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

Saturday Afternoon Read: On Twitter’s Decline

by Anne Laurie|  September 16, 20233:42 pm| 119 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, All Too Normal, Riveted By The Sociological Significance Of It All, social media

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I wrote about the last great account left on here. https://t.co/S6eSZZSrwf

— David Roth (@david_j_roth) September 13, 2023

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…

For years, Twitter helped scientists do better research. We discussed findings before publication which sped up discovery time, and we connected with new colleagues, which created cross-disciplinary research, and broke counter-productive gatekeeping. https://t.co/htgxUR0mKI

— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) September 12, 2023

Sadly Musk took that away when he bought Twitter and prioritized hate speech. Now it looks like Threads won't be a viable alternative, because Meta is restricting key health and science search terms like COVID and vaccines.https://t.co/9p7pahudtN

— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) September 12, 2023

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    119Comments

    1. 1.

      Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

      September 16, 2023 at 3:49 pm

      How get started with Mastodon

      Reply
    2. 2.

      Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

      September 16, 2023 at 3:51 pm

      Mastodon servers

      Reply
    3. 3.

      NotMax

      September 16, 2023 at 3:53 pm

      New team on board the heavily listing ship, including

      Mike Dupree will oversee Alcohol, Sports, Gambling, News, Cannabis. Source

      Reply
    4. 4.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 3:55 pm

      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.

      Reply
    5. 5.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 3:56 pm

      @NotMax:

      Now that’s a job title.

      Reply
    6. 6.

      BR

      September 16, 2023 at 3:59 pm

      I have found many super interesting people in the post Twitter world, such as this science teacher from NYC:

      https://sauropods.win/@futurebird

      She gives me great hope for Mastodon and other open projects.

      Reply
    7. 7.

      Alison Rose

      September 16, 2023 at 4:00 pm

      @NotMax: They gotta reorder the terms so the acronym can be SCANG.

      Reply
    8. 8.

      MattF

      September 16, 2023 at 4:00 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    9. 9.

      BR

      September 16, 2023 at 4:01 pm

      Also Dr. Lucky Tran posts heavily on Mastodon here along with a lot of other doctors and science folks:

      https://med-mastodon.com/@luckytran

      Reply
    10. 10.

      trucmat

      September 16, 2023 at 4:02 pm

      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.

      Reply
    11. 11.

      Alison Rose

      September 16, 2023 at 4:02 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    12. 12.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 4:03 pm

      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.

      Reply
    13. 13.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 4:03 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    14. 14.

      marcopolo

      September 16, 2023 at 4:04 pm

      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.

      Reply
    15. 15.

      Alison Rose

      September 16, 2023 at 4:04 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    16. 16.

      tobie

      September 16, 2023 at 4:04 pm

      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 @Teri[email protected] are essential for legal news.

      Reply
    17. 17.

      Alison Rose

      September 16, 2023 at 4:05 pm

      @Baud: I have one if you want it.

      Reply
    18. 18.

      glc

      September 16, 2023 at 4:05 pm

      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.

      Reply
    19. 19.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 4:06 pm

      @Alison Rose:

      Maybe soon.  I don’t have time to sign up and play with it right now.

      Thank you.

      Reply
    20. 20.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 4:09 pm

      @glc:

      Agreed. They had a fiduciary duty to accept the offer. It was ridiculously high.

      Reply
    21. 21.

      glc

      September 16, 2023 at 4:09 pm

      Texas. Not actually what I expected.

      Reply
    22. 22.

      twbrandt

      September 16, 2023 at 4:10 pm

      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.

      Reply
    23. 23.

      Anyway

      September 16, 2023 at 4:13 pm

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

      Reply
    24. 24.

      karen marie

      September 16, 2023 at 4:13 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    25. 25.

      karen marie

      September 16, 2023 at 4:16 pm

      @tobie: I second your emotion.

      Reply
    26. 26.

      MattF

      September 16, 2023 at 4:17 pm

      @Anyway: You think? She combines genuinely remarkable stupidity and hypocrisy. Hard to beat that.

      Reply
    27. 27.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 4:17 pm

      @karen marie:

      I just followed you.  Cute dogs.

