Maybe you’re one of the few people who trust the major tech giants. After all, they’ve been trying to clean up their act lately. They might even mean it this time.

Even so, here’s a question:

Do you trust the insane intersection between tech giants and Luddite lawmakers?

I only ask because I heard something… concerning. State lawmakers – I want to say New South Wales, but it hardly matters – are talking about legislation that makes companies liable for what people comment on their Facebook pages.

Let’s unpack that a little. You run a business that has a Facebook page. Some random, soil-guzzling parasite writes something defamatory on your page. You are, by some stretch of law and logic, liable.

I’d say it’s be easy to wipe out any business by hiring an army of trolls to spew bile from their page. But what a hilarious idea – as if you’d need to make any effort. The trolls will find their way without you.

Resist the urge to nitpick this particular incident.

“That law will change before it comes into effect.”

“Businesses can moderate their pages.”

“Well actually, in practice, it won’t work like that because of obscure technical reasons maybe.”

Whatever.

The fact anyone had this idea means governments have given up trying to understand social media. They just want to bodyslam it.

Luckily, the internet has an escape hatch. You can dodge this (which is only the latest in a loooong line of existential crises for social media) by taking your readers off-platform.

Because if they’re on your email list, you’re golden.

No platform can suppress your messages because you didn’t please the algorithm.

No lawmaker with spare time and a third of a clue can come after you.

Even if the commercial email providers of the world blacklist you, you could set up your own server today. So long as you can connect to the internet, you can email.

I dunno, I guess the choice is yours. You could stick with a platform that is still suffering teething pains decades later.

Or you could send messages that’ll actually reach their inboxes.

Now, maybe you’re getting amazing results with social media. If so, well done to you. Seriously, I’m impressed. You’ve somehow gotten the platform to work for you – despite the fact they try their darnedest to keep your content from your readers.

Algorithms, am I right?

It makes me wonder what someone so talented could do when all you have to avoid is being marked as spam.