I’ve had a Twitter account since 2007. I’ve no-joke learned a lot over the years of usage; I recall the hell Kathy Sierra — an early pioneer of technical training — went thru there, and elsewhere, an early victim of doxxing from what would become the Alt-Right. I remember the job in discovering Kevin M. Kruse, who wrote an American Political History, in Twitter form, including deep documentation on how the GOP embraced White Supremacy, over and again, for decades prior to Nixon.
That opened my eyes to so-called Academic Twitter, which was paralleled by Black Twitter, and so many other, marginalized and otherwise lessor-heard, voices. Perspectives I’d never have caught, I fear, had I not been on the platform.
As much as this space has, too, taught me a lot, these Twitter folx have educated me on issues from the diversity of living while Trans, to the current situations in Iran. That’s their work, their lives, they are putting out there. And it’s not just “for free,” it’s frequently a life where they are all at risk of the kinds of issues Sierra went thru, coming on a decade and a half, now. Be it from groups of assholes, or asshole governments — or both.
So no, Twitter was never “just” a cesspool. It was never just a place to pull quotes and opinions for a Front Page story here, for me. Nor did I use it to track what my ideological opponents were doing of the day. It was a place, primarily, to listen to people who I’d never hear from otherwise.
Even as unsafe as Twitter truly can be.
And then, as of this time, yesterday:
Just before midnight Thursday, Musk tweeted, “the bird is free,” and with that, all hell broke lose—or at least a little bit of fresh hell.
One Twitter user responded with, “Currently belong celebrated by thousands of Musk supporters shouting the N-word all over the platform.” And a simple search of the word proves this, not to mention the responses to this tweet alone.
I already had plans around the moment Musk took ownership. These plans were based upon not only the usual reporting on Musk, but the views into the echo chambers, both online and off, that follow and influence him, now. And, perhaps more critically, the well documented racism and sexism at Telsa.
And so, I have left Twitter.
This was not a quick decision. I had a massive blocklist set up over a decade+, who had 3rd Party tools like MegaBlock to help remove miscreants from my view, there. And yet, my mental and emotional capacity would be at risk, now, staying in such a space.
Just as Mz. Sierra’s was, way back in the day. Just as so many have been — and with Musk, it seems likely are now at far worse risk.
As is, frankly, civil discourse and even democracy. Even though Musk far overstates the overall impact of Twitter, he recognizes — in his ego-stroked way — how it frames conversations across the world.
As much as Musk fired the CEO over ego, I’m sure he fired Gadde — a South Asian Woman — because how dare a Woman of Color try to corral the very voices that prop up his ego! Voices that, of course, go on to further spread their filth elsewhere.
He’ll revel in his powers, and the chaos, for a time. But the big advertisers are already skittish.
They, like most of us, know that you have to chose the words, and worlds, you’re open to. And Musk’s belief that he’s open to everything, will spell naught but disaster for too many already hard-pressed by this world.
Truly, Open Thread — no need to stroke Musk’s ego further than this likely does!
Shalimar
I hear Tesla is working on a massive battery that does nothing but power Musk’s 24/7 ego-stroking machine.
Jerry
I follow so many great people over there soI use it more of an easy-to-access feed and I’m not sure where else I can get. Mastodon could be OK, but so far I’ve encountered nothing but a bunch of uninteresting randos over the past 5 or 6 years.
citizen dave
An interesting post, thank you MisterDancer. I joined twitter a few years ago under an alias. In fact I’m on Instagram, twitter and facebook with three different aliases. I’ve never been clear as to what twitter is “for”, or even how it works. It seems like an electronic roll of the dice in that each time I sign on, the algorithm gens up some amount to tweets for me to read. I have discovered many interesting people there. But at the end of the day, it’s just an electronic bulleting board. The barriers to entry (to me) to creating a bulletin board still seem relatively low, and if enough people decide to go elsewhere, elsewhere we will go. As Adam says, slowly at first, and then all at once.
I think there is either a jackal or jackal-adjacent here who is very anti-Musk/Tesla, and I really enjoy reading his tweets (I follow him on the twitter). Musk seems very much like a con artist to me, so it would not surprise me to see much of his empire crash.
MisterDancer
@Jerry: I have some solutions to Keeping Track of Twitter I’m using, personally. If there’s interest I can do a follow-up post.
