PAULA SHEENE AND MEWE SOCIAL NETWORK. A COMPETITOR TO FACEBOOK?

I’m afraid I’ve been terribly remiss! My friend Paula Sheene was kind enough to interview me about one of my books, EATS AND TREATS: CATERING FOR COUCH POTATOES. (You can find Paula’s website at https://paulandpaulasbooks.wordpress.com/)

I suppose I have an excuse. Finally I made the decision to get out of Facebook. That left me looking for another social media site. Well, not so much just another social media site, but one that does not create billionaires of the backs of decent people, by selling their lives to all and sundry. (And that includes government agencies!)

And so eventually I found MeWe. This is where I have replicated our Writers, Authors, and Readers social media page. I must say that not many people have yet to come over from Facebook, but it’s early days yet and I do understand that it must be very difficult for people to bring their friends and family, and sometimes thousands of followers over from one social media site to another.

That, as they say, is the rub. But then I think of what happened to MYSPACE. I wonder if anyone remembers MYSPACE. It was actually pretty decent! Good music from fine young musicians, lots of interesting stuff! But… Facebook just seemed to grow. It grew into a monster, making Mark Zuckerberg incredibly rich. Only when you think about it do we begin to understand that this billionaire is selling YOU! Of course I’m sure that most people realize that on Facebook you are a product. This makes Mark Zuckerberg a people trafficker. Yes, he traffics in you. Everything you say, everything you do, your credit card details, your personal information, even your facial recognition! Facial recognition? Biometrics! But then, he really has everybody on Facebook suckered! Perhaps one day he might change his name to Mark Suckerberg!

Well, that’s it for me on Facebook, because I’m not actually there anymore. I’m sure Mr Zuckerberg has sold a great deal of me to a great many organizations and government agencies. How did I ever think that I was coincidentally getting emails from property companies, electronics businesses, banks, and even those government agencies?

I’m a writer. I work from my imagination. When I began to write my new novel, and doing the research, I suddenly understood how insidious, how dangerous this kind of business model is. By agreeing to the terms and conditions, which hardly anyone ever reads, you have agreed to let Facebook do whatever the hell they like with you, your posts, your information, and all your personal details. You have done so willingly.

So I did this research about MeWe. What I found impressed me. (Not to mention the fact that TIM BERNERS-LEE, the man who it is said invented the Internet, appears to support it. That is good enough for me!)

Before I go any further, I must thank Paula Sheene for being one of the first of my friends to come over to the new page. I do hope many more either leave Facebook permanently, or use MeWe as an adjunct. I know what many people are going to ask. “How then does MeWe make any money? After all, Mark Zuckerberg makes his money by selling people. MeWe does not. It works on a simple system which they call freemium. So what is freemium?

As it was explained to me by Laura, an employee of MeWe, freemium embraces a model which allows users to purchase extra features. For example, you can buy more bandwidth, (you don’t have too, you may not need to, but the facility is there.) I haven’t been there long, but I do like the mass of features. If you want to make a post by voice, you can do so! It is actually a very handy little feature.

It’s going to take a while, and, there is a possibility of failure. For me though, right at this moment I’m very happy with it. There are masses and masses and masses of books sites. There are pages for readers, there are pages for writers, there are pages for editors, proofreaders, and pretty much everything to do with publishing. Some, I admit content to be a little boring because they are nothing but cover pages for people’s books. And many of those cover pages certainly would not be permitted on Facebook as there are occasions where a little too much leg or perhaps a nipple might be showing. However, you can see the same thing in any bookshop.

I did read a “review” page on MeWe and was quite surprised at some of the reviews. Some stating that it was a hotbed of far right and alt. right neo nazis or something. Frankly, as a socialist (no dear NOT a communist!) I have been very pleasantly surprised at the lack of hate speech, and the entire lack of political views, so I guess those people saw something that I have not. After all, why would I step from the frying pan into the fire? Those reviewers should probably be questioned as to their reasons because honestly I can’t find what they claim to be so prevalent.

Anyway, I better be getting on. Thank you so much to Paula Sheene for the beautiful write-up and the interview. I so appreciated it. I hope in the near future when a few things have been taken off my plate that I will be able to reciprocate. Oh! I almost forgot, if you come over to MeWe and join our writers authors and readers page you can still post your links, your blogs and your books so that they can be placed on the website. So, why not come and join us. You don’t have to leave Facebook yet, it can be a slow process, and you may want to stay! Just remember there is always an alternative. An alternative which gives you the freedom NOT to be sold as a product to all comers simply to enrich even further Mark Zuckerberg.