While I think it's better to avoid billionaire controlled social media platforms like Twitter, Threads, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook if for whatever reason you must use an account on those platforms I have some subtle habits you can instill in yourself that will make your life better and make a difference all by doing these simple actions that require very little of your time. Note that trying to get people to leave these billionaire platforms is better than continuing to use them. Also note these instructions work on almost any social media platform even the non-billionaire ones. Bluesky takes reports very seriously, I've seen imposter and scammer accounts get deleted just minutes after reporting them.
Here's how it works. Whenever you see disinformation or any content that violates the rules especially if the content is in particular reprehensible do the following:
- Take a screenshot of it, for maximum impact if the post got a lot of engagement make sure the numbers were included. Also BrioxorMorbide suggested putting an X over the misinformation kind of like Snopes does because otherwise it can be reinforced in some people's brain.
- Report the content
- Wait for the results (you cannot lose no matter if they accept the report or don't)
I hear some of you thinking Facebook or whatever website hardly ever takes down rule breaking content, they always tell me that ${horrible_content} is allowed under the rules. Why bother reporting? The answer is because when they process your report you get an answer back saying they reviewed it and if they removed it or if they allowed it. If they allowed it you now have a powerful screenshot. Take a screenshot showing how your report was rejected. Then share that screenshot on places that you know will be strongly against whatever content was allowed on the social media platform. Someone did that recently and it had a powerful impact. Look at all the people saying they deleted their X accounts. The picture I posted for this post originally came from there but sadly the post was removed. Thankfully I saved a copy before it was deleted.
If they do remove that content that's also a good outcome because you just reduced the spread of hate/disinformation.
One powerful thing people in the EU can do is report posts which violate the DSA. If the large social media website doesn't respond quickly enough they get fined. Moreover your reports could perhaps become part of statistics regarding how much illegal content social media websites host.
Reporting also has the benefit that it will result in data. If people keep reporting a particular type of content it means they are not happy with it.
Here's another thing you can do. When you see right wing content that maybe doesn't directly violate the rules but instead comes close without breaking them like Fox News does click whatever equivalent there is to "I'm not interested in this". The goal here is to make the algorithm be less likely to show you things such as Fox News. The algorithms may be based on what similar people do so you could be reducing the chance Fox News will be shown to other people too. Likely if lots of people click that button the content will be penalized or deranked. Even if you're the only one who's impacted it will still help your mental health not to see that horrible content. That's why earlier I said "make your life better".
Also when you see disinformation or hateful content try to push back on it without wasting your too much of your time. Maybe respond with Snopes says that's not true and provide a fact check link or copy and paste a rebuttal to the post or for discriminatory content say something like we are all human being, let's love instead of hate each other. The goal here is to take into account that silence always benefits the oppressor but without wasting too much of your time which could be better spent doing more impactful forms of resisting like registering people to vote or something like that. Also be careful not to do something which will cause people to become more entrenched in their hateful ways.
Yet another thing you can do and you may already be doing this is post progressive content and try to reach new audiences. For example if you read an interesting article about how a Republican is corrupt (there are tons of these articles) might as well post it on all the social media accounts you have. Research shows that people do things if they think it's popular so you're helping people realize how popular it is to be progressive and spreading it.
