Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

When I was faster i was always behind.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Saturday Afternoon Read: On Twitter’s Decline

Saturday Afternoon Read: On Twitter’s Decline

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Bad news about Twitter arrives with the dull regularity of junk mail. The site is bad and getting worse, and if that was always at least kind of true even during what now qualifies as its heyday, it is now bad and worsening in exceptionally unappealing ways. What was good about Twitter, when it was good, always had a lot to do with its signature jostling chaos and the attendant sense of wild and worrying possibility; it was, in a way that every other thing in the free market strives not to be, a place where strange and unexpected things routinely happened. While the site is outwardly much uglier and more chaotic and demonstrably more arbitrary under its new ownership, it’s also increasingly grim and airless and stupendously, implausibly wack.

“You can’t reach an audience on X,” Dave Karpf wrote last week. “You can’t organize on X. You can’t follow breaking news on X. The people who made Twitter fun have all given up. There’s nothing worth sticking around for anymore.”

Some of this may just be Twitter hewing closer to the deeply diseased personality and addled vision of owner Elon Musk, but it’s also indistinguishable from the routine ways in which online spaces die, which is by collapsing into a cacophony of scams and hate speech and dim, windy monologues from the worst users. As it stands, Twitter does not work. In the ways in which it once worked, always despite itself and always as a result of the many people who made it something stranger and more vital than it had any right to be, it no longer does. In the ways in which it was once useful, it is now unusable. In the ways in which it was reliably surprising and often fun, it is now neither.

Also, just in a technical sense, it does not work—it breaks a lot, stuff moves around for no reason, weird new things happen and are subsequently justified in statements issued with an uncannily impenetrable, high-handed and transparently bullshit certitude from a management team that seems not to be getting nearly enough sleep. The tone is that of a parent, deliriously and very obviously high on a hallucinogen, somberly telling a child that she is a cactus. None of it is convincing, except to the extent the broader vibe of the place argues for logging off. In that sense, it is very convincing.

All of which is to say that, for all the other ways in which the site has spiraled in the time spent under his command, Twitter now works and feels very much like An Elon Musk Production. It mirrors all of his signature, load-bearing defects to such an extent that it feels not so much like something he owns or makes but like him, himself: futuristic in the tackiest and ugliest ways, janky and vicious, overtly criminal and predatory, but finally so luridly overbearing and tiresome that it beggars belief. There is a lot of this going around of late; all the Musk Discourse of this moment, which was kicked up by Walter Isaacson’s new biography and the criticism of that book and its subject, is pegged, in a way that never gets any less astonishing, to this one exhausting and unpleasant man. At this point, this qualifies as not just his signal but his only success with Twitter: a place that once seemed full of millions of people, all talking about whatever was on their mind at that moment, now just seems like him. This is just another way of saying that it sucks real bad…

 
But seriously: Musk broke something that wasn’t his to break…

Reader Interactions

119Comments

  4. 4.

    Baud

    I was never a big Twitter fan, but I appreciate it was valuable to many people, including Anne Laurie.  Hopefully, BlueSky will prove to be a good replacement.

  8. 8.

    MattF

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I’ve found that Mastodon (using mathstodon.xyz) is pretty good if you’re a math nerd. I think Mastodon works if you’ve got some specialized interest supported by an instance.
    Some of the gang I used to follow on Xitter have moved to Mastodon, though the old Spelling Bee crowd is still hanging on. But not much left for me there— my X usage is dropping day by day. Don’t know how the various Twitter-wannabes are doing, but I’m not optimistic about that.

  10. 10.

    trucmat

    The Boebert story has blown up a bit more. Major sites now including the word grope in their headlines. Vid seemed clear to me that the Aspen Democrat fondled her boob and in return she got her arms in his crotch. Not clear about hands.

    …. While confirming … this also now in … Newsweek quotes Meghan McCain in blast about lewd sex act. Lol.

  11. 11.

    Alison Rose

    @Baud: Are you on BlueSky? I made my account, posted once, followed some people, and then just…forgot. I keep telling myself to actually open the app and use it, but it hasn’t taken hold yet.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    I signed up for mastodon but haven’t done much with it. I don’t see it being a widespread phenomenon absent changes to make it more user friendly for average users.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    @Alison Rose:

    No, I never bothered to ask anyone for an invite code or go through that process.  I forget if you need to download their app to use it. I use the web for mastodon.

