Who's left and who's leaving - twitter and afterward
November 8, 2022 6:51 AM Subscribe
Are you on twitter? What decisions have you made about your non-twitter social media? I am especially interested in replies from people who are Really On Twitter so it's not just a matter of spending a bit more time on Instagram instead.
Are you moving much of your activity to another platform? Which one? How are you handling migrating contacts, finding people in your new location, etc?
In particular, if you are moving to Mastodon, how is that working for you? How did you choose your silo? Are you siloed off from stuff you wish you'd see? How did you make your decision?
If you are moving over to discord servers, etc, how did you decide where to go?
I rely on Twitter a lot but it's already getting chaotic and a lot of people I follow are clearly going to keep a small twitter presence but mostly move elsewhere, so I feel like I'm going to be mostly moving elsewhere too. Also, I volunteer for a project that does a lot on twitter and I think we need to figure out how to deal with the shifting situation.
Are you moving much of your activity to another platform? Which one? How are you handling migrating contacts, finding people in your new location, etc?
In particular, if you are moving to Mastodon, how is that working for you? How did you choose your silo? Are you siloed off from stuff you wish you'd see? How did you make your decision?
If you are moving over to discord servers, etc, how did you decide where to go?
I rely on Twitter a lot but it's already getting chaotic and a lot of people I follow are clearly going to keep a small twitter presence but mostly move elsewhere, so I feel like I'm going to be mostly moving elsewhere too. Also, I volunteer for a project that does a lot on twitter and I think we need to figure out how to deal with the shifting situation.
For the time being I'm keeping my Twitter presence, largely because I love the random discoverability of the place. But I've also reactivated my Mastodon account — I used mastodon.social because when I originally set it up, that was the instance that worked best for me.
There's not really a "siloing" issue with Mastodon yet, in terms of the people I follow; I'm using debirdify to periodically scan for Twitter contacts who have Mastodon accounts and follow them, so I'm hoping that in time I'll replicate at least the followings that I appreciate the most.
posted by gmb at 6:59 AM on November 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
There's not really a "siloing" issue with Mastodon yet, in terms of the people I follow; I'm using debirdify to periodically scan for Twitter contacts who have Mastodon accounts and follow them, so I'm hoping that in time I'll replicate at least the followings that I appreciate the most.
posted by gmb at 6:59 AM on November 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
I've got accounts set up on Cohost (yes, their TOS is terrible, if you post stuff you care about maybe just camp a handle) and Mastodon. The latter is fine so far, a lot of my friends are making accounts on various servers and I haven't had any trouble following all of them, and my local server is run by someone well-known in my hobby field with the right expertise and enough reputation that I trust them to make good choices.
I have various Discords, Slacks, etc, but they serve a completely different purpose for me than Twitter and my usage of them isn't affected by this.
I'm still on Twitter because it's been more fun in the last ten days than in many years, but I am giving them zero money and the instant it becomes too irritating to use, I'll wipe everything except pointers elsewhere.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:06 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have various Discords, Slacks, etc, but they serve a completely different purpose for me than Twitter and my usage of them isn't affected by this.
I'm still on Twitter because it's been more fun in the last ten days than in many years, but I am giving them zero money and the instant it becomes too irritating to use, I'll wipe everything except pointers elsewhere.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:06 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I am taking time off. Pre-leadership change, I was spending too much time on it and had taken time off before. I like it and I miss it. I don’t have long term plans like switching to something else or “ if X happens, I am out for good.” I am just taking a break.
posted by kat518 at 7:09 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by kat518 at 7:09 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I am kind of stubbornly hanging on to Twitter. I have loved it since it started and I've been on there from basically the beginning. I am super mad about what is happening there. I follow academics, comedians, local accounts for traffic/safety, just a grabbag of crazy stuff (like an account that impersonates a squirrel).
I am signing up for newsletters and Patreons where that is applicable to keep up with people I have been following for years. Some of them I will probably lose contact with (like, Jelani Cobb used to run in some of the same political circles as me here in Atlanta, but now I can only keep up with him on Twitter because he's moved).
I don't know if I have the appetite for Mastodon. If I decide to give it a try I will use debirdify and see what I can do but the sheer chaos and discoverability of Twitter is part of what made it so special.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:11 AM on November 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
I am signing up for newsletters and Patreons where that is applicable to keep up with people I have been following for years. Some of them I will probably lose contact with (like, Jelani Cobb used to run in some of the same political circles as me here in Atlanta, but now I can only keep up with him on Twitter because he's moved).
I don't know if I have the appetite for Mastodon. If I decide to give it a try I will use debirdify and see what I can do but the sheer chaos and discoverability of Twitter is part of what made it so special.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:11 AM on November 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
FWIW also, it's worth just sleeping on Twitter rather than deleting your account. If you ever want to come back for some reason, someone could be camping your handle if you delete and deleting also makes your tweet history go away. I'm not worried about any of my tweets (I never have been in terms of jobs or whatever) and I wouldn't want to lose 13 years or whatever of my dumb brain dumps, so I'm going to keep my handle active, even if I don't use the site after whatever happens, happens.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:13 AM on November 8, 2022
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:13 AM on November 8, 2022
I'm sticking it out on Twitter for the time being but I'm also trying out Mastodon.