      I kind of like mastodon too, but I don’t see it having widespread use like Twitter.

      Reply
    28. 28.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 4:17 pm

      @tobie:

      Just followed Laff. Thanks for the rec.

      Reply
    29. 29.

      Another Scott

      September 16, 2023 at 4:19 pm

      @karen marie: Dunno the details, but AFAIK, recently (years?) Jack has only been on the board or something and really has nothing to do with what Bluesky is now.

      TechCrunch.com has more.

      One can access it on the web (but it doesn’t do anything unless one has an account) –

      https://bsky.app/

      FWIW.

      Cheers,
      Scott.

      Reply
    30. 30.

      marcopolo

      September 16, 2023 at 4:19 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    31. 31.

      Ruckus

      September 16, 2023 at 4:19 pm

      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.

      Reply
    32. 32.

      trollhattan

      September 16, 2023 at 4:19 pm

      @NotMax:
      How about a kiss from your cousin Dupree?

      Reply
    33. 33.

      eclare

      September 16, 2023 at 4:19 pm

      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.

      Reply
    34. 34.

      Ben Cisco

      September 16, 2023 at 4:23 pm

      @Baud: I can report that the app is not required. I was gifted an invite and signed up via the web. I am

      @bencisco.bsky.social

      Reply
    35. 35.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 16, 2023 at 4:26 pm

      Elno is competing with the PAB in this sense.

      Reply
    36. 36.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 4:27 pm

      @Ben Cisco:

      Thanks!  No app required is good.  I might sign up next month when the things aren’t so hectic.

      Reply
    37. 37.

      Ken B

      September 16, 2023 at 4:27 pm

      @NotMax: So he’s the Elmo handler?

      Reply
    38. 38.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 16, 2023 at 4:28 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    39. 39.

      tobie

      September 16, 2023 at 4:28 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    40. 40.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 16, 2023 at 4:28 pm

      @Alison Rose: Reveling in hypocrisy is what theofascism is all about.

      Reply
    41. 41.

      Tony G

      September 16, 2023 at 4:30 pm

      “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.

      Reply
    42. 42.

      Alison Rose

      September 16, 2023 at 4:30 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus: You do love to see that kind of helpfulness in a relationship.

      Reply
    43. 43.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 16, 2023 at 4:32 pm

      @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: ​
        I signed up for Mastodon, but it never caught me. Bluesky seems to be becoming closer to old Twitter, but I don’t think anything will ever replicate what happened organically at Twitter.

      Reply
    44. 44.

      smith

      September 16, 2023 at 4:32 pm

      @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?

      Reply
    45. 45.

      Doc Sardonic

      September 16, 2023 at 4:34 pm

      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?

      Reply
    46. 46.

      Another Scott

      September 16, 2023 at 4:35 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    47. 47.

      Anne Laurie

      September 16, 2023 at 4:36 pm

      @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!

      Reply
    48. 48.

      Cliosfanboy

      September 16, 2023 at 4:38 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus: ​
       FWIW, A Quick Tuggie would be a pretty good name for a rock group.

      Reply
    49. 49.

      Doc Sardonic

      September 16, 2023 at 4:40 pm

      @Cliosfanboy: Need a 1 handed guitar player, I’m in

      Reply
    50. 50.

      trollhattan

      September 16, 2023 at 4:41 pm

      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

      Reply
    51. 51.

      tobie

      September 16, 2023 at 4:43 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    52. 52.

      Shalimar

      September 16, 2023 at 4:46 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    53. 53.

      sdhays

      September 16, 2023 at 4:47 pm

      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.

      Reply
    54. 54.

      BR

      September 16, 2023 at 4:50 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    55. 55.

      BR

      September 16, 2023 at 4:52 pm

      @Anne Laurie: ​
      I wonder what you think about Elk, which makes Mastodon look quite Twitter like. (And it has a night-mode / day-mode toggle in the right corner in the form of a moon icon, for those who don’t like default dark-mode.)

      https://elk.zone/home

      Reply
    56. 56.

      japa21

      September 16, 2023 at 4:53 pm

      OT – Is anybody doing a wellness check on raven?