  14. 14.

    marcopolo

    I dunno, Threeyearletterman is still hanging in there.  I mean if you can find a parody account that is kind of a doppelgänger for Tommy Tuberville’s stupidity funny.

    Speaking of football, somehow Missouri won today, beating #15 Kansas State on a last play field goal from 61 yards out.  Will make a couple folks I know happy.

  15. 15.

    Alison Rose

    @trucmat: Yeah, if you watch the video, he’s manhandling her plastic tits like he’s trying to choose the best melon at the farmer’s market. And then she’s pretty clear giving him an over-the-clothes handjob. There were kids in the audience, some fairly close to them, and this trashy twit has the audacity to sniffle about “falling short of her values because of the pain of her divorce” while screeching her lungs out about drag queens and trans people being inappropriate for children to even see.

  16. 16.

    tobie

    I left Twitter as soon as Musk purchased it. It took me some time to follow enough hashtags and accounts to get an interesting timeline on Mastodon but it worked. It doesn’t matter what “instance” you choose. Don’t fret over this decision. Pick any and just start following hashtags

    ETA: @[email protected] and @[email protected] are essential for legal news.

  18. 18.

    glc

    Well, it is definitely his to break. That’s sort of the business plan of the previous owners, and a resounding success, from their perspective. They weren’t going to get a better offer, ever.

    “load-bearing defects” strikes me as very good.

  22. 22.

    twbrandt

    I’m on a small Mastodon instance where all of the accounts belong to people who live or previously lived in or near Ann Arbor, MI. Almost all of us know everyone on it. Most of the people are urbanism and transportation nerds, and/or e-bike nerds, and/or software devs, and/or woodworkers. It’s low-key, no trolls, and a nice to be.

    I’m also on bluesky, which feels a lot like twitter 10 years ago.

  23. 23.

    Anyway

    Bummer about the timing of Boebert’s implosion. There’s probably time for Rethugs to regroup and find another (better) candidate.

  24. 24.

    karen marie

    @Baud: I read on Mastodon that Jack deleted his bluesky account. Is that true?

    I’ve been very happy with Mastodon (axomamma at mastodon dot online). I do miss the farming accounts I followed on what is now Musk’s Folly, but I am making do. It took a while to find them there. I will eventually fill my void here.

  30. 30.

    marcopolo

    @glc: Sort of what I expected, though it was odd for the TX Senate to NOT just dismiss the charges up front if they were going to wind up acquitting (suspect all of their offices were inundated with threats from MAGAs).   Honestly, if you are an R pol you cannot hold a fellow R to account for criminal acts & then expect to be re-elected.  On the positive side, since the TX House did the impeaching and with the Lt. Gov ripping them a new one in his closing remarks there should be a lot of TX R’s in disarray both in private & in public going forwards.

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    I closed my twitter account when the blank hit the fan and haven’t regretted it in any way. Dipshit bought it, and ruined it in what seemed like less than one day. The concept that money makes someone smart, decent, reasonable seems to have been proven wrong once again. A life lesson that seems have to be relearned on occasion.

  33. 33.

    eclare

    I’m still on Twitter, only follow about a dozen people.  I haven’t noticed any big changes, don’t see the racist anti-semitic garbage.  Just sad to think about how one insanely wealthy person destroyed a town square for millions.

    As others have said, we need desperately higher income and wealth tax rates so that one single fucking person cannot destroy a business.

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Alison Rose: ​
      I’m sorry, but he was clearly helping her to keep her assets in her dress when they were in great danger of falling out due to all the excitement of seeing live musical theater. He was being a true gentleman. The fact that she gave him a quick tuggie goes to show that she was offering her thanks.

  39. 39.

    tobie

    @karen marie: Chuckles and smiles!

    I’ll follow you on Mastodon. Are there any farming groups in the fediverse? I follow #birding, which is a pretty active hashtag. You’d think organic farming would have taken off.

  41. 41.