The big caveat is a lot of them take either money, or technical knowledge and patience.
different-church-lady
We need to remember: no matter how bad things get, right now a lot of very clever people are resolutely dedicating all their effort towards making it worse.
Spanky
@Shalimar: I hope it catches fire and consumes everything connected to it.
artem1s
I already started seeing a lot of questionable stuff in the days leading up to EM taking over that sealed the deal for me. I’m curious about trying out other platforms like Mastodon. If I don’t find something that is usable, I’ll just delete my account or stop using it altogether the way I have Faceplant. Right now I’m leaning toward deletion mostly because the twitcultists who are screeching about how we must stay and fight EM. Not interested in playing the codependent game of exposing myself to toxic waste in an effort to change something that’s never going to get fixed.
different-church-lady
@citizen dave: In the days of flip phones and texting character limits Twitter started off as a good way of communicating with large groups of people by text efficiently.
And then, just like everything else, the monkeys figured out you could use that femur bone as a club and…
different-church-lady
@Spanky: That’s kinda more like what Twiiter is, no?
MisterDancer
(ETA: see also different-church-lady’s comment!)
The reason Twitter has so many diverse voices is the one that most people think is silly — the posting limit.
Twitter was designed in an era where flip phones were the norm; the iPhone came out the same year! So that original posting limit is also the limit of an SMS message, and I was among many who posted to Twitter on my flip phone, via SMS — not the Internet.
As I recall, that also made Twitter a key aspect of the Arab Spring; they could take down the Internet, but text messages could, in some cases, still get to Twitter.
So a lot of communities with iffy Internet access — and people with even less time — gravitated to Twitter because of its ease of posting access. That gave Twitter an anchor in those communities that took years for other services, like Facebook, to even try to overcome.
This is part of why I posted what I did, actually. Twitter matters, but it’s critical to see its use thru other eyes, to think outside the boxes of Yet Another Online Forum. I truly don’t know how a different service will provide what Twitter did in this climate, but I’m open to see what comes next.
Tony G
@Shalimar: Wow! I think that the laws of physics would make the implementation of that battery impossible. It will be interesting to see them try, though.
Starfish
@artem1s: The instances of Mastodon that I have found have not been great. You need critical mass to have something of value. The journalists bring a lot to Twitter. What is surprising about the current set of social media companies is how long they have lasted. Mostly, a new thing happens every ten years.
BigJimSlade
After this and the attack on Pelosi’s husband (and it was meant to be Pelosi), we need to renew some some monetary pressure on the advertisers. Who advertises on Fox and Twitter that we can get the word out and boycott?
CliosFanBoy
Kruse’s threads are very interesting, but they’d have been a LOT easier to read as an old-fashioned blog post.
Lyrebird
Dear MisterDancer,
Here’s at least one vote for a follow-up post. TBH the reason I opened the comments part of your post today is to ask if you had any suggestions. I have learned a huge amount from twitter posts from PopeHat and some of the justice reform people he retweets, from IAmChanteezy and a bunch of KHive greats, from MangyJay, and now of course from the Ukrainian armed forces.
Of course you should take care of your equilibrium whether or not it helps any other BJ readers! But yes, if you want to write a follow-up post, I would be eager to read it.
Tenar Arha
Last spring I tried out Mastodon, & I like it. But, there’s one thing—I don’t want to leave anything behind if I leave Twitter. Anyone know how to delete all Tweets, Retweets, Likes, etc without having to pay anyone, or having to do it manually in batches?
J R in WV
@Tenar Arha:
Surely if you delete your account, all that will go with it? Or am I being naive again? I guess I am….
BruceFromOhio
Sounds Twitter left you. Thank you for sharing your journey.
Tom Levenson
@MisterDancer: I’d like to know. I track your experience on Twitter. I got on in around 2008 or 9 because Carl Zimmer told my class I was an idiot for not doing so, because that was how authors communicated with their readers. I’ve learned a ton from much the same sources you list. And I’ve screeded plenty myself.
I downloaded my Twitter archive last week, and am prepared to pull the plug, though for now I’m just dialing back, becoming a more of a lurker. But I don’t see how that lasts much longer, and would love to know how to keep tabs without providing Musk with any content that increases the valuation.
