My experiences being 'Zooey' on Social Media, a year and a half recap.

[WinterGreenWolf]

Alright folks, so let's start off by saying that this thread is NOT meant as a way to persuade people to join, or leave social media, or a mass media source. If you are happy in your nook here, stay. If you want to branch out, try it. If you are already on Social Media and like it, good going mate. [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" title=":)" width="20" /> This thread is just going to contain some things to watch for, and what you may encounter.




    So let's start off by saying some of the good things here. I've established a decent following as a bold, 'out' Zoosexual on Social Media, I'm co-admin of a good sized, but still secretive Discord for the trusted Zoos that I've ran across in my time on SM (Twitter, Gab...). Some of these people have possibly made life-changing contributions to me, including reduction in social anxiety and nervousness about being 'doxxed' or any of that other foolishness. I've had my share of run-ins with Zoos, even people I didn't think that could be argumentative with: though, that said, I do occasionally have a polarizing personality.




    Social Media can be an easier way to form collaborations with fellow Zoos on community projects, and honestly for a lot of folks, Micro-blogging (Twitter, Gab, Mastodon Instances) are simpler than forums, but less diverse with conversational pieces: meaning it can be very difficult to make a point in say, 248 characters. There have been some interesting, and not so good things to come from this too, for instance, I've met up with a few fellow Zoos that I've known about for YEARS, but never had a platform to speak to them. A good example would be forum user <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/profile/6-kynophile/?do=hovercard" data-mentionid="6" href="<___base_url___>/profile/6-kynophile/">@Kynophile</a> .




    It was a few forum users here that convinced me to reach out on Twitter after joining my Discord. I've had run-ins with Doxxers, and someone who genuinely tried to cause a collapse in a growing community myself and others were forming. I think it's time we shift though, let's talk about some of the bad things you may encounter.




    Doxxers, and 'Antis': these particular types of people are who you'll run in to on SM, and they will often try to ruin you in any way possible.They will piece together personal information, and try to use it against you, or just harass you constantly. The 'antis' are the type who won't really discuss or debate, they will merely scream things like 'ANIMALS CAN'T CONSENT', rape, abuse, etc. If you want my advice, try to stick with Zoo circles or lock to Zoos specifically if you want to run an account on Social Media.




    The cults, these are comprised of both Antis and Zoos, some of the Zoo ones being worse. This is where one particular individual or small group of individuals will form a sort of 'worshiping' mentality: meaning if you criticizing someone they hold in high regard, or their leaders, you can expect backlash of epic proportions (there are two here that I've had encounters with, I shall not name them here because I'm not using this thread or forum to name drop). The individuals in question have been known to, and ARE likely (in one of their cases) still engaging in some pretty shady, and unethical activity. At least, unethical by our own community standards, point out these flaws though and you'll have an army of them on your back.




    The next one is censorship, a lot of the larger SM sites (Twitter, in my experience) are VERY censoring, if you stand up for yourself, or speak out against something or someone: be ready to get mass-reported. It's happened to me about three times, the last time it happened I said I was done with it, and still am. With Twitter in specific: you don't even need to be terribly 'out there' with what you say, they often will spam report something out of context, on numerous accounts to get you suspended.




    With Gab, the censorship isn't really there, but you do have some 'colorful' individuals there, and also, we don't have a large audience / traction there. It's not a bad platform, but does have it's downfalls. There's also the rumors / existence of Neo Nazi folks hanging out there, I've not experienced it too much myself however. The one thing I HAVE experienced though is a LOT of bugs, including making posts and actually editing posts. The 'Gab Chat' feature also doesn't work at all in Firefox.




    We're actually working our own Mastodon / Micro blogging client / instance, with some friends I've made on Twitter. We're putting forth the effort to make a Zoo, furry, therian, and otherkin specific space for everyone to talk and express their ideas. Likely will permit NSFW later, but for now it's SFW only. Another good platform for us to use is Keybase: end-to-end encryption, encrypted messages for specific people using digital signing, etc... pretty nice platform. Keybase also has up to 250 GB free file storage, and a public access directory for files that people can view.




    In conclusion, you can use techniques to make Social Media safe for you, but as a Zoo it's not the easiest of times, a bit stressful, but can lead to making great friends in all walks. Just be ready though, it's mentally EXHAUSTING, very taxing, and you do have to be looking over your shoulder constantly. I don't regret joining and giving it a go, I DO regret sticking it out as long as I did. The main problem is, even 'Zoos' can be faked there SO easily, and it's you and you alone that can protect you, unlike here where people can help look out for you, and specific rules placed to keep you safe.




    Even on our Zoo-centric Mastodon (Open Source Micro Blogging instance, think Twitter alternative but better) you are still going to need to watch yourself, and close in some cases. We'll work to moderate what we can, and I'll post the information here to it under Zoo Links when it's ready.




