Digital Go Bag

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Digital Go Bag 〰️

In an effort to align with the Trump administration, Mark Zuckerberg started out the year by completely gutting fact checking and allowing for hate speech to be posted across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Some of the dangerous things that are now allowed include: “Black people are more violent than whites” and "A trans person isn't a he or she, it's an it."

Over on TikTok and in a great show of political theater, TikTok then went dark in the U.S. for 12 hours after being banned. Users could not access their apps, profiles, and it disappeared from all app stores in the U.S. Then the platform came online the next day and greeted users with a notification thanking President Trump for bringing them back online (even though he introduced this ban in the first place.)

These examples are not just isolated incidents of bad behavior from Silicon Valley CEOs. It is all a part of the scheme to maintain control over a massively impactful space — the internet — at the expense of user safety and experience.

Users are completely aware of this though, and finding ways to fight back. So much so, that people have participated in strikes and boycotts of the platforms, as well as deciding to leave platforms all together for other places. The greatest example of this in the past year has been the migration from X (formerly Twitter) to Bluesky. X has been steadily declining in both usability and safety since Elon Musk took over in 2022. People have been leaving the Musk-owned platform but it was the 2024 U.S. presidential election and the sheer volume of right-wing fueled disinformation and hate speech flooding X that really ignited a mass exodus from the platform to a new place, Bluesky. In November 2024, Bluesky had gained 15 million users. Now, as of March 3rd, they have doubled in size to nearly 33 million users. 

Whether you are also ready to leave X behind or have questions about how to digitally migrate from one social platform to another place, this Digital Go Bag guide is for you. 

  • Having an answer to this question will help you organize community members to move to another platform with you. 

    • Is the user experience on your existing platform hindering your work? 

      • You want to be able to moderate groups, but that functionality doesn't exist.

      • Your members are afraid to engage on that platform, but that’s where you do most of your work.

    • Do the policies harm your communities and your work? 

      • The violent rhetoric on these platforms may be too much for people to handle or may outweigh support of any kind.

      • The dissolution of Meta’s fact-checking department, may exacerbate disinformation and misinformation to your communities.

      • The default limitation of political content on Meta platforms (Instagram, Facebook) and TikTok has made it more difficult for justice-centered groups to get their ads approved.

    • Does the corporation who owns the platform not align with your values?

      • For a lot of people, Elon Musk taking over Twitter changed their willingness to be on the platform because of his extremist views on race and gender. As well as his power to enact those views on people.

      • Given WhatsApp ownership by Zuckerberg, his proximity to President Trump, and how immigrant communities use this platform, there may be fear of surveillance on your members.

  • Answering this question helps you pick a new place and message to your audience(s) or members why you chose that new place.

    • Does it have specific features that you need? 

      • You want to be able to easily send polls in a group. You want to be confident that disinformation and misinformation is being checked. Make a list of all your considerations as you explore the features of a new platform.

    • How easy is it to migrate?

      • This is both about technical aspects and organizing your communities to migrate. Just as you spend some time setting up a new place — creating a username, adding branding, following others, etc. — you may have to spend some time training your members on how to download or find your new digital place and how to use it. 

    • If a place doesn’t meet all of your needs, what other tactics do you have/are available to you?

      • Sometimes a digital space won’t be everything you want. For example, you may migrate away from Whatsapp to Signal due to security concerns. However, Signal doesn't have a built- in poll creation feature. Do you use a separate poll creation platform and send the link in Signal or would you shift your surveying to your email list only? These are the trade-offs we make when we choose to migrate.

  • There is always a chance of drop off when you move from one place to another. Answering this question will help you get clear and comfortable about what you gain or lose by moving with your current community to a place that has a potential new audience. 

  • Now that you’ve determined why you are leaving a digital place and what you need in a new place, it's time to pick a new place to gather. To help, we’ve included a breakdown of the major social platforms and digital gathering places. Included in this chart is who owns them, how they work, who uses the platform.

  • When you’ve decided where you are moving, the most important part of this process will be organizing your members to come with you. Here’s some tips: 

    • Pin a message on your old platform about the move, and remind them at a frequency that makes sense for your work. Include info about why, when and where you'll be moving, how to find you there, and how to set up accounts. That way if people go to your page, the first post they'll see points them to where you are going. If you use your former digital space daily, then post the transition message daily. If you only do mass updates monthly, then post the transition message weekly.

    • Give folks a timeline and offer standing time to support folks in the transition. You can say “we’ll be moving to ______ by [DATE].” This gives people both a heads up and the time they need to set up a profile in the new place. Offer a time that you can help them do this if they’re struggling so they don’t feel alone in the transition.

    • Take and answer questions. People may have technical questions about where to download an app or they have have further questions about your decision and features of the new place (ie. will the new place have DMs like the old place?). Think through as many of these questions as possible and have an answer to them so you are prepared to respond. If you can put together an FAQ document that folks can easily access, that can help to reduce how many live questions you need to address. If there are questions that come up that you don’t have answers to, that’s ok! This is why we suggest training members next. 

  • We can’t expect all people to go ahead and join you in your new digital community space just because you told them to. While there is a chance of drop off, training your members on how to move to a new place with you is a way to ensure as many of them as possible move with you. Training can happen as often as they need to make sure you’re hitting the majority of your base. 

    Training should include: 

While this is a practical guide for people who are packing their digital bags to leave places like X for Bluesky, we can’t ignore the impact that places like X have on our lives. With Elon Musk installing himself as Trump’s right-hand man, Amazon and OpenAI donating millions to Trump’s inaugural fund, and Meta gutted fact checking to align with the new administration — Big Tech is more ingrained in our everyday lives and systems than ever before and not in ways that prioritize people in our communities. 

We have to understand that leaving X doesn’t get rid of the problems or the billionaires who own those platforms but don’t have our best interest in mind. We must still pay attention to them and find ways to fight the ideology & lies that get spread in those places and often turn into offline violence – in the streets or in the courts. And we must think: what have we learned from the harmful ways places like Facebook are run, that we don’t want to see in new places like Bluesky? There is an opportunity to influence new places so that all of our community building and organizing, no matter the issue, has safer digital homes.