Kay
I liked Twitter- I never posted but I made an account to read. But I closed it. I just don’t want any part of any of Elon Musk’s companies. I think he’s a fraud and I don’t want to buy his products, either with time or money.
I think Twitter is most valuable to people who are selling their work – so substackers, podcasters and traditional media people either boosting their careers or selling books.
I’m going to take the advice of all the savvy media people who say “Twitter isn’t real life” and do more “real life” – which of course excludes savvy media people, who also are not “real life” :)
narya
One person I follow has moved to Discord (and my younger tech-savvy nephew says it’s the platform he uses most), but I’m sorta waiting to see where the rest of the people I follow move. (I did set up the Discord thing.) I’ve always been quite selective in terms of what I read/follow, especially on the bird app; I’ve learned a lot, as you say, and I find it useful for things like following the live-tweeting of some events (e.g., trials of various J6 defendants). I will wait to see what happens, but I suspect I will be following in your footsteps.
MisterDancer
@Tenar Arha: As others have noted, deleting your account will do this.
Note that it will NOT remove copies on Google/etc.
MisterDancer
I have to step away for a bit, and I’ll work on that follow-up — thanks for the feedback!
brendancalling
I left Twitter a year or so ago, after realizing it only existed to make me angry. I’ve also all but dropped Facebook, which I only use for gig announcements.
No way am I going back to Twitter, and I’ll continue—with the exception of IG, because I like pictures—to stay off social media.
Amir Khalid
Right now, I’m watching Barack Obama give a stump speech for Democratic candidates in Georgia. He’s as awesome as ever.
jeffreyw
I have no plans to leave Twitter. It is easy to post pictures and short video. I hope it loses Musk a lot of money, but if he tries to get money from me in order to use it I will bail.
Block and mute, block and mute
I do not understand why some folks seek out aggravation in order to proclaim how aggravated they are. There is good stuff to look at.
Bad stuff?
Just scroll on by.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid: I loved the way he started. “The first order of business is to find out who scheduled me to speak after a Baptist preacher.”
schrodingers_cat
@jeffreyw: Same here. No plans to leave Twitter. I don’t believe in ceding ground just before the midterms. I love Twitter. I have learned a lot from the black voices and the anti-caste voices I follow.
I have learned a lot about India’s history from Indian historians and writers who do Twitter threads and YouTube videos debunking BJP-RSS propaganda machine. I followed closely assembly elections in various states by listening to Spaces discussions.
And also learned a lot history of the parts of the Maharashtra beyond Mumbai and Pune.
The best thing on Twitter for me is Marathi Twitter. It helps me keep in touch the language dearest to my heart. I can tweet in Marathi and interact with those who tweet in Marathi. It was an unmoderated part of Twitter even before Musk came into picture. It is too small for even for Indian RWNJ trolls to bother with most of the time. And when they do their lack of language skills in many instances is laughable.
And as Jeffrey W said block and mute. Arguing with those who argue in bad faith is a waste of time
ETA: I have had a Twitter account since 2013 I only started tweeting since 2019. When he who must not be named was reelected as the PM.
Kristine
I opened accounts on Mastodon and CounterSocial this past week, mostly to grab my name/handle. Mastodon left me cold–it expects me to choose where I want to go before I even know if I want to go there–while CounterSocial seems more compact and laid back and busier. The layout–imagine a white text on black version of Tweetdeck–bothers some folks but I’ve been using Tweetdeck for years so I’m used to it. There are some issues with the guy who started it which he has since apologized for, but we’ll see how that goes. If they all go tits up and take Facebook with them–if the Board doesn’t force out Zuckerbutt, how could they avoid being named the defendants in class action lawsuits–we may all go back to blogging more regularly on our websites again.**
All that said, I’m still on Twitter. I learned so much there. Tbh I would get more real world stuff done if I could walk away from it all. Yet so much of what I’ve learned informs my writing now that I would feel like I dropped out of school.
**I know some of you do this already. I tell myself I will blog once a week and I’m lucky if I manage once a month.
Starfish
@Tenar Arha: some people mentioned this https://tweetdelete.net/
Haven’t tried it out. Sounded like there was a free tier.
