We Finally Decided to Reduce Our Dependence on Meta

My Instagram and Threads accounts have been suspended for several days for an unknown reason. Even a post I shared from my Facebook page was deleted, supposedly for "spreading misinformation." This has significantly eroded my trust in Meta.

While searching for alternatives, I discovered Mastodon, a platform I'm still getting used to. I tried joining before when I deleted my Twitter account, but found it difficult and gave up. This time, however, I was able to easily sign up from my computer.

https://mastodon.social/@jishokubarroco

I've been using it for several days now, but I wouldn't say I'm completely adapted yet. However, I've been able to find and share various topics that I couldn't on Bluesky and Threads, and I'm also learning from others.

For me, SNS isn't just for communication; it's primarily for language learning and knowledge acquisition. That's why I still use Facebook, even though I'm so angry with Meta. As you can see from the introduction above, I'm focusing more on Japanese and English on Mastodon than Korean.

Since I plan to live in the US for the rest of my life, it's only natural that I need to achieve near-native fluency in English. I've also worked hard at Japanese, reaching an intermediate level without any specific goal like the JLPT. Even if it's not as useful in Japan, I want to be recognized for my skills in the US.

So, if I ever have the chance to interact with a native Japanese speaker offline in the future, I want to fully utilize the skills I've honed over the years without any language barriers.

And most importantly, because of this incident, I've decided to almost completely stop using Instagram and Threads. A popup says my activity will be restricted until tomorrow (February 18th), but I'm not sure if that will actually be lifted. I'm so disappointed, I'm going to remove the Threads links from my YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Because honestly, Mastodon is much more convenient than Threads. So I'm going to focus on growing my Mastodon account without worrying too much about follower count!

Finally, since the profile picture wasn't in the main text, I'll end by including the original Mastodon profile picture. I hope spring comes soon!