What I’ve done on Facebook over the years, and the need for alternatives

I joined Facebook in 2007 because my friend Geoff Brock wanted to play Scrabble with me. Over the years, I've created multiple networks of people to stay in touch with: family in the United States and elsewhere; friends there, in Germany and in many other countries; poets and writers all over the world; former Basel English students; and musicians I have heard and met in Basel and elsewhere. I've also established two traditions of my own: sending people birthday poems and writing my daily prose. But with various recent decisions made by founder Mark Zuckerberg, it's time to start thinking about alternatives, as I did when I left Twitter for Mastodon. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 8 January 2025)