If you want private messaging decentralized, there is Matrix. If you don't mind, there is Signal or Threema.
Fediverse
A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).
If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to !moderators@lemmy.world!
Rules
- Posts must be on topic.
- Be respectful of others.
- Cite the sources used for graphs and other statistics.
- Follow the general Lemmy.world rules.
Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration)
I deleted it and have no regrets, I couldn't even say what I want without hearing someone from my family and I don't care what crazy shit my family has to say I don't even like them
I keep using Facebook to keep up with family and friends I don’t see all the time. I also use marketplace. I maintain a group of family members where I post jpgs of raw family photo scans I host (moving the raws to Immich at the moment). Other than that I occasionally post a funny thing from Lemmy as a “still alive” post.
Akkoma and probably others like Misskey I assume do have follower-only posts and they do get used by some people who like to communicate with a small group and otherwise keep things private.
I use it for fam and friends, special interest groups, and local events. It’s still a useful platform if you curate it well. It just takes effort. And Firefox plugins.
Kinda sounds like you might like Mastodon then.
friendica, diaspora, and hubzilla all have groups/circles/aspects/whatever you wanna call it for post sharing privacy and are solid feature rich platforms in general
I have still my FB account, messenger and whatsapp. I refuse to sign up for Instagram, which is a little awkward because so many in my generation use it...
I try to occasionally be connected but I do it through Beeper so that I don't need the battery-draining data-zucking apps on my phone, since it interacts via a Matrix bridge hosted for me.
Why does the fediverse not have a privacy control to limit who can see and interact with your posts?
It does. The Fediverse is more than Mastodon and Lemmy.
Especially Hubzilla and (streams) with their advanced permissions systems provide what you're looking for and more. Only downsides are the learning curves ((streams)' learning curve is not exactly shall, Hubzilla's is steeper), UIs that don't look like they were made in 2024 from venture capital and a total lack of native mobile apps (you can install both as PWAs, though).