Twitter is my community. I have built a group of "friends", most of whom are or were MeFites. I enjoy my daily interactions with them and would miss them if they're gone. Some are also on Mastodon but many will not move over there.
I use Twitter for for fun. I tell my little jokes and I read jokes. The only Nazis that cross my timeline are via "look at this fucking Nazi" retweets. I also use it for breaking news, to follow some makers I like, to get some inside scoop on a couple bands. I don't follow many celebrities and mostly get my news via retweets.
I so far don't care for Mastodon. It has a very "Linux on the desktop" feeling to it. "Oh, it's just as good as The Other Thing but every ten days you have to re-compile the kernel. Just read the Man page." Any time I complain about anything someone points me to some large text file "guide" to it that looks like I'm reading it on a 1980s BBS. This is maddening to me. If you need a guide to use something in 2022 then it is not going to catch on.
I also don't really trust Mastodon. How is it going to scale? What are the incentives for people to keep running their servers? How do I know the TOS isn't just going to change? Yes, I know these problems also exist on Twitter. I know this because every time I bring them up some guy who had Soylent for breakfast reminds me.
I admit to being a bit bitter. I work in IT but I am not an IT guy and one of my pet peeves is that IT Guys do not get that not everyone is an IT Guy. Mastodon is very much an IT Guy place.
I think the little shitheel who bought Twitter is going to get tired of the abuse and take a loss on it at some point. I think maybe it'll go back to where it was eventually.
I also have an account on CoHost but that seems like a non-starter.
Right now there is no replacement for Twitter and even if there were it's mostly about the community. It's only going to work if most of my community is at the same place.
posted by bondcliff at 7:18 AM on November 8, 2022 [14 favorites]
Twitter is my community. I have built a group of "friends", most of whom are or were MeFites. I enjoy my daily interactions with them and would miss them if they're gone. Some are also on Mastodon but many will not move over there.
I use Twitter for for fun. I tell my little jokes and I read jokes. The only Nazis that cross my timeline are via "look at this fucking Nazi" retweets. I also use it for breaking news, to follow some makers I like, to get some inside scoop on a couple bands. I don't follow many celebrities and mostly get my news via retweets.
I so far don't care for Mastodon. It has a very "Linux on the desktop" feeling to it. "Oh, it's just as good as The Other Thing but every ten days you have to re-compile the kernel. Just read the Man page." Any time I complain about anything someone points me to some large text file "guide" to it that looks like I'm reading it on a 1980s BBS. This is maddening to me. If you need a guide to use something in 2022 then it is not going to catch on.
I also don't really trust Mastodon. How is it going to scale? What are the incentives for people to keep running their servers? How do I know the TOS isn't just going to change? Yes, I know these problems also exist on Twitter. I know this because every time I bring them up some guy who had Soylent for breakfast reminds me.
I admit to being a bit bitter. I work in IT but I am not an IT guy and one of my pet peeves is that IT Guys do not get that not everyone is an IT Guy. Mastodon is very much an IT Guy place.
I think the little shitheel who bought Twitter is going to get tired of the abuse and take a loss on it at some point. I think maybe it'll go back to where it was eventually.
I also have an account on CoHost but that seems like a non-starter.
Right now there is no replacement for Twitter and even if there were it's mostly about the community. It's only going to work if most of my community is at the same place.
posted by bondcliff at 7:18 AM on November 8, 2022 [14 favorites]
Found Twitter made me angry, as above, and Like-addicted. I disabled mine a few months ago and then didn't realize it would be deleted. I'm happier just checking a few things in the morning rather than being drawn back to an infinite scroll. Without the rush of RT's, I have become interested in learning about the birds and trees around me. Not exaggerating.
As far as I am concerned every moment I spend on Twitter is contributing to a dangerous person's Network Effect. I might check out Mastodon a bit but although I admire its RSS-like spirit of free software, I am dubious about whether even that alternative social media is good for me. File me under gone like Enron!
posted by johngoren at 7:28 AM on November 8, 2022
As far as I am concerned every moment I spend on Twitter is contributing to a dangerous person's Network Effect. I might check out Mastodon a bit but although I admire its RSS-like spirit of free software, I am dubious about whether even that alternative social media is good for me. File me under gone like Enron!
posted by johngoren at 7:28 AM on November 8, 2022
I'm going to stay on Twitter until it becomes a) unpleasant or unsafe for me or so many people I care about that it's not worth my attention b) Tweetdeck dies and I can no longer really use the site the way I want c) something fails and it stops working.
Twitter is where my friends live, primarily. Yes, I have 26 columns in Tweetdeck and some of them are for lists I've made for local and national news, Ukrainian journalists, people I look to as experts on American race issues and white supremacy, and other things I find important to look at several times a day. I also have lists devoted entirely to adorable or weird animals, funny bots, bloggers I follow (I do also still use RSS too), and similar lighter distractions. But most importantly it's the people I interact with every day.
