goodbye, Twitter

[mellowtigger]

Don't tell me we can't afford to solve the major problems of our day. So much wealth has floated upwards after decades of neoliberal economic policy that someone just blew US$44 billion on a vanity mission to take over a social media platform. It's official. Elon Musk personally owns Twitter. As of now, it is worth far less than what he paid for it. His first day as owner included firing Twitter's lawyer responsible for banning Trump from the platform. He plans many more firings. That social media platform is now pointless, as people justifiably abandon it.

I recommend the following:

1. Download an archive of your Twitter data:
   https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-download-your-twitter-archive
    
2. Join Dreamwidth blog site. They grew out of early (among several phases) anti-gay efforts from Russian-owned Livejournal, so they have a strong diversity commitment. This is mostly a "long form" site, where you can write about larger ideas in one piece without having to create unwieldy threads of conversation with character-count limitations.
   https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=1
    
3. Join Mastodon social message site. You probably haven't used a federated service before, so it may seem confusing because there isn't just one website. There are as many sites as there are people willing to create their own server for it. You join a server of your choosing, one that has policies that you like, then you have access to many other federated servers.  I happened to pick "Mastodon.online" for my home base, but there were others that I considered.  You do you.  :)
   https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/signup/
   
   There is not just a single way to view your account. Each server has its own website that you access with any web browser (I use Firefox), although there are program clients available too. For smartphone, there are many other apps for many platforms, but I use the Tusky app for Android.

If you're reading this post, then you already know my address on Dreamwidth. Here is my federated address so you can add me from your own Mastodon account.  Just paste this text into the search bar for your chosen site, then it should be able to locate me, so you can click and follow.

@MellowTigger@mastodon.online

Welcome to the new universe of social media.  I think it's good to have both long form (blog) and short form (message) options.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome]

Mr Dorsey has opened beta for bluesky, which will probably be an easier way to access the federated thing.

https://bsky.app

[mellowtigger]

I hadn't heard of it until now. I entered my email to learn more when it's available. Thanks for the link.

[bitterlawngnome]

There's a lot of talk of course. Wait n see.

[mellowtigger]

I thought OpenBook aka Okuna aka Somus was going to be the next great thing to outperform them all, so what do I know? :P

[bitterlawngnome]

has it just died on the vine?

[mellowtigger]

It was going really well as Okuna... until they reincarnated as Somus. It is an attempt to use the Patreon model of subscriptions to popular content producers. Except much more expensive than Patreon for each person you subscribe to. It won't last. But Okuna was opensource. I should go archive a copy, in case I win a lottery and want to resurrect it someday. :/

Edit: Ah, here it is. https://github.com/OkunaOrg

[bitterlawngnome]

wow, running a social media is expensive, who knew? lol

[shimmerwine]

I've chosen to go to CounterSocial, which, from what I've heard, is a kinder Mastodon. lol And the creator is rabid about keeping bots and trolls off the site. counter.social is the url. People are insanely friendly, welcoming, and helpful.

[mellowtigger]

Interesting. Yet another one that I'd never heard of. I thought I was in the "online" loop, but clearly not. I like the concept. I also like that the community feed is already separate from the friends feed. I had to do that manually on Twitter. Not sure how I feel about seeing them both update in realtime. That seems like a dopamine addiction waiting to happen. :) I've signed up to try it out.

[shimmerwine]

I'll look for you there!

[shimmerwine]

You can 'hide' the firehose, which is the insanely fast one. And use hashtags, categories, and filters to the fullest. Also, desktop is like Tweetdeck; it's da bomb. It's a wonderful place; everyone feels safe and comfortable jumping into conversations or replying to people they don't know.

I followed you. I'm HealingHobbit there.

[bitterlawngnome]

Oh! ok I shall look that up. I had avoided the entire mess cause of bad experiences in the early days. Thanks!

[mellowtigger]

It already "feels" more bustling than MeWe or Mastodon because of the concentration of users there. Its history is interesting, as a former Mastodon instance that was rejected by a tech creator of Mastodon. It would be nice if it rejoined some other instances that are more accepting of its premise.

[bitterlawngnome]

I'm astonished ... I asked a complete newb question and got about twenty ACTUALLY HELPFUL and NICE answers.

[shimmerwine]

May I ask your username there? I'll follow you. Mine's HealingHobbit.

[bitterlawngnome]

done

[shimmerwine]

And BlueSky is actually a Musk/Dorsey collaboration. There's an article about it but I can't find it at the moment.

This isn't it, but it gives you an idea. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/29/23428241/elon-musk-twitter-bluesky-decentralized-social-networking-future

[bitterlawngnome]

Ugh :(

[darkoshi]

I just came across this article; maybe it's the one you were thinking of?
https://davetroy.medium.com/no-elon-and-jack-are-not-competitors-theyre-collaborating-3e88cde5267d

[mellowtigger]

It seems like I'm never pessimistic enough. So, one could be pardoned for thinking that together they arranged to depress the value (economic and political) of one platform while on the cusp of conveniently offering "an alternative"?

[shimmerwine]

I think it was to disrupt the advocacy/disability/BLM/union/anything else you can think of that the GOP doesn't like...communities on the site.

[shimmerwine]

That was it!

[mellowtigger]

P.S. This tweet captures the capitalist problem in a nutshell.

It's a picture from Spiderman comics, with the villain's head replaced with Elon Musk's.
Spiderman: "You're buying Twitter for 41 billion dollars? I thought you said you were going to end world hunger for only 6 billion dollars?"
Elon Musk: "But I don't want to end world hunger. I want to ban people who make fun of me on the internet."
https://twitter.com/DataWizard777/status/1585681773710946304