Percysowner
I discovered I was constitutionally unable to think in 140 characters or even the current 280. I used to use Twitter when I was posted news on site that covered a now cancelled show and I followed the actors to see what they were up to. Now I follow New York Pitchbot, Trae Crowder and Zillow Gone Wild and . If they move, I will follow. If not, I will probably keep following only them.
Starfish
@narya: A lot of people have moved communities to Discord and Slack because there are few messages that they want to communicate with the whole world forever.
Kristine
@Amir Khalid: I love Biden, but I tear up every time I watch Obama. I miss him so much.
MomSense
Use of the N word increased 500% in the first 12 hours. Fuck Elon and all his shitty followers.
Jinchi
I understand the perspective. At the same time, Twitter was given value by it’s users in how they engage with the outside world. For all his talk, I’m not sure anything will change with Musk at the helm. The debate ranges from, nearly nothing at all, to, twitter follows the path of 4chan and 8chan. If the former, Twitter will simply continue on as it has been. If the latter, Twitter will collapse into obscurity. It’s replacement would appear quickly and organically.
It would be ironic if, instead of Parler becoming the new Twitter, Twitter became the new Parler.
FelonyGovt
OK so as alternatives, I’m aware of Counter Social, Tribel (which I understand is problematic), and now Mastodon and Discord. And I’m sure I’m missing some. Where are we all going to go? And where are the great sources we like to follow going to go?
Musk is a racist anti-Semitic shithead and it grinds my gears to be on a site he controls.
Geminid
@jeffreyw: The ability to chase down Twitter’s rabbit holes appeals to my inner ferret. This morning when I checked out Michael Paulauski’s timeline I ran into a retweet of someone arguing with “journalist” Richard Medhurst, which led me to a tweet by Medhurst about the recent disruption of an Ilhan Omar event. And that led me to a tweet by a “Fellow” at the Schiller Institute, who bragged that the four angry “peace” advocates are in fact part of the Larouche movement.
I’ve wondered what the Larouche people did after the old man died, but I guess they’ve been hiding in plain sight. They are maybe more active now, sending people with loud voices to interrupt appearances by Representatives Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, and Bowman and Jeffries. They also have a lady running for Chuck Schumer’s New York Senate seat.
AK Lynne
I debated about leaving because it was the best place to get Ukraine info and videos. Balloon Juice was just recommended to me for this. Anyway, I left Twitter yesterday, and here I am today. I hope you can access all these great videos the Ukrainian soldiers and others are putting out there. I am cheering them on every minute.
Another Scott
That’s going to constrain him, to some degree.
I’ve never been seriously tempted to get a Twitter account, though I do have half-a-dozen feeds I check daily on the web. I’ve briefly looked at counter.social and haven’t yet looked at Mastodon. I have too many distractions as it is, so I probably won’t sign up for anything soon…
As much as the news and financial folks want us to think that everything happens quickly, there’s really no need for people to decide just yet what to do about Musk’s takeover. Sure, he’s fired people who know what they’re doing, sure he’s said a bunch of stupid and impossible things, sure it looks very bad. But he contradicts himself all the time, and he’s going to have to keep advertisers around to pay for his stupid narcissistic trolling that hung a $44B albatross around his neck. We’ll see what happens.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@AK Lynne: Welcome to commenting!
A person’s first comment has to be manually approved (on each device used for Balloon Juice) but after that your comments will show up right way for everyone.
zhena gogolia
@AK Lynne: There is usually one huge Ukraine post per day, by Adam Silverman. It usually appears in the late evening, but the discussion usually picks up again in the morning. So watch for it! I’d say it normally appears about 10:00 ET.
Kay
@Jinchi:
Exactly. I don’t want to give him value. Writers need readers and I’m (primarily) a reader, so that’s my time value. I don’t want to be part of his business.
I have the luxury of not relying on selling my work on Twitter, so I don’t have to play this game.
zhena gogolia
@AK Lynne: Of course, a fair amount of the info in the post links to Twitter. So far I’ve been able to read tweets without joining Twitter. When the pop-up tries to stop you, you click “sign up,” then click the X in the upper left of the pop-up that appears, and you can continue reading. I’m hoping Musk doesn’t discover this loophole and we can continue lurking on twitter. But Adam’s analysis and summaries are there without the need to go to twitter.
MisterDancer
As I linked to in my post, Musk already enables intense levels of racism and sexism in his companies.