    Tony G

    “Meta is restricting key health and science search terms like COVID and vaccines.”   What????   You know, in a reasonable society Elon Musk would be put in stocks and pelted with rotten vegetables.  But so would Zuckerberg.

  44. 44.

    smith

    @marcopolo: Not particularly surprising to see TX beclown itself once again. After all, they reelected the state’s top legal officer while he was under indictment. Where do you go from there?

  45. 45.

    Doc Sardonic

    Never got involved with social media that much. Got on Facebook to keep up with family, then decided this is too exhausting, fuck these assholes I can’t believe they are related to me. Twitter never really appealed to me, besides, who cares what one has to say in 120 characters or less, about the deuce you just dropped in a filthy roadside gas station bathroom. I am contenting myself with puzzling out various existential questions as I careen down the path to my demise. Currently working on this one, ‘I hate the entire human race, does that make me a racist?

  46. 46.

    Another Scott

    @tobie: I have a tab with https://mastodon.social/explore open that I check at least daily.  One of the tabs at the top is names “Hashtags” which shows a list of hashtags that are trending on the fediverse.

    Searching for “#organic” gives:

    #organic
    #organicMaps
    #organicfood
    #organicchemistry

    have all gotten some traffic recently.

    There aren’t a zillion people on mastodon every day, but there often seems to be a critical mass – unless you’re hoping to earn a living off it right now.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  47. 47.

    Anne Laurie

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I can barely stand to look at Mastodon, much less figure out how to participate.  My neurodivergent brain, not the site itself, I’m sure.

    I do like BlueSky, but I can’t (yet) use it for the blog the way I use twitter.  And I read so much stuff for this ever-loving blog (I am not that swift a reader) that I find it hard to find the time to read the BlueSky posters I joined the site to enjoy!

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    A thing California is doing.

    California sued some of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies on Friday, alleging that they misled consumers for decades about their products’ role in contributing to climate change. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court by Attorney General Rob Bonta, accuses five major oil companies of mounting a “disinformation campaign” beginning in the 1950s to conceal the harm of fossil fuels and delay the transition to a low-carbon future. The state has requested a judge order the oil companies to pay into a fund that California would use to finance future climate mitigation and adaptation efforts to protect against pollution and climate change-fueled events.

    The targets of the suit are BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell. The lawsuit also names American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry trade group. “For more than 50 years, Big Oil has been lying to us — covering up the fact that they’ve long known how dangerous the fossil fuels they produce are for our planet,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement ahead of his expected announcement on Sunday during a climate conference in New York. “Wildfires wiping out entire communities, toxic smoke clogging our air, deadly heat waves, record-breaking droughts parching our wells. California taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill.”

    A handful of states and dozens of municipalities across the country have filed similar actions against the energy industry in recent years, but California’s case is likely the most significant to date. With nearly 40 million people, California is the nation’s most populous state but it’s also one of the top oil and gas producers.

    Californians also regularly experience extreme weather events made more severe by climate change — ranging from wildfires and floods to rising sea levels, heat waves and, this year, the remnants of a hurricane months after the state endured torrential winter rains and snow. The record storms and runoff from a remarkable Sierra snowpack caused widespread flooding in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, ushering the reappearance of long extinct Tulare Lake among other anomalies.

    The 135-page complaint, first reported by the New York Times, details the tens of billions of dollars that California has already invested to address the issue, including in wildfire response and water infrastructure projects.

    The state anticipates that it will need to spend “multiples of that” in the years to come, according to the suit. “From extreme heat to drought and water shortages, the climate crisis they have caused is undeniable,” Bonta said about the oil companies in a statement on Saturday. “It is time they pay to abate the harm they have caused.”

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article279391409.html#storylink=cpy

  51. 51.

    tobie

    @Another Scott: You are right that the level of traffic on Mastodon is much, much lower than on other apps. I can understand why journalists / media figures are hesitant to make the switch. I’m glad that some people like Marc Elias post on multiple platforms, and I’m happy that NPR, BBC, and many German media outlets are there too. Slow traffic keeps my blood pressure down. And looking at #fountainpens always makes me smile.