So I have established a presence in the places they are using as backup currently, for the most part cohost and mastodon, which I only vaguely understand but seem to be able to use okay so far. Right now I have my Tweets auto-posting to Mastodon, but if engagement starts generally moving over there I'll turn that off. I have heard rumors that there are ways to configure Mastodon similarly to how I use Tweetdeck but I haven't figured it out yet.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:35 AM on November 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
Twitter is where my friends live, primarily. Yes, I have 26 columns in Tweetdeck and some of them are for lists I've made for local and national news, Ukrainian journalists, people I look to as experts on American race issues and white supremacy, and other things I find important to look at several times a day. I also have lists devoted entirely to adorable or weird animals, funny bots, bloggers I follow (I do also still use RSS too), and similar lighter distractions. But most importantly it's the people I interact with every day.
So I have established a presence in the places they are using as backup currently, for the most part cohost and mastodon, which I only vaguely understand but seem to be able to use okay so far. Right now I have my Tweets auto-posting to Mastodon, but if engagement starts generally moving over there I'll turn that off. I have heard rumors that there are ways to configure Mastodon similarly to how I use Tweetdeck but I haven't figured it out yet.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:35 AM on November 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've mothballed but not deleted my twitter account for now and have moved to Mastodon. A lot of my nerdy friends have already moved over there and honestly I feel like it's improved my mental health to get away from the rage machine. Mastodon reminds me of Twitter before the brands landed, right down to the occasional DB overload, and that's cool. My extra spare time is being spent on offline stuff or, er, Metafilter.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:40 AM on November 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:40 AM on November 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm still on Twitter -- unlike most people, apparently I have figured out how to avoid the "angry" stuff? I follow people I like, the people I follow don't post inflammatory stuff and don't attract inflammatory responses (I don't generally read responses because why? I don't follow those people doing replies so why would I read what they have to say), so on my timeline I scroll through cool art, pictures of their pets, funny jokes, updates on TV shows I like, etc.
That's not to say I want to stay on Twitter, it's just that I haven't been driven away yet. Same as Facebook.
My problem is that I follow people on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram because I've found them through other means and discovered "oh, they have a {whatever} account" , but I don't see a lot of people advertising their presence on other platforms like Mastodon/Vero/whatever yet. I tried debirdify above and it found 6 out of 350 people I follow, so that doesn't give me much confidence moving to Mastodon will get me the same content I get on Twitter. My worry is that this exodus means those people I follow are going to be spread out across 50 different platforms and I won't find them again.
If anything, eventually Twitter and Facebook will stop showing me things I want to see (Facebook's "Suggested For You" has just about done that) and the bonus will be that I'll be broken of my addiction to scrolling through my feeds.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:41 AM on November 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
That's not to say I want to stay on Twitter, it's just that I haven't been driven away yet. Same as Facebook.
My problem is that I follow people on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram because I've found them through other means and discovered "oh, they have a {whatever} account" , but I don't see a lot of people advertising their presence on other platforms like Mastodon/Vero/whatever yet. I tried debirdify above and it found 6 out of 350 people I follow, so that doesn't give me much confidence moving to Mastodon will get me the same content I get on Twitter. My worry is that this exodus means those people I follow are going to be spread out across 50 different platforms and I won't find them again.
If anything, eventually Twitter and Facebook will stop showing me things I want to see (Facebook's "Suggested For You" has just about done that) and the bonus will be that I'll be broken of my addiction to scrolling through my feeds.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:41 AM on November 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm still on Twitter. I use it to communicate with friends, do not view or interact with Public Figures in general, and will continue to do that until I no longer can. That may involve locking up my public account at some point, or maybe Twitter will literally break down first, unclear.
Right now it's looking like when that happens, the likely end result is that most of my fandom engagement stays on Tumblr, and public-facing non-fandom stuff migrates to Cohost. Personal friend stuff has been moving slowly to Discord over the past year or two and that may continue. I'm poking at Mastodon a bit but so far having the same experience I've had on two previous attempts to make a home there, where both interface and general culture don't click with me for whatever reason. But who knows, maybe with enough people moving over there, this will be the time it clicks.
posted by Stacey at 7:42 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Right now it's looking like when that happens, the likely end result is that most of my fandom engagement stays on Tumblr, and public-facing non-fandom stuff migrates to Cohost. Personal friend stuff has been moving slowly to Discord over the past year or two and that may continue. I'm poking at Mastodon a bit but so far having the same experience I've had on two previous attempts to make a home there, where both interface and general culture don't click with me for whatever reason. But who knows, maybe with enough people moving over there, this will be the time it clicks.
posted by Stacey at 7:42 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Still on Twitter, not going anywhere for the moment, but I just signed up on a new-to-me Mastodon instance. Should the accounts that are in my curated Twitter lists start closing en masse, I'll close my own account.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 7:45 AM on November 8, 2022
posted by Sheydem-tants at 7:45 AM on November 8, 2022
I'm sticking with Twitter for now. It's where specialists in my rare cancer share info about trials and general news about treatment, so it's really invaluable for me. I also follow Duotrope, which tweets info about journals that are having contests or accepting work. I follow a few writers. I follow some vegan groups. I follow some nuns (really!).
A few things make it work for me. The first is that I unfollow or mute anyone who says something I think is mean. The second is that I almost never tweet and when I do, it's almost always a response to someone I know in real life, so I'm not checking for likes. So Twitter itself gives me zero exposure to the "rage machine" people are upset about. I only see that stuff in news articles.