No service is value-free, true. But I do, personally, draw a line at someone like Musk, and his fellow travelers. I wish to reduce my exposure and potential, even indirect, support of someone who engages in the views and actions he does.
And I think that, in and of itself, is a valuable and worthy approach.
But I also add, again, that use of the N-word is up, and seemingly unmoderated. Why would I stay on a platform allowing this? Stay on a platform where the highest ranked Woman was fired, simply for trying to advocate for good moderation?
I am, in fact, saying that there is more than enough evidence that Musk will choose poorly, because that’s what he’s always done when he can. Waiting for a wave of abuse to come directly at you before ejecting, or for “clear signals” to come into play, assumes a level of capacity to absorb that not everyone has.
As someone else said, in some ways yes, Twitter has left me. And done so with speed.
Sister Golden Bear
My take is whether to leave Twitter or stay is a very personal decision and there’s no right or wrong answer.
Myself, I’m staying for the moment. Trans and Queer Twitter have too much valuable information about what we’re up against that I don’t see elsewhere. Plus we can use the master’s tools against him (and the MAGA hordes) to organize and fight back.
I have taken to blocking every promoted tweet (i.e. advertising) though. I’m under no illusion that I’ll change things by itself, but at least I’m denying Musk revenue.
Eunicecycle
I read Twitter a lot and comment moderately on others’ Tweets. It’s a good place to get breaking news and I block people pretty often. Until 2 days ago I felt my feed was fairly clean; I didn’t see too many trolls disrupting conversations. I noticed an almost immediate change yesterday. Trolls have descended with a vengeance into almost every conversation. The stuff about Paul Pelosi was horrible. There are too many to even block. I was determined to stay (you’re not the boss of me! attitude) but I am reconsidering.
Jude
I hear counter social is probably our best bet. Haven’t tried Mastodon. Am sticking with Twitter for now.
I thought Jack’s upcoming Bluesky would be great since he spoke of having it be a public good, but a journalist set me straight. TL;DR. Jack’s an idiot who thinks Elon isn’t an evil overlord and is working with him. https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1586166535592509440
Tribelsocial is run by awful people who will use your devices as spyware.
randal sexton
One scenario I can imagine for twitter is that a bunch of ( probably strange ) features, policies will get implemented, some huge confusing UI changes, then Musk will claim he fixed it, will start hyping it like crazy- while making huge revenue/earnings predictions- then will take attempt to take it public again. Basically a pump and dump scheme.
Another Scott
@MisterDancer: Speaking of SMS, I’m getting regular notices from Signal that they’re “soon” going to be doing away with SMS. :-(
I use Signal because I like the interface better than Google Messages (at least the last time I tried it a few years ago) – the coloring especially (it was too easy in Messages to send a message to the wrong person because there weren’t enough color clues – I don’t know if it’s different now).
I have a SMS/MMS group of about 6 people that I communicate with every day (sometimes multiple times a day). Only 3 are on Signal. What would people use to replace Signal if SMS is still needed, recognizing that people have their own phones and their own preferences? It would be very nice for it to be painless, and not feed Z’s crumbling empire…
Yeah, SMS going away is a good thing, but as long as Apple fights RCS standards to preserve their iMessage control, it’s going to be a slog…
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
For a long time I used LiveJournal to post long-form, blog-type content, and I migrated all that to Dreamwidth when a Russian firm took over LiveJournal and started supposedly putting it under the aegis of Russian content regulations. Dreamwidth is sort of a sleepy declining village but that does mean it’s a nice place to pop in for some low-pressure reading.
Medium might be a slightly more modern and appropriate place for that kind of writing, but at this point I’ve got a big archive of stuff there, most of it dating back to the LiveJournal days.
Google+ had a pretty good science/math community but it’s dead now.
catclub
@Starfish:
I think Balloon Juice has critical mass to matter and be of value. I doubt it is gigantic.
ian
I bailed on twitter a few months back when it became increasingly clear Musk was going to be forced to buy it. It certainly is a useful space for ideas and messaging, but it also has had a tendency to amplify terrible and shitty ideas (see: Trump 2012-January 2021. Look what it finally took for someone at Twitter to moderate him). I’ve found a lot of good people I liked to read, but Twitter was just the medium. If Twitter goes down the drain, these people don’t cease to exist. Other platforms can host their ideas and content. It just involved change. Change makes people uncertain and unhappy. Yet change can be good, it is just scary at first.
