The BigTech usage
To give a bit of context on the Fediverse switch, herés how I use the Big Tech Services:
- Facebook: used as a personnal account. keep contact with friends and family. some contact from (previous) job. some contacts from sport. used to post all and nothing ; like talking in a party. used to post various stuff. now, post photos of holidays and events, post Tech articles that sounds important/mainstrean, interact with friends post via like&comments. FB Messenger is only used if I don’t have a Phone number or Email address.
- Twitter: mostly advertise when publishing a post on this blog. Most contacts are people I know of but never met. sometimes interact via Like and/or Comments. A few subscriptions to company/organizations to keep aware of news.
- Instagram: posting photos of holiday/travels/events. contacts are friends or family that don’t have a FB account or rather use Insta to communicate. Interact via Likes and (few) DM. Posts are linked to FB account so that people on FB can also interact on pics.
- Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram are used as a replacement for SMS and Phone call on not « private » messaging ; in this case, I prefer SMS, Phone call or Email. Also used in small group communication.
- Teams, Linked-In: mostly just have an account here and do some basic networking. Interaction is quite formal as if we were in business meeting.
Contacts are divided in groups:
- Family & Friends. People I really know and interact IRL. whom access is not restricted.
- Not-so-close People. People I used to interact with but not so much now, friends’ friend, ex-job collegues, people to follow because of there postings.
- Public. Everybody not in the previous groups.
People can move from group tp group, depending on what happens IRL.
What I post depends on the Social Network and the privacy group I can achieve.
Use of languages depends on the network. FB is mostly in French, Twitter in English, Instagram mostly depends on the hashtag I use to comment the picture. A nice FB &Twitter feature is the translate option ; which helps me discover/understand new content and others to get my content translated in their language.
Features I’m looking for
- Keep my F&F community.
- Post text, URL, photos, video
- Assign visibility restrictions based on groups of contacts
- Limit duplicates or automate cross-posts
The BigTech alternative
So far, I understood that
Facebook -> Pleroma, Diaspora, Friendica
Twitter -> Mastodon
Instagram -> PixelFed
LinkedIn -> LinkedIn
Messaging -> what ever the use wants.
Friendica
Adding contacts from the Fediverse and set them as « Mutual Friendship » implies:
- a toot on @Mastodon is automatically boosted by the @Friendica account (and a notification is raised) and it appears as reshared on the Friendica timeline.
- a message on @Friendica is only published on Friendica. If the @Friendica account is followed by the @Mastodon account, the message appears in the Masto timeline.
Look from « @openbsd_src » and the Mastodon bot account pops up. Select the Connect/Follow option and you’ll get posts from this @Mastodon account into your @Friendica timeline. Share and (Dis)Like operations can now be done from @Friendica.
Sending a message to Followers-only with Title from @Friendica appears as a CW message in @Mastodon with a link to Friendica. Message is not straight readable from Masto. And when click on the link, message is marked as non-existant, unless you can authenticate on Friendica.
If sending the same message to Public, the link displays properly.
Pixelfed
Can substibe from @Mastodon account. Image posts appear and can be retooted.
Metatext can log in on Pixelfed.
Automatically shared on Friendica as « mirror » is set.
Does not seem possible from Mobile or App to set NSFW to pictures.