If the cancer docs all move, I'll move. I've never been on Facebook, so I don't get information there.
posted by FencingGal at 7:46 AM on November 8, 2022
A few things make it work for me. The first is that I unfollow or mute anyone who says something I think is mean. The second is that I almost never tweet and when I do, it's almost always a response to someone I know in real life, so I'm not checking for likes. So Twitter itself gives me zero exposure to the "rage machine" people are upset about. I only see that stuff in news articles.
If the cancer docs all move, I'll move. I've never been on Facebook, so I don't get information there.
posted by FencingGal at 7:46 AM on November 8, 2022
I'm keeping my Twitter account for now because I have a little bit of Twitter clout and sometimes those numbers help me get hired for stuff. But I don't log in any more because I'm not giving the muskrat my pageviews. I'm not sure what to do going forward. I'm hoping to be able to save my stuff and exit with it. Feels silly to even consider that, though - it already feels like waving a printout of my old MySpace page or something.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 7:46 AM on November 8, 2022
posted by nouvelle-personne at 7:46 AM on November 8, 2022
Ugh, I'm in such a state of confusion about this. I use Twitter a lot, and am very well connected there in my industry (I'm a freelance book editor; many, many authors, including my clients, are on Twitter all day long). A bunch of my contacts are migrating to Mastodon, but I'm not hearing that it's the same at all. Twitter contacts/friendships/back-and-forths have absolutely been the main driver of my career, particularly after my publishing niche's two annual conferences tanked/changed their focus over the last few years. I am truly going to suffer without it, which sucks.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:47 AM on November 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:47 AM on November 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
I expect to stay for a while. There is currently no replacement for the combination of things I get on Twitter, including local and national news, professional news, interaction with colleagues and friends, art of various kinds from creatives I wouldn't know about otherwise, and access to various large communities.
Many people I know have made similar decisions, in terms of why to stay. Others have left! Unfortunately only one of the 3-ish professional communities I'm part of has moved in anything like a cohesive way to another platform (Mastodon), and it made me rethink how strongly I need to remain connected to that community in order to continue my professional activities.
I moved to Twitter when Facebook became largely intolerable for me for regular use. If Twitter becomes intolerable, I will likely do a more serious analysis of what I'm using it and other social media for and identify, if possible, tools & methods other than social media to meet my needs.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:49 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Many people I know have made similar decisions, in terms of why to stay. Others have left! Unfortunately only one of the 3-ish professional communities I'm part of has moved in anything like a cohesive way to another platform (Mastodon), and it made me rethink how strongly I need to remain connected to that community in order to continue my professional activities.
I moved to Twitter when Facebook became largely intolerable for me for regular use. If Twitter becomes intolerable, I will likely do a more serious analysis of what I'm using it and other social media for and identify, if possible, tools & methods other than social media to meet my needs.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:49 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
This feels like one of those times when people who don't like Elon will say the right things about leaving, and might actually try leaving, but the majority of them will be back on Twitter soon enough when they realise that Mastadon is really not Twitter, Discord is REALLY not Twitter, and Twitter hasn't actually collapsed now it's got a new owner.
I only follow people I know plus a few feeds about cats, animals in general, and cool space/engineering things and I virtually never see the cesspit that other people are always talking about. But if you use it for news and/or following anything else where people have a vested interest in sowing division and hate - on both sides of the political spectrum - then it will be an unpleasant place to be.
There is nothing else that is really like Twitter, so your choice is to have Twitter or not have Twitter. The closest thing to it is Mastadon, but in the same way that the closest thing to a giant Game of Throne dragon is a cat in a dinosaur costume. Whatever you do, +1 to everyone saying not to delete your account, at least until you're sure you don't want to keep it.
posted by underclocked at 7:49 AM on November 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
I only follow people I know plus a few feeds about cats, animals in general, and cool space/engineering things and I virtually never see the cesspit that other people are always talking about. But if you use it for news and/or following anything else where people have a vested interest in sowing division and hate - on both sides of the political spectrum - then it will be an unpleasant place to be.
There is nothing else that is really like Twitter, so your choice is to have Twitter or not have Twitter. The closest thing to it is Mastadon, but in the same way that the closest thing to a giant Game of Throne dragon is a cat in a dinosaur costume. Whatever you do, +1 to everyone saying not to delete your account, at least until you're sure you don't want to keep it.
posted by underclocked at 7:49 AM on November 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm staying on Twitter for now because I simply do not have the mental energy to learn a new social media platform right now. If it gets horrible I'll leave and probably not migrate anywhere else.
posted by bookmammal at 7:50 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by bookmammal at 7:50 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I quit Twitter a while back, including deleting my account. I had the same experience of getting sucked into a "two minutes' hate" by the featured/trending/look at this awful fascist/ sidebar content. It was making me angry and unhappy and sucking away my life so I quit. I miss talking to some music theory people on there, but that's about it.
posted by daisystomper at 7:54 AM on November 8, 2022
posted by daisystomper at 7:54 AM on November 8, 2022
if you are moving to Mastodon, how is that working for you?
I've been using it for all of a week, but have been messing around with it ever since. The "siloing" isn't really as much of a problem as it sounds - you can follow people from other servers, and have basically the equivalent of your Twitter feed. However, if you choose, you can also see the entire feed from your server, which depending on the size of your server, can be a constant stream of random stuff, or a more curated feed from interesting people.