Geo Wilcox
Musk’s purchase of Twitter is more nefarious than you think it is:
https://davetroy.medium.com/no-elon-and-jack-are-not-competitors-theyre-collaborating-3e88cde5267d
Ruckus
@citizen dave:
I doubt I’m the person you are discussing but I am on twitter and while my disgust at mush is real, I know that other than being one of the millions to leave or at least stay off until it becomes obvious that his purchase was ignorant at the very least and he should put it up for sale for what, 5 cents on the dollar and walk away. But his bigger than all outdoors ego would never let him do that. He’s done the poor little rich boy routine and spend cash he actually doesn’t have (all his assets are tied up to the point he’s a lot cash poorer than the numbers tell – he has assets but not much is liquid in any way, shape or form). But I have no doubt that he will go with what he perceives is the power at twit, which is the same as the garbage that floats around in that disturbed thing he calls a head and that will destroy the concept of it completely.
Kristine
@Matt McIrvin: I’m over at Dreamwidth, too. I ported over all my LJ posts a few years ago and post ever so often, but it is very, very quiet.
I still miss LiveJournal. It was the place to be in the early/mid 00’s, and it was a great water cooler for writers.
Starfish
@Matt McIrvin: Are you still on Dreamwidth? A lot of my community there is Canadian.
Starfish
@catclub: Yes. Balloon Juice has enough people to have a flavor and a sense of community. Sometimes, the community vibes of a community get annoying (Let’s piss and moan about Bernie some more, why don’t we?); but clearly we all stay here for the animal photos.
Starfish
@Kristine: I want to know both of your Dreamwidth nyms.
Ken
I’m dusting off my geocities page.
MisterDancer
@Another Scott: and it will continue to be a slog because interoperability is bad for making shareholders happy.
Signal has to get out of that space for other reasons, too, but the crux is that no one is willing to buck shareholders and build audience for a system that they share with others without a lot of pushing.
An example is Matter, the just announced home automation interop solution. That only came about because no one in that space could break thru to a commanding position, and yet it’s growing.
A lot like the Internet when it went commercial, in fact.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Geo Wilcox: Yup. Info wars in pursuit of cult-like goals. Not great for society, that’s for sure.
UncleEbeneezer
Thank you for pointing out the importance of Twitter for Black and Trans Community. Twitter is great if you 1.) follow good people and 2.) avoid/block the assholes. I’ve learned a ton about how various systems of oppression work just by following along on Twitter. I suspect this is one case where the market will help us. Advertisers don’t like cesspools of Ism/Phobia. And they will bail if their ads are next to Nazi sentiments.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Okay – it’s Saturday a.m. I’ll give it a go!
Fuck Wilmer and the Russian propaganda he rode in on.
No, seriously – “Bernie” in 2016 was hostile action. Tad Devine and Paul Manafort have a long relationship. I had Russian propaganda memes pushed in my face so hard by Bernie or busters when Hillary’s emails were leaked right before the convention. Forgive my rudeness, but I’m still dealing with the trauma of losing quite a few friends to the propaganda during 2016, and then Trump fucking won. I’m not going to stop “pissing and moaning” about what happened. Ever.
schrodingers_cat
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Amen. My feelings exactly. Also my BS friend from that cycle transformed herself into a full blown Trumper following the election. At that point I wanted nothing to do with her.
thalarctosMaritimus
@MisterDancer: I’d be interested–thank you!
Ruckus
@artem1s:
I have no interest in shoring up em’s ego or bank account but it is a place to read and talk to others. My expectations are low and a couple of days ago I was considering just staying away. But as of now I’m staying to see how it goes. I never actually had high expectations when I joined, they haven’t gotten a lot higher since.
Kristine
@Starfish: ksmith
It was so nice to have a nice, short handle without a string of numbers.
Kent
The only thing I use twitter for is to get news on Ukraine and to get local HS sports scores and news as I’m a local HS teacher and have kids playing local HS sports.
Twitter seems to be the best source for those two types of information. Beyond that I don’t use twitter for anything and never post anything. It would not affect me in the slightest to see it disappear.
Will
I hear Truth Social is popping.