    ETA: The app is unreadable with a black screen, white letters. If you go to “appearance” on your account, it’s easy to change that. Your eyes will thank you.

  52. 52.

    Shalimar

    @NotMax: Her new executive team members make it pretty obvious that her job is selling advertising on Elon’s racist-friendly platform rather than dealing with the content people post that advertisers have to put their products with.

  53. 53.

    sdhays

    I’m genuinely surprised at how shitty Meta’s approach to Threads seems to be.

    No one with money seems to be interested in actually trying to replace Twitter with something similar to pre-Musk Twitter.

  54. 54.

    BR

    @tobie: ​
    I think the level of posts on Mastodon completely depends on how many people you follow. I follow over 1000 people and I can’t keep up with my feed, but I enjoy it that way because there are so many interesting people posting.

  57. 57.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trucmat:

    …. While confirming … this also now in … Newsweek quotes Meghan McCain in blast about lewd sex act. Lol.

    the shell of itself Newsweek has become is the perfect place for John and Cindy’s Nepo-spawn

    Didn’t Tina Brown turn Newsweek into the Daily Beast and take it all on-line? I remember in 1989 my Southern frat-boy housemate seeing Newsweek on my desk and telling me he was surprised even I was reading Newsweek. He knew I read Time, which was liberal, and thus bad, enough, but Newsweek was, said he, “bleedin, bleeeeedin’-heart liberal”. I also used to read US News and World Report. I guess I was a political junkie even before cable and the internet

  62. 62.

    cain

    @BR: She is AMAZING! So entertaining – and just love the fact she loves insects like ants. I learn a lot from her. She’s probably one of the most popular people on mastodon.

  63. 63.

    cain

    @trucmat: ​
     

    …. While confirming … this also now in … Newsweek quotes Meghan McCain in blast about lewd sex act. Lol.

    Perhaps MTG will do a stand up accounting on the House floor. I hear that is a Republican thing now – talking about lewd sex acts and showing pictures.

  66. 66.

    cain

    @Baud: It’s still evolving – I think the founder actually is considering doing quote tweets after being against them.

    If you get the right clients it might be more user friendly than just the web version.

  67. 67.

    cain

    @tobie: ​
     
    I’ve started getting local oregon stuff now too. Some really great stuff. Of course, no nazis, and no assholes jumping into my timeline acting like a dick.

  68. 68.

    cain

    @karen marie: Followed! Yes, the experience is definitely getting more twitter like. I have 3 accounts on different servers that have different audiences. I have my main one, but I have one that I use as part of work (work identity) and then my other one which is more for my open source stuff.

  70. 70.

    cain

    @eclare: I think this is why mastodon is important. It’s not owned by a tech bro – we can build what we like. We already seeing garbage rich human beings trying to come into spaces where people congregate – eg media sites, social media etc. It’s all about propaganda. One nice thing about mastodon is that to do propaganda requires a lot of work.

  72. 72.

    cain

    @eclare: ​
     
    They are buying anything that touches people. Someone posted some threads aback about Disney selling ABC to some douchebag who likes both sides shit.

    Community owned locations are going to be more and more important going forward.

  73. 73.

    cain

    @Baud: ​
     
    Sure – I think if you’re looking for a safe space to talk about things without nazis showing up then mastodon is great. If you’re trying to follow news and politics and some expertise it could be a mixed bag. Certainly it isn’t a platform for commerical interests.

    But working with community things? Absolutely. I hope to get my employer on there. It might happen – but what’s going on with Twitter is untenable from a brand perspective.

  76. 76.

    Baud

    @cain:

    You would think someone would create a program that would allow a single input form that a company could fill in and then auto cross post to multiple platforms.

  77. 77.

    eclare

    @cain:

    From what I’ve read Mastodon is hard to use, which means I have no chance with it.

    And I have said repeatedly, I don’t see any racist Nazi stuff on Twitter.  I carefully select who to follow and don’t always read all comments if they start to go south.  Not reading comments is always an option.

  78. 78.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Baud: In a late stage capitalist economy such a thought is heresy.  Just look at Apple fighting tooth and nail against any attempt to crack the proprietary barrier, like right to repair.