It is a bit complicated - for example, people say that you can change servers, (Which is true) but it's a bit of an involved procedure to do, particularly if you want to keep following the people you are. But more importantly, there's no way of bringing your history with you - your previous posts remain with your old account (which is just parked.) There's a redirect from the old to the new, but not from the new account back to the old. (I did it this morning to as my previous server was very overloaded.)
I get the feeling that some of the stuff that people like about Twitter (like the random connections) can to some extent be replicated on Mastodon, once there's more of a critical mass there, but I also think that more people also makes it more likely to get the worse sides of Twitter.
posted by scorbet at 7:57 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've been using it for all of a week, but have been messing around with it ever since. The "siloing" isn't really as much of a problem as it sounds - you can follow people from other servers, and have basically the equivalent of your Twitter feed. However, if you choose, you can also see the entire feed from your server, which depending on the size of your server, can be a constant stream of random stuff, or a more curated feed from interesting people.
It is a bit complicated - for example, people say that you can change servers, (Which is true) but it's a bit of an involved procedure to do, particularly if you want to keep following the people you are. But more importantly, there's no way of bringing your history with you - your previous posts remain with your old account (which is just parked.) There's a redirect from the old to the new, but not from the new account back to the old. (I did it this morning to as my previous server was very overloaded.)
I get the feeling that some of the stuff that people like about Twitter (like the random connections) can to some extent be replicated on Mastodon, once there's more of a critical mass there, but I also think that more people also makes it more likely to get the worse sides of Twitter.
posted by scorbet at 7:57 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Staying on Twitter for now. If it all collapses then I'm going to try to avoid replacing it with anything else and give myself a chance of reclaiming part of my brain from the social media brain worms.
posted by knapah at 8:25 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by knapah at 8:25 AM on November 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
I like Twitter a lot and while I kind of understand the complaints, for someone like me (with a relatively small group of followers) it's been 99% awesome. I follow a few public figures that I like, keep track of some friends--mainly MeFites--and learn a lot of interesting random stuff. I don't pick fights and I'm not a big enough presence for anyone to pick a fight with me when I start talking politics. It's my favorite social media by far. I interact with it almost exclusively via the Tweetbot app on my phone, so no adds and a simple chronological timeline. Maybe Elongated Muskrat will mess that up and I'll have to reconsider, but nothing so far as really significantly impacted the value proposition of Twitter for me.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:40 AM on November 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:40 AM on November 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm camped on Mastodon but I don't really use it, don't enjoy it, and probably can't switch to it primarily at least until people learn how to spell it.
Instagram stories and a tiny social network most people don't remember still exists have been more fun for me than Twitter for many years, so I've already been putting the majority of my efforts elsewhere, but like many people I would be shooting myself in the foot if I nuked Twitter prematurely. I do believe completely in Elon's ability to either run the place entirely into the ground or make it genuinely unusable, but the risks of jumping the gun are pretty high so I'm continuing to take some distance and observe.
I would still love to find a good Discord but as a supplement, not a replacement! Discords can't replace Twitter because Discord is just IRC and Twitter wasn't invented yet.
posted by babelfish at 8:47 AM on November 8, 2022
Instagram stories and a tiny social network most people don't remember still exists have been more fun for me than Twitter for many years, so I've already been putting the majority of my efforts elsewhere, but like many people I would be shooting myself in the foot if I nuked Twitter prematurely. I do believe completely in Elon's ability to either run the place entirely into the ground or make it genuinely unusable, but the risks of jumping the gun are pretty high so I'm continuing to take some distance and observe.
I would still love to find a good Discord but as a supplement, not a replacement! Discords can't replace Twitter because Discord is just IRC and Twitter wasn't invented yet.
posted by babelfish at 8:47 AM on November 8, 2022
I'm leaning towards cohost, as that's where most of my techie art friends have moved to. It's not so much a Twitter replacement as a hybrid between Twitter and tumblr. My feeling on the terms of use language being bad is that they're a small company that doesn't actually want more users right now until they improve their scalability, so haven't been prioritizing things like that. I could be wrong and they're all evil theory, but I doubt that given the specific people involved.
Someone on my feed described cohost as a "rest home for millenials raised on the old Internet" which feels about right. I can't decide if I want to sit in a rest home, or try to make a name for myself on Mastodon. I have a very old Mastodon account on Mastodon.xyz but I might just drop it and remake on a more interesting server
posted by JZig at 9:08 AM on November 8, 2022
Someone on my feed described cohost as a "rest home for millenials raised on the old Internet" which feels about right. I can't decide if I want to sit in a rest home, or try to make a name for myself on Mastodon. I have a very old Mastodon account on Mastodon.xyz but I might just drop it and remake on a more interesting server
posted by JZig at 9:08 AM on November 8, 2022
I'm looking and considering, but I mostly use Twitter for learning of things / reading other people, not posting.
And while yes, he doesn't deserve the pageviews... those pageviews are costing him money, and I'm amused by that.
I really appreciate that the ads have pretty much disappeared, lol. I hadn't even hoped for that, even though the ads bug me... but it's sure a silver lining.
