Social media outages and Sovereignty

There’s a lot of dialogue surrounding today’s Facebook and Instagram outages, noticeably regarding self-sovereignty and self-agency outside of social media platforms. Turning off the lights, so to speak, on both major platforms, in some aspects has further highlighted power dynamics and subsequently shined a glaring light on the fact that the tools which many of us utilize to connect, to build, to organize, to advocate, to educate, to inspire can become inaccessible or eliminated at any point. That poses a larger question: If this occurs further down the line will the work you’re cultivating, whether that’s through social justice, racial justice, building community, creating art, launching a start-up, sustaining a small business, and more, what will the loss or impact look like without social media platforms and their associated tools such as Facebook and Instagram in place? Throughout the continuity of the current racial and social justice uprising, we’ve witnessed countless activists, communities, organizations, and leaders shadowbanned for speaking out and doing their respective work. This gives knowledge to the fact that the foundation and outreach within the work that any of us are creating cannot be rooted in platforms like Facebook and Instagram. I think this is an important time to reflect, reassess, shift and change how we choose to connect and operate, so that self-sovereignty is at the root.