      Reply
    57. 57.

      Jim, Foolish Literalist

      September 16, 2023 at 4:53 pm

      @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

      Reply
    58. 58.

      eclare

      September 16, 2023 at 4:54 pm

      @japa21:

      I was just thinking that!

      Reply
    59. 59.

      stinger

      September 16, 2023 at 4:56 pm

      @karen marie: ​
        Following you now!

      Reply
    60. 60.

      tobie

      September 16, 2023 at 4:57 pm

      @BR: I need to up my follows. It makes a huge difference.

      Reply
    61. 61.

      BR

      September 16, 2023 at 4:58 pm

      @tobie: ​

      For farming stuff here are a few people I follow:

      @[email protected]
      @[email protected]
      @[email protected]

      And you can follow #permaculture (which has a lot of related posts even if you aren’t looking for permaculture stuff specifically).

      Reply
    62. 62.

      cain

      September 16, 2023 at 5:00 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    63. 63.

      cain

      September 16, 2023 at 5:02 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    64. 64.

      MagdaInBlack

      September 16, 2023 at 5:03 pm

      @Alison Rose: I would suggest she was displaying all her values. ALL of them.  (or Both?)

      Reply
    65. 65.

      Shalimar

      September 16, 2023 at 5:03 pm

      @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I am not sure who bought what used to be Newsweek, but it is basically a far-right site now.  Makes OANN look moderate.

      Reply
    66. 66.

      cain

      September 16, 2023 at 5:03 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    67. 67.

      cain

      September 16, 2023 at 5:05 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    68. 68.

      cain

      September 16, 2023 at 5:07 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    69. 69.

      eclare

      September 16, 2023 at 5:08 pm

      @Shalimar:

      Yeah, I was thinking a far right group bought Newsweek also.  I think it was some German conglomerate?

      Reply
    70. 70.

      cain

      September 16, 2023 at 5:10 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    71. 71.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 5:11 pm

      @cain:

      Yeah, I don’t think it’ll be widely used, but I hope it sticks around as an outlet as a check on the main players.

      Reply
    72. 72.

      cain

      September 16, 2023 at 5:14 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    73. 73.

      cain

      September 16, 2023 at 5:16 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    74. 74.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 16, 2023 at 5:21 pm

      @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I had subscriptions to both Time and Newsweek in HS.  Gave up on both in the 90s when they went batshit over Clinton, slavishly following wingnut conspiracy theorists.

      Reply
    75. 75.

      frosty

      September 16, 2023 at 5:23 pm

      @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​Ah, but did you have a subscription to Washington Monthly in the 70s, like true political junkies [raises hand]?​

      Reply
    76. 76.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 5:23 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    77. 77.

      eclare

      September 16, 2023 at 5:23 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    78. 78.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 16, 2023 at 5:25 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    79. 79.

      Ohio Mom

      September 16, 2023 at 5:26 pm

      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.

      Reply
    80. 80.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 5:30 pm

      @Villago Delenda Est:

      My thought is that such software would be something that companies would purchase so they could be everywhere.

      Reply
    81. 81.

      eclare

      September 16, 2023 at 5:30 pm

      @Ohio Mom:

      Fellow dino here!  Twitter still works for me, so I am not switching yet.

      Reply
    82. 82.

      Geminid

      September 16, 2023 at 5:32 pm

      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.

      Reply
    83. 83.

      Ocotillo

      September 16, 2023 at 5:33 pm

      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.

      Reply
    84. 84.

      WaterGirl

      September 16, 2023 at 5:33 pm

      @Baud: Another zillionaire.  Rinse, repeat.

      Reply
    85. 85.

      piratedan

      September 16, 2023 at 5:34 pm

      for those interested, I am Piratedan7 on both Bsky and Mastodon.

      Reply
    86. 86.

      trollhattan

      September 16, 2023 at 5:35 pm

      As if being disabled weren’t challenging enough, they’re setting traps for them in SF.

      https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/14/23873374/cruise-wav-robotaxi-wheelchair-accessible-design-launch

      “And that’s the last time I saw Bob.”