  79. 79.

    Ohio Mom

    I am a late adopter. There are a handful of Twitter sites I check in on — Cole’s, Josh Marshall, Aaron Rupar, Connie Shultz are some of them. I don’t see much difference in any of their posting. I don’t have a feed, I only look at what I look at.

    One day, when they are all gone, I will be asking on a BJ thread and goggling how to join Mastodon or Blue Sky or someplace else.

    In the mean time I will continue my dinosaur ways.

    It really is a tragedy what Musk has done to Twitter.

  82. 82.

    Geminid

    I am a very slow adopter in matters digital, and I have not even tried any of the alternative platforms. And with two exceptions, the Twitter accounts I like to follow- Laura Rozen, Ragnorok Lobster, Mangy Jay, Michael Paulauski among others- are still posting on Twitter. Ms. Rozen is especially valuable as an aggregator of foreign news and US security policy stories.

    One of the two escapees is Xeni Jardin, who ditched Twitter last October right before Musk took over. Jardin had a reputation as a “tech culture” reporter, and had over 200,000 “followers” when she left. She also had a troubled history with the tech world. I don’t know if Jardin knew Musk very well, but she knew tech-bros like him and grew to be extremely wary of the type.

    So far as I know, Jardin has dropped out of sight. She had health challenges that needed attention and a happy life in Southern Utah with a partner, so I can see why she would lay low. When Jardin left the journal boing!boing! a couple years ago, she said her future plans included “shitposting and weed.” I expect she only gave up the shitposting.

    The other account I am missing is that of Tom Watson (not the golfer, not the Labour Party politician, but the Columbia University professor). Watson was very good on New York politics, which are fairly opaque to me. He seems to have left Twitter, so if anyone knows where Watson’s at now I’d appreciate a heads up.

  83. 83.

    Ocotillo

    I think Musk bought Twitter to destroy it.  It was one of the few platforms where liberal voices coalesced (sp? to lazy to look it up).  At the end of the day, he can take $44 bill and light it on fire and still be set.

    I go there and scan things but it has severely declined, I am a lurker not a contributor at all.  People such as myself I suspect are taking a wait and see approach, hell, I didn’t sign up until like 2018 or so.  Anyway, the alternatives are all floundering and I am waiting to see where the invisible hand guides people before I invest time and energy.

    Mastodon sounds overly complicated, Blue Sky, hmmm, maybe, we’ll see and Threads, uh, no, not wanting to throw Zuck anything.  It may end up nothing catches on and while the market sorts this out, we have an election year and one platform that was useful has been taken away.

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    but without twitter, would I have found this info nugget?

    New York Post @nypost
    Man Lauren Boebert was caught groping at ‘Beetlejuice’ owns gay-friendly bar that hosts drag shows

    The Post piece in question, not twitter

  91. 91.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @frosty: ha! only discovered the Monthly through Al Gore’s Internet, and now that I think of it, it’s fallen off my radar of late

  93. 93.

    Mousebumples

    I’m on Mastodon ([email protected]) and Bluesky (@mousebumples). Also still on Twitter – mostly to read my sports follows.

    For anyone still on Twitter, I highly recommend Lists. I follow that (not the algorithm) and no ads, unless I’m clicking on individual tweets/threads/accounts.

  98. 98.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: FWIW MX4 did a piece on Bluesky back in July that talked about those concerns.  His conclusion was that Dorsey has no actual control.

  99. 99.

    Yarrow

    @japa21: Why? What’s going on with raven? He commented in the previous thread that he was doing colonoscopy prep. Is there something else?

  100. 100.

    MisterDancer

    RE: Twitter being OK to use if you tightly constraint your reading…I struggle with that approach as healthy.

    Not every space is safe for everyone, nor does it seem…right, we’ll say, to say a social media space is good to use if you only interact with a tightly corralled group of people. If that is needed — if merely walking down a virtual Twitter street risks harassment, direct and indirect — the issue is with the service, first and foremost.

  102. 102.

    eversor

    @Baud:

    I was forced to get on twitter to follow a non profit I worked for about a… decade ago?  Since then I’ve worked at a lot of places that required this sort of action.

