The end of social media?

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for users of social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. Even worse for employees of those companies.

As many of us (me included, as I posted here) review our usage of platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc, some even actively deleting their accounts, the question is whether Musk’s purchase of Twitter (and subsequent actions; firing staff, ordering 24/7 working to implement a paid-for anti-verification system) is the wholesale death bell of social media?

Mastodon reports a 650% growth in the days after Musk completed his purchase of Twitter. But Mastodon is not Facebook or Twitter, it’s something together ‘calmer’, a federated network. Kinda a social network but not, if you get my drift?

Graham Brown-Martin described the current state as “Twitter’s having its AOL moment, Facebook is haemorrhaging, Instagram crushes our mental health, people are even arguing or worse on LinkedIn.”