      Reply
    87. 87.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 16, 2023 at 5:37 pm

      @Villago Delenda Est: I’ve been a fan of The Economist.  As long as one remembers its editorial slant, it provides the best coverage of the whole world.

      Reply
    88. 88.

      Jim, Foolish Literalist

      September 16, 2023 at 5:37 pm

      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

      Reply
    89. 89.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 5:38 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus:

      That used to also be true of the Wall Street Journal when it came to the US reporting. Not sure as much since Murdoch bought it.

      Reply
    90. 90.

      eclare

      September 16, 2023 at 5:39 pm

      @Geminid:

      I miss Betty Cracker on Twitter, especially the swamp/Pete/Badger photos. But of those I follow, she is the only one who left.

      Reply
    91. 91.

      Jim, Foolish Literalist

      September 16, 2023 at 5:39 pm

      @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

      Reply
    92. 92.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 5:39 pm

      @WaterGirl:

      Which other zillionaire? Besides Musk.

      Reply
    93. 93.

      Mousebumples

      September 16, 2023 at 5:40 pm

      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.

      Reply
    94. 94.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 16, 2023 at 5:42 pm

      @Baud: ​
        Dorsey’s connection to Bluesky makes some people nervous.

      Reply
    95. 95.

      tobie

      September 16, 2023 at 5:44 pm

      @BR: Thanks!

      Reply
    96. 96.

      WaterGirl

      September 16, 2023 at 5:51 pm

      @Baud: Jack what’s his name.

      Reply
    97. 97.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 5:54 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus:

      @WaterGirl:

      Thanks.

      Reply
    98. 98.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 16, 2023 at 6:00 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    99. 99.

      Yarrow

      September 16, 2023 at 6:01 pm

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

      Reply
    100. 100.

      MisterDancer

      September 16, 2023 at 6:03 pm

      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.

      Reply
    101. 101.

      Baud

      September 16, 2023 at 6:04 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus:

      I remember. I’m not afraid of no billionaire.  But others MMV.

      Reply
    102. 102.

      eversor

      September 16, 2023 at 6:06 pm

      @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”.

      Reply
    103. 103.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 16, 2023 at 6:17 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    104. 104.

      twbrandt

      September 16, 2023 at 6:39 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus: Dorsey has deleted his bluesky account. I don’t think he has anything to do with it anymore.

      Reply
    105. 105.

      Steeplejack

      September 16, 2023 at 6:46 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    106. 106.

      cain

      September 16, 2023 at 7:01 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    107. 107.

      Tim

      September 16, 2023 at 7:14 pm

      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?

      Reply
    108. 108.

      Shalimar

      September 16, 2023 at 7:23 pm

      @eversor: You’re so judgmental you should really be a Christian.

      Reply
    109. 109.

      moonbat

      September 16, 2023 at 7:30 pm

      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.

      Reply
    110. 110.

      Odie Hugh Manatee

      September 16, 2023 at 7:38 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    111. 111.

      Miss Bianca

      September 16, 2023 at 8:08 pm

      @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.)

      Reply
    112. 112.

      Odie Hugh Manatee

      September 16, 2023 at 8:10 pm

      @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.

      Reply
    113. 113.

      Gvg

      September 16, 2023 at 8:11 pm

      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.

      Reply
    114. 114.

      Bill

      September 16, 2023 at 8:13 pm

      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?

      Reply
    115. 115.

      Geminid

      September 16, 2023 at 8:17 pm

      @Miss Bianca: Just don’t mutter,”Boebert, Boebert, Boebert!”

      Reply
    116. 116.

      Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

      September 16, 2023 at 8:23 pm

      @Miss Bianca: Just got back from seeing Barbie again!

      Reply
    117. 117.

      Jim, Foolish Literalist

      September 16, 2023 at 8:43 pm

      @Miss Bianca: Lol! On the marquis troll!

      Reply
    118. 118.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 16, 2023 at 8:49 pm

      @Shalimar: Word.

      Reply
    119. 119.

      glc

      September 17, 2023 at 12:19 am

      Belatedly, on the topic of ex-Twitter, an aging but for now, at least, evergreen view.

      Reply

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