While Federation may be a useful possible solution, keep in mind the potential pitfalls of what the average public may be doing. Swapping a major corporation with known motivations for an unknown Mastodon instance (for example) may just be trading for a different set of problems. Choosing a particular instance can not only be difficult, but finding one that will have some longevity and treat its users' data respectfully can be spotty.  As an example, at the end of February the Mashable article "Mastodon has an instance for Everyone" (from 2017-04-15) only 3 of the 9 Mastodon instances it links to are still up or actually still Mastodon (others are spam, random WordPress, or NSFW squatters).