My Use of Social Media Platforms

I stopped using Facebook to promote my blog posts (or for any other purpose) at the beginning of 2018, but I am using it again, selectively, now. I had several reasons for leaving, but the main one was FB's ridiculous censorship of non-sexual nudity. I'm a naturist (have been for about forty years), so there is a lot of nakedness (mine) in the poetry blog. By the way, a lot of progress has been made recently in normalizing nudity, and I think Facebook and Instagram are the only major platforms that still ban it. I've never used Instagram, but I post to FB if the illustrations don't contain nudity. The ones that do, especially the series Gymniad, Gymnós, and Gymnosophia, are mostly absent from FB.

While I was away from Facebook, my use of Twitter increased, and it was there that I first introduced posts in the Udugi language, with or without translations. It appears that I now have serious students of the language, most of whom are following me on Twitter. Except for that one subject, I usually get a bigger response from Facebook.

For years I have also posted on Ello. It's full of artists and designers, along with writers and photographers, and has a nice look. Unfortunately, its user base is small.

My poetry blog is hosted by blogspot, which is part of Google. All of my blog posts also appear in Google Plus.

Many years ago I used a platform called Tribe, which I liked, but it unfortunately no longer exists.

My recurring dissatisfaction with Facebook caused me to investigate other platforms. The best alternative I've so far found is JoinDiaspora. It appears to be based in Europe, and its user base, which is not huge, is mostly European. I've found most users there to be intelligent, cultured, and congenial, and it has now become a regular destination for my work.

I post under the following names/IDs on these platforms:

Google Plus: Don Traxler

Facebook: Donald Traxler

Twitter: @dtrax42

Ello: @dtraxler

JoinDiaspora: Donald Traxler

And of course, the entire contents of the blog, going back to early October of 2016, can be found here: donaldtraxlerpoetry.blogspot.com. I'm happy to say that the blog has now had more than 41,000 visits, from many countries.