I've been sort-of waiting to see where everyone is heading... but now that I think of it, perhaps I should just grab my preferred user names on all the sorta ok looking options, and schedule regular check-ins to keep myself from being deactivated.
It's the writing/editing/publishing community that I don't want to completely lose... but not everyone is there, anyway.
I wish someone would invent a way to connect all the social media together, somehow. (The "how" is beyond me, but there's gotta be someone out there with ideas.)
posted by stormyteal at 9:17 AM on November 8, 2022
And while yes, he doesn't deserve the pageviews... those pageviews are costing him money, and I'm amused by that.
I really appreciate that the ads have pretty much disappeared, lol. I hadn't even hoped for that, even though the ads bug me... but it's sure a silver lining.
I've been sort-of waiting to see where everyone is heading... but now that I think of it, perhaps I should just grab my preferred user names on all the sorta ok looking options, and schedule regular check-ins to keep myself from being deactivated.
It's the writing/editing/publishing community that I don't want to completely lose... but not everyone is there, anyway.
I wish someone would invent a way to connect all the social media together, somehow. (The "how" is beyond me, but there's gotta be someone out there with ideas.)
posted by stormyteal at 9:17 AM on November 8, 2022
I use Twitter for my career and as a convenient way to get a ton of info at once/networking for contacts, so I don't plan on leaving. I kept both my Spotify and my Facebook after the major controversies, and really the major issue is that not everyone leaves to go somewhere else, it isn't like the old days where everyone abandoned MySpace. These databanking giants are so entrenched that I find no need to rush and disrupt my life just because some asshole did. It's more like being in more ponds -- I'll join Mastodon, maybe, when I'm not overloaded with IRL stuff. I'll at least sign up for my preferred screennames now.
posted by yueliang at 9:44 AM on November 8, 2022
posted by yueliang at 9:44 AM on November 8, 2022
I find twitter very useful for finding people in, and adjacent to my work (which is incidentally the thing I do for fun too). Like I recently met a farmer on twit, and then visited their farm and discussed business - as our politics and social circles are very different that would not have happened without twit. NZ farmers, and ecologists are very active on twit, no one as all in my work though, while many landscape folk from US, Oz, Euro are so it's great for keeping up with trends (and chatting to great people).
I've enjoyed writing on twit as it's helped my brevity for (very) short-form prose. BUT it does force polarisation of views, or at least make that far more likely. Also can't switch off enough of other people's feeds - and find much of this too distracting now.
Have never used block until last few days when started getting DM's and contacts selling crypto, amazon etc.
I'll stay a bit more - but have been unfollowing a few accounts. I figure it's like buying gas, I mean show me an ethical, non-genocidal oil company.
posted by unearthed at 10:06 AM on November 8, 2022
I've enjoyed writing on twit as it's helped my brevity for (very) short-form prose. BUT it does force polarisation of views, or at least make that far more likely. Also can't switch off enough of other people's feeds - and find much of this too distracting now.
Have never used block until last few days when started getting DM's and contacts selling crypto, amazon etc.
I'll stay a bit more - but have been unfollowing a few accounts. I figure it's like buying gas, I mean show me an ethical, non-genocidal oil company.
posted by unearthed at 10:06 AM on November 8, 2022
I quit - I logged out the day he took over and then I think that day he tweeted something awful which set the tenor for me so I logged back in and deleted or deactivated my account. Whatever the Google instructions gave me.
I'd considered it a cesspit anyway and I'd been an on again, off again type of user who doesn't tweet much and didn't have a coterie of friends there. I'm fine with it. I hope he loses many billions of dollars but I'm not happy about all the job loss.
It was also a part of a general kind of getting out of social media trend for me. I'm out of Facebook, I deleted the Insta app - though I do access it via a browser which seriously cuts down on the reels that I don't care for and enhances my experience on the platform. I don't Tik Tok or use their app.
I am considering trying another platform but so far have not found it necessary for my day to day.
posted by rdnnyc at 1:53 PM on November 8, 2022
I'd considered it a cesspit anyway and I'd been an on again, off again type of user who doesn't tweet much and didn't have a coterie of friends there. I'm fine with it. I hope he loses many billions of dollars but I'm not happy about all the job loss.
It was also a part of a general kind of getting out of social media trend for me. I'm out of Facebook, I deleted the Insta app - though I do access it via a browser which seriously cuts down on the reels that I don't care for and enhances my experience on the platform. I don't Tik Tok or use their app.
I am considering trying another platform but so far have not found it necessary for my day to day.
posted by rdnnyc at 1:53 PM on November 8, 2022
I'm staying on Twitter for now. I use it mainly for professional reasons not like Facebook and Instagram, which I use to keep in touch with family or friends. I think Elon sucks but so does Facebook (arguably more so) and I still use that. I feel like I'm too old and tired to learn Mastodon or another new platform.
posted by emd3737 at 2:04 PM on November 8, 2022
posted by emd3737 at 2:04 PM on November 8, 2022
I'm still on twitter for the moment, but am splitting my time with mastodon & cohost. Of the two, I think I prefer cohost, but there are definitely more people I know on mastodon.
posted by juv3nal at 2:44 PM on November 8, 2022
posted by juv3nal at 2:44 PM on November 8, 2022
I am deeply cranky because work has finally been evening out enough that I have the breathing room to reconnect with my scientific contacts and friends on Twitter, and... well, everything has been sufficiently shaky that I don't trust it to stay up. My purely for fun social media time is here, Discord and Tumblr, which will not be changing, but I'm trying to figure out where the professional networking is going with some alarm.