Kay
Part of what happened on Twitter for me was me finding out a lot of media people I read are assholes, which matters more, IMO, in the case of nonfiction and reporting than it does in fiction.
They were better off when we didn’t know them so well, as it turns out. Turns out they’re the kind of people who find people who have had a stroke icky and the kind of people who worship Elon Musk and the kind of people who jump on a “cancel culture” panic because it’s fashionable and profitable.
I enjoyed newspapers more before I knew this about them. You can’t unknow it :)
The Pale Scot
So musk is allowing racial slurs on twitter… Hmm…
So I can set up an account that degrades the SC? Put up Clarence jokes that refer to that 40s radio, Andy & Amos, call his wife a N-lover, compare the eyeties with the mob, the Protestants as godless heretics. The material for right wing women is endless
Why do I think that wouldn’t stay up?
Ruckus
@Kay:
I agree with you about anything musky and was all set to quit if he actually did go through with it. (I also liked that the twitter former owners had him by the short hairs due to his own lack of, OK the list of things he lacks is too long to list here) But I do comment on twitter, I find it sort of interesting on some days and a waste of time on others, but as I’m retired I occasionally have free time to waste, so I’m going to see how it goes. I can always leave if he screws it up.
Starfish
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: 😂 You did it for the culture
Will
In all seriousness, this feels like a bit of early overreaction.
Trolls have overwhelmed Twitter for what, 24-48 hours? Does anyone seriously think this will continue forever? Reddit trolls by law have the stamina of a minute man. They’ll peter out. Not only that, Musk isn’t going to allow it.
I can’t stand the guy, but I at least can acknowledge he is a businessman first. How long did that instant unbanning of previously banned people last? 8 hours? Amazing how quickly that changed and that there was now going to be a council that would review any unbanning.
We all like to laugh, but no, Musk doesn’t want to set billions of his money on fire. He’s already getting boxed in by advertisers. He’ll try and switch to a subscription model if too many drop, but this isn’t porn and twitter isn’t onlyfans. He’s going to find himself staring at the same answers as the previous CEOs, he’s the owner of a social network that is barely able to pay for itself and if he wants it to even stay profitable he’ll have to let people be banned and content be moderated.
SC54HI
@MisterDancer: I’d also be interested when/if you have the energy to share your thoughts.
Since I lurk about 99.99% of the time, I will stay on Twitter for now. Like others here, I have learned so much from following so many — from Black Twitter to the early career people in my own profession. Lots of good information, plenty to think about, and good links to follow elsewhere.
Re: CounterSocial. If you have an account, can you change the visuals from white text-on-black-background? I’m old and that format is too difficult to read.
Victor Matheson
Academic Twitter is actually pretty great. Lots of pool, very little cess.
Frankensteinbeck
And are they being banned because they jumped the gun? Because supposedly, Musk hasn’t touched the censorship rules and said he isn’t going to soon. How would we know if they are or aren’t? Seriously, I don’t know.
EDIT – The problem is, Musk lies CONSTANTLY. So who knows what he did or will do?
Kay
@Ruckus:
Sure- absolutely. I see the value of it. I like to read all those different people in such a short format but Im giving it up.
I disliked Musk before Twitter so I was always going to be one of the first to leave. I’m tired of celebrity bullshitters. He’s Dr. Oz to me. It seems like all we produce anymore in this country are these lying, self-aggrandizing people who never fucking shut up.
Kristine
@SC54HI:
If you’re on Chrome, you can add the Dark Reader extension and back off the black to a medium/light gray. It really helped me, and I hate white text on black background with a passion. The words start to vibrate after a while.
Warning: it will affect all sites you visit unless you specify CounterSocial only.
SC54HI
@Kristine: Thank you! I will try that.
Kristine
@SC54HI: Explainer here. for Dark Reader settings etc.
Dan B
Word is that the Saudis and Quataris are now the second and third largest shareholders of Twitter. And antisemitic and homophobic comments and content have skyrocketed. A pattern?
It would be a shame for Quatar to be a large investor in a major anti Semitic and homophobic platform as the World Cup starts. /s
BruceFromOhio
@Ken: lol we were joking about that over breakfast this morning
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
Elon Musk, putting the “wretched” into “hive of scum and villainy.”
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
I set up a Counter.Social account today. Same nym.
