themselves.
that's why the broligarchs are buddying up to the dictators. the bottom is falling out of the surveillance capitalism market for advertising because it was never as effective as the ad marketplace brokers said it was. so the broligarchs need to sell their spying on us service to someone else and they've elected for the police state
Not easy for most users on app-based mobile/tablet devices.
(Puts on tinfoil hat) His parent company, Discovery-Warner Bros, probably wouldn't like that? And John Oliver makes his living through ad revenue.
"Normal" people don't use Facebook through the browser. Heck, I know functional, working adults, and reasonably smart kids, that don't really understand the concept of a browser/URLs and just do everything through apps, bar the bare minimum for work.
Or, even worse, they think that the internet is Google and vice versa.
It looks like they got that list of tips from the EFF, who created Privacy Badger. So it’s not surprising they only recommended theirs. I agree though that they should include uBO in the list.
Correct me if wrong, but isn't there a law in the us that says, all us companies have to give the government access to all data without disclosing this information? That would rule out any us based companies for privacy concerns as alternatives atm.
You should expect any data hosted on a server to be accessible by the given government…and thanks to NSA you should expect any data that travels through the US to be accessible by their government
Privacy in this case is around the selling to advertisers
For the masses maybe, but Signal & Bluesky ain’t it for a Privacy forum
How is Signal not privacy-friendly? It's the most private thing that can be called a "messenger app".
I think the main red flag is that they are spending so much money. In 2023 they had 55m monthly active users and they spent $35m. The casual WhatsApp user that might switch to Signal is definitely not gonna pay for this so either Signal fans have to donate more or Signal has to start finding other monetization which if we look at other companies means selling private data.
(Also, half their spending is on hosting and they are not self hosting so a donation to Signal is basically a donation to Amazon and Google.)
Signal doesn't have private data to sell; that's the whole point.
And my point is that since their costs are so high they will either have to become a paid app or start collecting data to sell. Or become more efficient but you’d think if they knew how they’d already done that.
Lo and behold, after RiseUp now Signal is accused of selling data. Well, it is well known (and audited) that Signal keeps so little metadata it is not even useful to the authorities that have subpoeana-ed it.
This is an extra-ordinary claim you have to back with extra-ordinary evidence, in order to save face.
Where did I accuse them of selling data right now? I’m simply noting the risk that they will have to cover the insane costs of their inefficient infrastructure through either becoming a paid app or collecting data to sell.
It is entirely centralized in the US—& there is 100% chance the NSA is tapped in on the metadata they can get a hold of. You can’t self-host. They have been hostile toward alternate clients & are very adamant you use one of the duopoly of Google/Apple mobile OSs as your primary device (screw you if you want to run an alternative OS or no phone I guess). There is a hole in the history for the server that leaves room for conspiracy theories.
Signal is adequate for privacy-focused normies, but does not deserve the pedestal it is put on which is why many folks more serious about the ideals instead of focusing on making concessions are skeptical of Signal. This isn’t a hot take or new stance.
The most private thing for messenger app are the messenger applications using the XMPP protocol.
Only if both parties use encrypted extensions.