Editing 2045: Social Media Announcement

{{distinguish|2685: 2045}}
{{comic
| number    = 2045
| date      = September 12, 2018
| title     = Social Media Announcement
| image     = social_media_announcement.png
| titletext = Why I'm Moving Most of My Social Activity to Slack, Then Creating a Second Slack to Avoid the People in the First One, Then Giving Up on Social Interaction Completely, Then Going Back to Texting
}}

==Explanation==
In 2018, especially after {{w|Facebook}} privacy abuses were revealed in the {{w|Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal|Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal}}, many individuals began seeking alternatives. The #deletefacebook hashtag peaked around April 2018, and in some communities, this type of "why I'm leaving Facebook" announcements were popular. Randall parodies this mentality with Cueball, who wants to think he is making a point about standing by his values, values he assumes other people share. However the overly-long title of his manifesto is too specific to apply to anyone but himself, and also reveal a few embarrassing confessions that probably have nothing to do with his values (such as losing his Facebook password).

{{w|Mastodon (software)|Mastodon}} is a distributed, federated social network with  microblogging features similar to {{w|Twitter}}. "Federated" means that there is one app hosted in many places, so users can choose a host that meets their needs, but everyone can still talk to each other, similar to email. Near the peak of #deletefacebook, Mastodon became trending as a [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/783akg/mastodon-is-like-twitter-without-nazis-so-why-are-we-not-using-it Twitter alternative with less Nazis].

{{w|Wil Wheaton}} famously moved to Mastodon from Twitter, [https://news.avclub.com/wil-wheaton-on-quitting-social-media-i-don-t-deserve-1828743467 but was ultimately disappointed by the experience], because while Mastodon's community is generally less toxic, it does not yet have the tools to handle the kind of targeted harassment that a celebrity might face.

{{w|Microsoft}} has been buying up professional-themed social media platforms lately, such as {{w|LinkedIn}} and {{w|GitHub}}, intending to integrate them more fluidly with their enterprise software suite. Mastodon seems  an unlikely target for an acquisition, since its decentralized nature means that one corporate entity can't control it, and the culture there is decidedly unprofessional as of this comic.

The title text presents an alternative approach by moving most social activities to the cloud-based proprietary team collaboration platform {{w|Slack (software)|Slack}}. After making his first workspace in Slack he suggests that he wishes to avoid the people invited, so he creates a second account and a new workspace. This also didn't last long and he stops interacting on social media entirely and reverted to simple texting, probably sending old fashioned {{w|SMS|SMS-messages}} to others or just writing texts on paper no one reads.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sitting in front of a laptop typing.]
:Why I'm Quitting Facebook, Joining LinkedIn, Deleting My LinkedIn, Rejoining Facebook, Quitting Twitter, Getting Locked Out of Facebook, Moving to Mastodon, and Lobbying Microsoft to Take Over Mastadon and Merge It With LinkedIn: A Manifesto.

==Trivia==
In the original version of this comic, Cueball misspelled "Mastodon" as "Mastadon".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Social networking]]