Editor’s note: We are facing an unprecedented moment in American history. Our government and multinational technology monopolies have made it clear that our people are targets of the vast surveillance state they have built.The deep state seeks to imprison those who share meme, Blaze Media Journalist, and even leading presidential candidates. It’s time for us to take back control of our privacy and digital communications. This guide gives you the tools to do just that.This is an excerpt from a larger guide.
own your platform
Social media and platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are important tools for business and advertising. This allows small businesses, artists, and writers to leverage network effects and reach people they might not otherwise be able to reach. There is no need to stop using it. Be sure to understand the privacy risks. And most importantly, don’t rely on a company that lets you cancel at any time. Don’t trust Big Tech to have your best interests at heart. Make sure you control your content and own your own platform.
control content
First, make sure your important videos, writing, and sales content isn’t just stored on Meta, YouTube, and Vimeo. Save a copy of it on your site and offline on your hard drive. You don’t need to save every short, timely video you create, but be sure to save the ones that are core to your business. If it gets de-platformed for any reason, it can be booted immediately. Think of it this way. You want to back up your most important content to your hard drive. If your computer gets wet and breaks down, you need a backup drive so you can get a new computer and get back to work quickly. The same goes for online cloud-based systems. Please have a backup.
build your own site
If you run any kind of small business and don’t have your own website yet, you should build one right away and use it as the main hub of your activities. There, you’ll be able to host and manage all your most important content. . This doesn’t mean you should stop using social media like Facebook or Instagram to advertise or connect with customers, but you shouldn’t rely on it either. When searching for services, Facebook is often used as the website. This is not a good idea for many reasons. It may be difficult to access for those who don’t use Facebook. And if Facebook has a problem or goes out of service, like during the Australian power outage, your business will be completely dependent on it. Get your own site and encourage your customers and readers to register on your website. As many have pointed out, Facebook and Twitter followers are no match for email addresses.
You can build a site fairly quickly using Ghost, Squarespace, or WordPress. There are also services that can help.
Ghost
I use both WordPress and Squarespace and am in the process of migrating one of my sites to Ghost. I find Squarespace to be much easier and more intuitive than WordPress, which employs some new elements that make it easier to use and is a solid platform. If you like WordPress, give it a try. Ghost is also fairly easy to manage, but it’s not as intuitive as Squarespace, at least for me. But Ghost has built-in services to help you gather subscribers and monetize your content more easily. For example, instead of adding his Patreon account to the Squarespace site, Ghost has his own version of his Patreon. Balaji Srinivasan has several
useful guide Go to Ghost setup.
square space
I use Squarespace. i like it
I think it’s easy to useHowever, Squarespace may also arbitrarily deny service to users.
What about Substack?
You may have noticed that many people have migrated to Substack, including big names like Glenn Greenwald, Rod Dreher, and Bari Weiss. My friend Luke Burgis is there.
The idea of Substack is that instead of communicating through other platforms, with Substack people can subscribe to your newsletter directly and pay you money, and you can communicate directly with their address. That means you can get it. Substack says it has no intention of deplatforming people. Many people have controversial views, and Substack seems to condone them, but I would like to highlight people like Rod Dreher, who has orthodox Christian views on marriage and sexuality. Perhaps this will be the real test.
So Substack seems like a good option at the moment. We recommend having your own site and domain rather than a substack.com address. Ghost has similar subscriber functionality, and Squarespace and WordPress can also add subscriber functionality with plugins. But people seem to like it, so it might be worth considering. Whatever you do, there is always risk no matter what service you use, so try to have as much control as possible.
Big takeaway: You can own your content with the long-term goal of moving it to a decentralized application, making operations remote and difficult to cancel.