Elon (and the Saudis) can fuck off.
Dave
@Dan B:@Dan B: I think he took it private. So do you mean the Saudis and Qatar funded some or much of the $44B takeover, or they were shareholders before the buyout?
Interesting factoid either way.
Ruckus
@Kay:
“I’m tired of celebrity bullshitters. He’s Dr. Oz to me. It seems like all we produce anymore in this country are these lying, self-aggrandizing people who never fucking shut up.”
I see you and I are on the same page. I’d add that not only do they never shut the fuck up, they never say anything at all positive in all that mouth blather. Their world is complete and utter shit and they haven’t/aren’t going to ever figure out how get rid of that complete and utter shit because that complete and utter shit is THEM.
MisterDancer
You know, I’ve explained my rationale, nicely, twice now. I’ve given evidence that Musk has a pattern of enabling racism in his properties. I’ve linked to articles about the people he sees as peers, and the issues they raise. I’ve pointed out that I’ve watched Twitter already struggle with moderation issues for over a decade.
And I laid out how, in the past, I’ve worked hard to protect myself from those elements, and my concerns that said protections will be eroded in the near future. The firing I mentioned, the tweets from Musk about near-future decisions, and the posts I noted are part of the decision drivers here — not just one sole action/reaction, but a culmination of watching how Musk runs other organizations he’s part of.
But somehow, all that gets set aside for you, in favor of implying a lack of rational review of the risks. Why is that?
You say it won’t last. I reply, why am I even being asked to suffer it right now? Why is my personal safety expected to be on the line in this case? Why can’t I be assumed to be able to assess risks and make clear-headed judgements, especially when I have taken pains to explain my reasoning at some length?
I assure you, none of this is a laughing matter for me, and a lot of other people.
Jerry
@jmpemberton over at counter social. Just started today.
Ruckus
@MisterDancer:
I would be interested.
BruceFromOhio
@MisterDancer:
Right there with you.
Alice
I live in the mountain west. During wildfires or blizzards, twitter is the best and fastest way to find out what is happening, and when and where to evacuate or stay put. Until there is a replacement for that kind of minute by minute info, I’m sticking with it.
Jerry
PopeHat just announced that he joined counter social as well. He’s not moving off of twitter, but at least that someone else to follow on counter
Zelma
I’ve only been on Twitter for a short while. I actually joined during the BJ hiatus. I have never posted and never will and I follow very few people. But I like the Ukraine coverage. I imagine that I will hardly notice any uptick in bad behavior given my limited exposure. But I hate the idea of supporting Musk even tangentially. We shall see.
FelonyGovt
Just signed up as “Fungible” on Counter Social. Will follow everyone here who provided a nym.
JaySinWA
A question for those migrating to Counter Social, I dabbled for a while, but one thing that bugged me was the hype for the pro version and no way to find out how much it would cost prior to entering more than I wanted to expose. Any info on current costs and how much nagware about upgrading they have?
Mastodon has “a too much choice too soon” problem for me as someone noted above. I suspect it would be an easier choice if you were involved in one of the interest groups already and came in through them rather than looking at Masterdon top down.
I’ve been on Reddit for a while now, and despite its ugly history, it seems like a reasonable place for now.
Discord looks okay but I’m seeing a lot of claims of arbitrary deletion of accounts. Probably similar to Twitter levels.
I have been reading about filtering Twitter through RSS fees today, a way to keep an eye on people you follow on Twitter without having to go into Twitter. Feedly, Feedbin and Inoreader have that for paid levels of subscription. Mastodon and others have the ability to cross post to twitter, so some people who have established an Twitter presence are publishing somewhere else – cross posting to twitter (like BJ does) and then following Twitter via an RSS feed avoiding the ads and pushed articles.
Ruckus
@JaySinWA:
Google said that Counter Social Pro is $4.99/month.
tehodler
tehodler
JaySinWA
@Ruckus: Yes, appears to true, $5 per month for pro with a free tier.
I dusted off my old sign in and found I was last there in 2019. It looks about the same, much like Tweetdeck. Put in a post with #BalloonJuice hashtag if you want to find eachother.
I’m not at all sure Counter Social will be able to handle a major influx of Twits. They currently claim over 100k users – more doubled from before the Musk buyout announcement according to this article