It seems the 50501 movement is facing some predictable problems on commercial platforms.
On Reddit, the 50501 subreddit has temporarily shut down over abuse. This comes after reports from users that the community is “obviously being astroturfed”. No word as to when it will be back online.
It seems things are not much better over at Facebook, where there is apparently frequent calls to stop protesting this and that, with a Reddit user commenting that the group “feels like it’s imploding”.
This is hardly surprising given how commercial social media has repeatedly shown itself to be easily manipulated, but it’s still fascinating that it’s bad enough to shut down the whole Reddit community. Although we are certainly in a better place over here we are not immune: Make sure to be vigilant and to report suspicious activity.
If anyone is on Facebook, maybe now is a good time to give people there a few pointers towards Lemmy/PieFed.
Potentially, but it seems people on other social media will have a hard time leaving no matter how bad things get there. At least on Reddit it doesn’t seem like users are particularly aware of the fact that it’s a problem with their platform.
I think we should not depend on any moment, but rather contribute and gradually work towards this being the best place to be, and let change happen gradually.
Ps: For those nevertheless spreading the word, I think https://50501.chat/ and/or https://piefed.social/f/50501 are two particularly useful links. :)