I've got an EcoEvoSocial Mastodon account up and will be digging in more tomorrow when I'm not scrambling to get stuff done before a major conference; I'll be adding my handle there to my poster alongside my twitter one, as has been my practice for years now. My decisions on where I wind up long term will be made by figuring out where most of my friends and contacts go.
posted by sciatrix at 3:36 PM on November 8, 2022
I've got an EcoEvoSocial Mastodon account up and will be digging in more tomorrow when I'm not scrambling to get stuff done before a major conference; I'll be adding my handle there to my poster alongside my twitter one, as has been my practice for years now. My decisions on where I wind up long term will be made by figuring out where most of my friends and contacts go.
posted by sciatrix at 3:36 PM on November 8, 2022
I’ve been on Mastodon since 2017. Lately I’ve been checking Twitter just a few times a day, mainly for election news, and once the election is over I’ll be gone. Formerly, I was on Twitter at least every hour or two. Mastodon is much nicer and has a much higher level of engagement. I find I’m not missing Twitter at all. Mastodon feels like old Twitter, when we all posted pictures of our lunch, and poems about eating all the plums. There’s no algorithm, so I’m not being force-fed “suggested accounts” that someone thinks might be relevant to my interests.
It’s just better.
I found my people by using the metafilter social media finder thing, and for non-mefites I asked them on Twitter if they had moved to mastodon yet, and if so, what’s their username?
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:10 PM on November 8, 2022
It’s just better.
I found my people by using the metafilter social media finder thing, and for non-mefites I asked them on Twitter if they had moved to mastodon yet, and if so, what’s their username?
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:10 PM on November 8, 2022
Twitter has been my social media of choice for 14 years. I don't have a FB account, I log into my IG once a quarter. Twitter is my RSS feed and my local connection, I've slowly started shifting away from it (my account is now private, I pruned a lot of who I was following), but it's going to take some time. I've had a Mastodon account since 2016, but only started actively using it recently. I'm enjoying how fresh and kind the conversation is, and I'm enjoying how I don't post as much "keeping up with appearances" content. It's a start.
posted by furtive at 9:34 PM on November 8, 2022
posted by furtive at 9:34 PM on November 8, 2022
I don't have Twitter. I only came here to say that I laughed a great hiccough of glee at your post title, always fun to see a beloved song at large out in the world.
posted by fairlynearlyready at 10:36 PM on November 8, 2022
posted by fairlynearlyready at 10:36 PM on November 8, 2022
I deleted my account (after uninstalling it on my phone a few months ago, when the Elon stuff started up). I am not replacing it with something else. I miss a little bit of the vegan stuff, and the funny stuff, but I am replacing it with time off devices (this deleting happened as part of a pretty big, intentional purge of social-eqsue apps).
Specifically, I've been gearing up to make 2023 a year of books and lectures in person. The pandemic really got me in a rut of assuming virtual-only for everything, which was genuinely lifesaving but now feels too restrictive and more than a little bit of a reinforced routine. I've started going to talks at the British Library as my slow re-introduction to the world. I've read two books entirely in out-of-the-home settings (parks, forests, riverfront cafés, AirBNBs, trains, etc.) and I want to do that more. I want to establish some new routines. I want to establish communities in my community again. And that feels good.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 3:42 AM on November 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Specifically, I've been gearing up to make 2023 a year of books and lectures in person. The pandemic really got me in a rut of assuming virtual-only for everything, which was genuinely lifesaving but now feels too restrictive and more than a little bit of a reinforced routine. I've started going to talks at the British Library as my slow re-introduction to the world. I've read two books entirely in out-of-the-home settings (parks, forests, riverfront cafés, AirBNBs, trains, etc.) and I want to do that more. I want to establish some new routines. I want to establish communities in my community again. And that feels good.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 3:42 AM on November 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm still reading Twitter but I have never been much of a poster. I mainly use it for news (local, state, regional, topic-specific like baseball and environmental issues) and I'm not sure how to replicate that in Mastodon. I have some RSS feeds set up for the more traditional news outlets of interest, but a lot of what I like is tweets from reporters and people on the ground. And I don't know where all of my baseball folks will end up.
posted by Gray Duck at 8:54 AM on November 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Gray Duck at 8:54 AM on November 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
I started an account on mastodon. I experimented with them before (about a year ago) but coudn't get into it then, so I deleted that account. This time I got the hang of it and now I love it. So that's part of the solution for me. HOWEVER, I still need Twitter for work. I'm a freelance writer and I genuinely find work from interacting with people on Twitter - most of these people are not yet on Mastodon (and frankly, I am not really into replicating the full "work networking" part of Twitter). My Twitter account is also mentioned on publications that I've written for, and as a result I'm verified on Twitter, so now I look like one of those asshats who paid for a blue tick. Great. But the real tedium comes from how incredibly engrained Twitter is in everything.
