Edit 2026-04-13: fix a typo, clarify some points

Asokuria and Social Media?

I don't use mainstream social media platforms - you won't find me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat. I was on Bluesky at one point, right around the time people migrated from Twitter, however that was years ago and it's now dormant. I don't really have a solid presence on the Fediverse, although maybe I'll change this one day. This site is my main public outlet.

I mostly rely on Matrix and Signal to keep in contact with acquaintances, friends, and family, however I am in talks with some other people who do not use these platforms about communication over Meshtastic or even RNS.

In any case:

Discord

I stopped using Discord on March 1st due to planned changes for the platform, in combination with (to me, at least) questionable limitations about the same. (Why is it that running harmless client-side JavaScript in a literal web browser can potentially get you removed from the platform?)

I didn't just leave without a trace. I informed communities that I was part of about what was going to happen nearly a whole month before I acted on it. I also added my MXID to my "About Me" section, so people could talk to me if they needed. Close friends who already had my phone number simply moved to Signal, as I had done this before a few years ago, on a short-term basis, for very different reasons.

Why did I move?

Like other people leaving the platform, I'm not happy with how its age verification systems are implemented. I personally believe that this shouldn't be enforced by the government or private companies, but by families. Even though Discord pushed back the implementation date (originally March 1st), they still plan to go through with it later in the year.

Other "fun" things, like client limitations as I briefly discussed earlier, and what seems to be lack of community control (like in new features that were actually hindrances) in the platform, also influenced my decision to move.

Fragmentation and Other Consequences

Nevertheless, particularly for larger communities where I was quite active, this caused some fragmentation:

• some people didn't quite get the memo, as some of my friends started forwarding messages from people asking where I had gone
• some people didn't want to even try another platform
• those that tried another platform stopped using it, likely due to the network effect,
• at least one community fully died out.

This brings up an interesting thought to me - there could be a threshold where people may be willing (or not) to use another platform to stay in contact with someone. If there is such a threshold, this reveals who crossed it.

Naturally, this massively opens up the possibility for one-sided relationships, where someone may only log in to the alternative platform only to request something. This is an unfortunate side effect that I am determining how to navigate.

A rant about Discord "Forums" and "Wikis"

By their very nature, Discord servers are not good examples of forums! Forums and wikis are normally accessible to anyone with a web browser, however to access the information in a Discord server, you often have to:

1. register for, or log into, a Discord account
2. find an invitation link for the server
3. (sometimes) pick "roles" to gain access to the rest of the server
4. (sometimes) introduce yourself (and wait to be approved) to gain access to the rest of the server

If you're just trying to find some information, like for a Minecraft mod for lack of a better example, these are often the steps you need to go through, particularly for new content. If you're unlucky enough to be blacklisted by Discord (account/IP bans), then that content is unavailable to you.

I think this is horrible!

Other aspects

I'd consider myself unique in this scenario for a few reasons:

• in many of my friend groups I seem to be the most technical-minded, therefore I tend to be a tech support representative for these groups. I only knew a few people who had similar interests (electronics, networking, etc) to me, with most of them living overseas,
• my mental health began to degrade significantly just before this happened, a side effect of this is that I do certain things much more freely than average people,

  *the NHS placed me on a long waiting list for therapy that will likely not work

• I'm neurodivergent

Respectively, this means:

1. I am in a position to help people get adjusted to the platform
2. Social relationships mean a lot to me, and yet also don't mean anything at all
3. I think very differently to the average person

I don't gain any benefit from publishing things like this, but if you want to discuss this/similar/whatever topic(s) with me, you can find contact information on the home page. Thanks for reading!