I’ve been getting into automotive photography, been doing it for my own interests for years, but as of late, I’ve been wanting to grow out of it, go it a little more “pro-hobbiest” level and be able to share publicly.
I’ve tried posting on other social medias like 500px or pixelfed, but no one knows what these are, and people quickly lose interest when I don’t give them a Instagram handle or something familiar, especially as where I live everything is IG, so as it stands, the only way I share is in person, face to face and hope people are happy for me to text/email them links to a proton drive, and that goes about as smoothly as you’d imagine, so with that in mind, I’d like to try and see if there is a way I can run a IG account with privacy in mind.
I have a old LG G8s Thinq that I was considering putting another OS on and use only with either home internet or hotspot off of my main phone, use the LG only for Instagram and having all my images stripped of metadata before posting, but wondering what other tips people have in mind if they had to do this themselves. I understand that with anything Meta, true privacy is pretty much impossible, so a good enough solution is well, good enough.
Much appreciated!
Pixelfed is nice, but there is very little traction there, but as my aim isn’t to gain global followers or gain any fame, I am not fussed with posting somewhere that would garner that attention, instead a more portfolio like, easily shareable and understood amongst the masses media that could also be a way for someone to reach out if they wished. I plan on posting to both and promote the pixelfed on IG in the future if I go down that route too. Separate hardware for the 1 task of posting and occasional interaction seems to be the way, I am hesitant on a VPN though as long in the past I tried making and running an account while only on a VPN, and within minutes the account got shut down due to “suspicious activity”, which required a pic of me and government ID to unlock the account, and I haven’t touched meta since, with or without VPN.
Use the same country for the VPN as you’re in. Same or neighboring state in the US. And then stay on that server. There is always a risk. I decided I would bail on the account if they ever wanted more from me. 2y in and knocking on wood.
Pixelfed is really a lean back experience so engagement will be lower. You can just go for a Mastodon account and you’ll be able to promote it on Pixelfed; they will just miss out on all text only posts for the time being.