Not In My Name

This blog, Illugination.com, has long been a hub for my experiments–wether in terms of animation, drawing, stories, or findings. I wanted a space where to deeper develop thoughts, researches, and where to open up the dialog with fellow curious people (hello, you!).

I found out about Ghost, soon discovering that they were working on an integration with ActivityPub, the protocol on which the Fediverse works. Honestly that made all the difference. Imagine you leave a comment under this post and I can reply you back from the Instagram-equivalent on the Fediverse! They also offer the option to set up paid subscriptions, which makes Ghost a valuable alternative to Patreon, with the difference that they don't take any fee on incoming payments (the revenue is all yours). Moreover, their servers are based in Europe.

Quickly after discovering Ghost, I've signed up for a Mastodon account: the X-equivalent on the Fediverse. There are several instances (servers) to choose from, I picked the official one (mastodon.social) because, to be honest, at the beginning I had no idea on what criteria I should have chosen a different one. So far, I'm happy with my choice (despite I've starting to experience some spam). Why did I open a X-equivalent account if I was previously not much active on Twitter/X? Mainly because what I found in Mastodon is a real social environment, the way social media were in the early days, when you’d connect with people and exchange thoughts and knowledge for the sake of being kind to each other. This is at least the experience I’m having so far, and I love it.

Tips for newcomers to Mastodon, by Ksenia Ermoshina, PhD in socio-economy of innovation and researcher at the Center for Internet and Society (thanks Ksenia for the permission to share your words):

"First tip is to carefully choose the instance: find one which is close to your culture and values. Also, use alt text, content warning, take care of others. Boost other people's toots. Support each other. Use hashtags and explore hashtags. Find time to curate your feed (timeline). Explore the options of filters to decide what you do not want to see. Invite your loved ones to Fediverse, and follow each other."

I reactivated my Signal account, and started to inform close family members I will soon leave WhatsApp. I haven’t done so yet because I’d be chatting only with my mum, my sister, and Roberta basically. Last week I've asked my teammates from The Toy Library to move our group chat over to Signal and their reaction was the one of a crew ready to sail: thanks, ladies–you're amazing! For the other people in my life, I have a message in my notes ready to be sent and intended to inform them of my reasons why, with the hope they will follow along too.

Does the idea of being cut out from conversation worries me? To be honest, a bit. I mean, I believe my close friends and family will eventually switch (note: I'm Italian living in France, I rely on messaging platforms to keep in touch with distant loved ones). However, what about local community groups, school parents groups, and my son's hip-hop group? I guess I will either let go, or find a bridge to keep an access to WhatsApp without contributing to their unethical purposes. I haven't found a solution yet.

Note: In case you grew concerns about Signal due to the recent buzz on leaking information about war plans, we should all first understand the difference between privacy and security. Messages on Signal are end-to-end encrypted, meaning only the recipient you send the message to can read it (not even Signal itself could). In the above scandal, the US Secretary of Defence manually added The Atlantic editor-in-chief to their group chat on war plans. That's stupidity, not a Signal-related security issue.

When I realised the way I relied on Google services was beyond embarrassing (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Business, Google Analytics, Google Authenticator, and I am surely forgetting something), with everything linked to a single login, I had to do something. It's not even about the amount of data they can access about me–one could argue 'who cares, I have nothing to hide', nor do I–but it's the dependency I had from a single corporation that made me understand they could switch off anytime and my digital life would be taken down basically. Or my login credentials could be hacked, and all my data would be at risk.

After a bit of research, I picked Proton Privacy for their Mail and Calendar products. Proton is a Switzerland based non-profit providing open-source software. I'm still unsure wether I'll use Proton as my cloud provider too, since I would like to avoid to switch from relying on a single player to another one. Moreover, a big downside: as of today, their iOS app lacks a search feature.

Whether or not I will choose Proton for their cloud storage, I don't want to put all of my eggs in one basket and I would feel safer having my device photo sync'd somewhere else. Also, storage on Proton seems quite pricey (500Gb with the Unlimited plan, extendable to up to 3Tb for more than double the price).

I discovered Ente when looking for 2FA app alternative to replace Google Authenticator, and I chose it as I found it to be the better-rated option out there. Just recently, Ente.io released their Ente Photo app–and it looks incredible. I'm still trying it out, but every time I look for a feature I actually find it. It is so reassuring to use an app that does just what they say–backing up device photos–and does it wonderfully. If you want to try it out and get 10 extra Gb for free, you can use this code: E3U4AG (not affiliated, works for both of us upon purchase of a paid plan, and sharing is caring).

Need one last reason to immediately stop syncing your (and your family's) photos to Google? Here it is: theyseeyourphotos.com

Back to cloud providers. Since I haven't made a final decision on storage quite yet, I'm also trying Filen out. They're Germany-based and seem to have a good and convenient offering. However, despite providing a macOS app, they don't have a file system integrated with the Finder, which doesn't really fit my habits (and habits are difficult to change, this article is all about that). Anyway, if you want to try it out, with this link you can have 10 additional Gb for free (not affiliated, I get the same for up to 3 new users, and sharing is caring).

Short mention for Nextcloud, an open-source solution that seems really promising in terms on privacy but (and probably because of) it requires self-hosting. At the moment I don't quite feel–nor I have the time to learn and become–technical enough for embarking myself on this journey. But it might be the good choice for you, so it's worth mentioning.

Lastly, I've recently joined Pixelfed, the Instagram-equivalent in the Fediverse. I wanted to showcase my artistic projects and I applied for a pixelfed.art account. Here it is: pixelfed.art/@illugination.

Last week I've deleted all my Instagram posts and stated that I am leaving for the Fediverse, and why. I am not closing the account yet because I hope it can still be helpful for those searching information on the topic, and for my contacts to learn where to find me. But I will eventually delete it, soon or late. I don't want to contribute to Meta's figures by counting in their user base.

At the moment, I'm in the process of migrating my old Instagram account, the one I used in the early days (2012-2015), to a new Pixelfed.social account. It holds cherished memories and I'm planning to move it over to the Fediverse–the procedure is quite simple but it hasn’t worked for me yet. I’ll keep trying, and mostly counting on future releases. As soon as it's done, I'll delete that account too.

While it’s been years I happily rely on the Affinity suite for most of my design needs (I'm a freelance designer and illustrator), I've developed growing concerns regarding their acquisition by Canva. I might soon be exploring other less-monopolised tools.

Work-wise, I’m still looking for an alternative to Adobe Acrobat (I’ve asked the help of the Fediverse community, let’s see if someone has a good plan). Also, I must say I quite haven’t found a photo editing software as powerful as Photoshop yet, especially after they introduced AI-powered tools. I must admit I had made use of content aware fill and generate with AI features for photo editing purposes in the past, but the AI ethical aspects are for me still widely controversial and deserve to be addressed separately, most likely in another article.