Fonts In Use is not active on Instagram
We’ve abandoned problematic platforms, embraced ethical alternatives, and survived to talk about it.
The Fonts In Use staff was never especially enthusiastic about maintaining our account on Instagram. The platform is antithetical to so much of the what we love on the web: hyperlinks, web feeds (e.g., RSS), advanced search, chronological timelines, archival functionality, cross-references, citations and proper credits, web standards, semantic formatting, and direct community connections, with freedom from corporate intermediaries and their agendas – the Open Web at its best.
We sincerely appreciate the 28,000+ people who’ve followed our account on Instagram, but the benefit of “being where the eyes are” has involved compromises that are increasingly incompatible with our staff’s values. It’s been almost a year since our last post on Instagram, and we wanted to explain why here, publicly.
Rejecting passive complicity
There are legitimate questions about whether Instagram is even an effective platform for sharing design anymore, but – more significantly – there are deeper moral considerations about the platform that can’t be ignored. Instagram and its parent company, Meta, have been involved in countless issues related to the invasion of privacy, psychological manipulation, unauthorized surveillance, corporate fraud, employee exploitation, security breaches, censorship, negative environmental impacts, copyright infringement, moderation negligence, and conscious facilitation of everything from housing discrimination to literal genocide.
It can be easy to forget or disregard all these issues while scrolling through a timeline of enjoyable posts from people you like. Surely, casually browsing photos of your friends or sharing some small design item doesn’t have anything to do with genocide, right? Meta has carefully engineered its experience to manipulate its users, and depends on this kind of passive complicity from otherwise critically minded people to maintain its stronghold via the network effect. Their power is dependent on a massive user base continuing to use their platform without thinking too hard about the consequences on a larger scale.
It’s too much for us. Fonts In Use can’t justify supporting such a morally corrupt company with more content, energy, or attention.
Doing what feels right
Discontinuing our activity on Instagram matches a broader ethos at Fonts In Use where we try our best to operate the project in a way we feel good about, even if doing so risks the possibility of a bit more work, a smaller operating budget, or a reduced audience. We’re proud to exist as proof that you can operate a successful, sustainable organization without relying on so many of the dystopian companies and technologies many people accept as necessary evils these days. We don’t claim to be perfect but – if you’ll pardon the cliché – we’re trying to be the proverbial change we want to see in the world.
That mindset has led to other significant changes for Fonts In Use over the years:
- We stopped using Twitter, despite having tens of thousands of followers there, and embraced decentralized, non-corporate social media with Mastodon.
- We cut the use of third-party cookies and scripts from our website.
- We moved our website analytics away from Google and onto a privacy-friendly, self-hosted system.
- We rejected sponsorship from companies we find problematic.
While some of these decisions make our work trickier, there are also notable practical benefits:
- Our content and relationships with our community aren’t beholden to the whims of egomaniacal billionaires.
- Visiting our website doesn’t require annoying consent pop-ups.
- Our website loads faster.
- Our readers’ privacy is secure.
- We sleep better at night.
Best of all: despite abandoning all those practices accepted by many as inevitable compromises, Fonts In Use still has a stronger audience now than it ever has, by almost all metrics. More people visit the site more frequently, looking at more pages, and clicking more external links to sponsors, designers, and independent font companies than ever. Who knew removing unsavory variables from your online presence may actually be good for business?
Push the status quo
As with Twitter and Google, we don’t expect our discontinued activity on Instagram will have any immediate effect on that company’s behavior or bottom line. But maybe other designers reading this will reconsider how they manage their own content and relationships online, or be more proactive in removing toxic dependencies from their occupation. Maybe it will reduce the influence of predatory corporations on the world of typography just a little bit. One thing is certain: unless more people push against the status quo, the grip of horrible corporations will only become tighter and tighter.
If you’re considering a similar move away from questionable social media platforms, there’s no better time than the present. Even if you don’t completely leave those platforms, you can always start building up an independent presence in tandem – on a decentralized social network, your own website, and/or an email newsletter – where you control your own content and aren’t trapped by any one gatekeeper to maintain connections with your community.
In the meantime there are several ways to keep up with what’s new at Fonts In Use:
- Subscribe to any of our many RSS feeds: for all posts, staff picks, comments, just the blog, or any tag, designer, contributor, format, user-curated set, category, etc. (most listing pages on the site have corresponding RSS feeds).
- Follow us on Mastodon.
- Sign up for our upcoming email newsletter.
19 Comments on “Fonts In Use is not active on Instagram”
A smart, classy move. Thank you.
Thank you.
I’ve been thinking about leaving Instagram myself. This just might be the final inspirational push I needed. Going on a newsletter subscription spree. Thank you!
So many of my own thoughts bundled up in this candid and convincing piece. I will be linking to it at some point in the future from my own site/newsletter. In the meantime, you’ve earned yourselves a 'boost’ on mastodon.
Some will claim that corporate social media and dark patterns are required to reach an audience and get them coming back. Fonts In Use has proven that’s not true.
I understand the draw to IG, when it feels like that’s where everyone else is. But it’s not worth handing the keys of your future over to Meta. Put it on the web!
As a long time (decades?) rss subscriber (and maybe hopefully one day contributor), this only makes me more of a fan !
I wish I could say more, but it feels like you’ve already said it all. Thank you so much for your work, integrity, and dedication. I’ve lost count of how often I’ve called Fonts In Use the most valuable design resource, with an outstanding team and archive. Thank you
Respect!
Deep respect for your move!
yes! i still miss the classic google reader where all my rss feeds were aggregated. would much rather read an email newsletter for sure. thank you for writing this article!!
You’re doing it right. Keep it up!
Standing 100% in support of these decisions!
ABSOLUTELY ALL OF THIS! I stopped posting on Instagram in 2023 because of this, an ever changing algorithm that got me les and less views, it felt pointless trying to keep up with all these “TRENDS” just to be seen.
I’ve always loved and have been using this site a reference for years. This only makes me believe even more in you and support you. This feels close to when the internet began, we didn’t have to be sobs cared and freaked out as we have to be now. I love you Fonts in use
Love this and it’s what the IndieWeb is all about. Taking back the internet and not buying into what social platforms are selling—your data.
Much respect! This why you are my favorite font website.
A belated respect. I remember being overjoyed some years ago when discovering that you’re on the Fediverse. Thank you – and wish all the staff a happy new year! Hope the resolutions haven’t fallen off yet :)
Well done. Thank you also for this extremely well-articulated post on the “why” of taking this step.
I agree with many of the comments here that this ethical stand makes you – and by association, all of us – better for it.
I personally shut down all of my social media accounts a few years ago. Haven’t missed it for a moment.
True integrity.