If you're interested, you can check me out at https://keybase.io/wintergreenwolf , you can also check out my public file store at https://keybase.pub/wintergreenwolf .




Thanks for taking the time to read folks. Remember, it's not impossible to reach out and make good Zoo Friends, but steer clear of the cults, and as many fetishists as you can. Also, BE, SAFE. If you don't feel comfortable, don't talk, give info, or do something that you're not sure about.




 

[HeartBeatOfTheBeast]

Excellent work, and Excellent post Winter. It's always nice to be able to discuss Zoo with people that have common interests on social media.

[WinterGreenWolf]

1 hour ago, HeartBeatOfTheBeast said:




Excellent work, and Excellent post Winter. It's always nice to be able to discuss Zoo with people that have common interests on social media.

This is very true, but, just remember to be safe.




 

[heavyhorse]

Informative and well put together.  :-)




However, as counterpoint, I consider Social Media to be the avowed enemy of all I hold dear, the source of damage second only to the Media Hounds (you referred to as "cults"), those few people who feel that creating public media spectacles on the network news is somehow in our best interest; that putting zoos in front of people will gain widespread acceptance, and waving "It worked for LGBT's" as a justification. 




As well as the fact that Social Media platforms are notoriously insecure, widely hacked, and designed to harvest personal information to identify individuals (for "targeted advertising" as they say).  And the "private" ones only remain so until the pedos and anarchists find them and the full resources of Gov't break them.   (The Boston bomber was prosecuted largely on the basis of "secure self-deleting" messages recovered 2 years later).  Once it's out there it's out there forever.  

[WinterGreenWolf]

41 minutes ago, heavyhorse said:




Informative and well put together.  :-)




However, as counterpoint, I consider Social Media to be the avowed enemy of all I hold dear, the source of damage second only to the Media Hounds (you referred to as "cults"), those few people who feel that creating public media spectacles on the network news is somehow in our best interest; that putting zoos in front of people will gain widespread acceptance, and waving "It worked for LGBT's" as a justification. 




As well as the fact that Social Media platforms are notoriously insecure, widely hacked, and designed to harvest personal information to identify individuals (for "targeted advertising" as they say).  And the "private" ones only remain so until the pedos and anarchists find them and the full resources of Gov't break them.   (The Boston bomber was prosecuted largely on the basis of "secure self-deleting" messages recovered 2 years later).  Once it's out there it's out there forever.  

Thanks, I tried to be informative.




I can agree with you here largely, of course the big thing with most of these media outlets is just to do that, to advertise and produce targeted ads as well as other shady shit.




For the private social media / Microbloggers, that largely depends on what you're doing, as well as who's in control of it. You're even taking risks with forums like this if I'm honest.




 

[silverwolf1]

4 hours ago, WinterGreenWolf said:




The 'antis' are the type who won't really discuss or debate, they will merely scream things like 'ANIMALS CAN'T CONSENT', rape, abuse, etc

That's what I call the 'harmless anti-zoo'. They are obvious, obnoxious trolls. There are none on this forum, yet on this forum ARE Anti-zoos, the SERIOUS kind, and I'll wager they're there too. They disguise themselves, quite convincingly, as "zoophiles" solely for the purpose of gaining your trust, your relaxation of personal security and personal information. Then they store it away for future use. Many are bestialists & abusers themselves, turning their own self-hate on others. Some the "Zooier-than-thou" trying to eliminate those they deem unfit. Most are just pathetic though, yet VERY DANGEROUS. Our most notorious "Anti-zoos" were not the "This is abuse" shouters, but those who appeared from among our own. Be careful.

5 hours ago, WinterGreenWolf said:




The cults, these are comprised of both Antis and Zoos, some of the Zoo ones being worse.

You'll find them (almost) everywhere in the community. I try to ensure they stay at bay in open forum here and encourage reporting of such behavior in private forum use. I don't like cliques, any cliques. It's hard to avoid them though, but easy to ignore them as you say.

5 hours ago, WinterGreenWolf said:




There's also the rumors / existence of Neo Nazi folks hanging out there,

If it's uncensored, it's bound to be a haven for all sorts of unsavory types. Be careful not to be lumped as we were on reddit.




sw

[AvianRaptor]

I hadn't heard of Keybase. Might see how it actually works, since I dislike most Social Media anyway...


I do am interested in the Mastodon stuff, but the backend stuff has to be very carefully chosen and discussed. For example, I am aware of two instances for Minor Attracted People, one is stable and explicitly anti-contact and with no porn, the other got suspended by providers for being more laissez-faire despite discouraging confessing to crimes, and I think no images. Due to zoo stuff being a legal gray area, all of the content you're willing to allow would probably have to be carefully considered.


By some accounts of events I've read before, I agree that zoos themselves seem to be the worst to other zoos, exactly because of trust issues. A number of antis have such a wild caricature of what zoos are actually like that they'd be completely useless for bringing non-psychological consequences.