    I don’t really use twitter though.  I follow a bunch of knife, high end audio, and tech companies just to get updates on products in my email but I don’t use twitter.

    People who are on twitter have a vested interest in thinking twitter matters.  But it doesn’t.  Not really and not in the way people think.   It’s dead among the young who are all on tiktok.  The fight about twitter is ultimately a bunch of assholes arguing over who gets it because they think it lets them reach out to others.  When the reality is “lol you on twitter, than what you say doesn’t matter you fucking twit tweeting twitter”.

  103. 103.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @eversor: Yeah, tell that to the trans and other disadvantaged community who have been using Twitter to organize and communicate.  I’ll take their word over yours on the value of Twitter and the damage its destruction is doing.   You really are on a roll today.

  105. 105.

    Steeplejack

    @marcopolo:

    As a Mizzou graduate who fumes about the eternally underperforming football team, it made me happy today!

    Also, @3YearLetterman is the greatest Twitter parody account of all time. Highly recommended.

  106. 106.

    cain

    @eclare: I think you said you only follow 12 accounts, right? Probably not much in terms of abuse there. But if you’re part of a class of people like the LBGTQ+ then you’re gonna get harassed eventually or get triggered by what people say.

  107. 107.

    Tim

    How do you buy something that works great and destroy it? It’s yours! It works! It’s a gold mine! (you know what that is, a gold mine? It’s a mine filled with gold!) You walk away and it takes care of itself, ferchrissake! How’d he ever make it into space?

  109. 109.

    moonbat

    This thread’s is probably dead, but I’m going to say it again anyway. Christopher Bouzy has built a kick-ass Twitter alternative ( Spoutible.com ) which is vigilant about maintaining a safe space for ALL its users and has handy-dandy features like news feed selection so you can choose what kind of information goes into your daily feed as well as which accounts you follow. The interface is very Twitter-like so small learning curve. It’s membership is growing and I hereby predict it is going to emerge out of this flux period that we are currently NOT enjoying to be the best Twitter alternative when all is said and done.

    Just saying.

  110. 110.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @tobie: ​
     

    I agree, Mastodon is easy to use. I follow people on other instances without issue and I am finding people I used to read on Shitter to follow. I read the Home timeline to read what those I am following are up to and then the Local to read what is going on at my instance. I also grab the fire hose and read the Federated timeline to find new stuff.

    I haven’t been bored yet.

  111. 111.

    Miss Bianca

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: You know, it’s the drag bar aspect that’s going to bring her down, not the tuggies or the public drugginess.

    I do wonder what her claque of brain-dead fans had to say to her at the coffee shop this morning – she was supposed to put in an appearance across the street from my theater. (I almost decided to put “Beetlejuice” up on the marquee, instead of “Barbie”, which we’re showing, but I’m a lazy cuss. Besides, it might have summoned her, which I could not abide.)

  112. 112.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @cain:

    I have no problem finding news feeds on Mastodon, nor is there a shortage of others posting links to the latest in news. I keep seeing people complain about this and they all seem to be those who came and gave up because they can’t Twitter on Mastodon.

    I don’t mean to be rude or anything but DUH… New things have a learning curve and this one is pretty shallow, IMO.

  113. 113.

    Gvg

    Most people want A alternative to emerge. I submit that it would probably be safer if there was never one clear dominant leading social media site ever again. A herd of differently run, chaotic, competitive changing providers could work out better, for us. Besides, the technology keeps changing all the time anyway so if Twitter hadn’t been murdered by malice, it still would have been different today and might also have been screwed up, though not the same way.

    I wonder if things are as bad in foreign languages as in English. A lot of what musk has done has been aimed at the audience Musk cares about, us. SC and our Russian and Ukrainian commenters describe a different experience. Maybe Musk hasn’t bothered to mess things up for them yet.

  114. 114.

    Bill

    Unless you just love helping the bottom lines of amoral, dipshit billionaires that got rich on disinformation and selling your data, Mastodon is the only true alternative.

    It’s astounding to me people want to rush to another Jack Dorsey or Zuckerborg product, 2 of the next worst people on the planet after Musk. Do people ever learn?

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