For example, I do some postproduction for podcasts (writing the copy for video descriptions and promo material) and a standard thing I have to add everywhere is "Follow this guest on Twitter" -- it's not up to me to change that, but I can guarantee I'm going to soon run into guests who have abandoned their Twitter for something else.
Another example: I get tagged and messaged regularly by people who genuinely want to interact with me (and I'm happy to) because it's such an easy way to reach me without me having to plaster my email address everywhere. I write about science and most scientists have a Twitter presence so I can very easily reach them.
Yet another example: My Twitter handle is on my business cards, on various websites , on my CV, on applications I've submitted for events, on EVERYTHING.
So it's hard. It's more than a decade of my professional life and I need to replace all its benefits before I can truly get rid of it (and they're not all on Mastodon -- I expect it will eventually be a mix of professional mailing lists, Discords, Slack for useful work content and Mastodon for the hallway conversations and sharing what I've been up to). So I might hang on to it, but I am gradually deleting a lot of old tweets (I've been doing that for a while with Twitter Archive Eraser -- it's a slow process because I used to tweet 30 times a day in the heydays and I want to read everything to decide what to keep)
posted by easternblot at 1:51 PM on November 9, 2022
For example, I do some postproduction for podcasts (writing the copy for video descriptions and promo material) and a standard thing I have to add everywhere is "Follow this guest on Twitter" -- it's not up to me to change that, but I can guarantee I'm going to soon run into guests who have abandoned their Twitter for something else.
Another example: I get tagged and messaged regularly by people who genuinely want to interact with me (and I'm happy to) because it's such an easy way to reach me without me having to plaster my email address everywhere. I write about science and most scientists have a Twitter presence so I can very easily reach them.
Yet another example: My Twitter handle is on my business cards, on various websites , on my CV, on applications I've submitted for events, on EVERYTHING.
So it's hard. It's more than a decade of my professional life and I need to replace all its benefits before I can truly get rid of it (and they're not all on Mastodon -- I expect it will eventually be a mix of professional mailing lists, Discords, Slack for useful work content and Mastodon for the hallway conversations and sharing what I've been up to). So I might hang on to it, but I am gradually deleting a lot of old tweets (I've been doing that for a while with Twitter Archive Eraser -- it's a slow process because I used to tweet 30 times a day in the heydays and I want to read everything to decide what to keep)
posted by easternblot at 1:51 PM on November 9, 2022
And as for the mastodon silos: I'm still figuring it out. I am wary that if I follow my Twitter contacts, I will have a very similar experience as before and I want to improve on it and make Mastodon a place where I see content that I enjoy - not necessarily scientists talking about science and publishing, which was all I saw on Twitter. So I'm looking at the hashtags of things I would want to see more of and have been adding a few people who posted about those things.
posted by easternblot at 1:54 PM on November 9, 2022
posted by easternblot at 1:54 PM on November 9, 2022
I'm keeping my accounts on Twitter (mostly to prevent anyone else from impersonating me).
But I'm not reading or posting there anymore (with the possible exception of shitposting to make the site look bad, trolling Pedo Guy, and/or for the express purpose of getting banned). I'm certainly not donating any more Content-with-a-capital-C.
I've created a pinned Tweet on each account with a link to a site hosted on a domain that I own with a list of other socials and ways to contact me.
I've requested an archive download for each account. This seems like an option that is likely to capriciously disappear, be put behind and paywall and/or be made less useful in the near future.
I have two-factor auth. I'd suggest you turn this on if you haven't already. Also turn on the additional password protection if you have not already done so.
For each account, I've de-authorized all apps and logged out all sessions.
I may at some future point delete all my past Tweets (save for the pinned ones). Haven't decided on this one.
I'm on Mastodon and learning how it works and finding other folks there who I know from Twitter or elsewhere.
posted by sourcequench at 2:48 PM on November 9, 2022
But I'm not reading or posting there anymore (with the possible exception of shitposting to make the site look bad, trolling Pedo Guy, and/or for the express purpose of getting banned). I'm certainly not donating any more Content-with-a-capital-C.
I've created a pinned Tweet on each account with a link to a site hosted on a domain that I own with a list of other socials and ways to contact me.
I've requested an archive download for each account. This seems like an option that is likely to capriciously disappear, be put behind and paywall and/or be made less useful in the near future.
I have two-factor auth. I'd suggest you turn this on if you haven't already. Also turn on the additional password protection if you have not already done so.
For each account, I've de-authorized all apps and logged out all sessions.
I may at some future point delete all my past Tweets (save for the pinned ones). Haven't decided on this one.
I'm on Mastodon and learning how it works and finding other folks there who I know from Twitter or elsewhere.
posted by sourcequench at 2:48 PM on November 9, 2022
I don't know if I was "really on twitter" but I enjoyed it a lot. However, I've revived my federated account, changed my twit display name to Elon Musk, posted my scholar.social handle as I left (link in profile!).
I'm learning better how Mastodon works and finding lots of new people. I'm able to satisfy my sometimes need for idle scrolling, or reading too much about Ukraine, and can find cat pictures pretty frequently. I'm trying to work out if i want to use pixelfed to replace my dormant instagram habit or if masto is enough for that. I'm trying to figure out if i need an alt account for what they call shitposting from... (There was some discussion on the grey about a mefi server, and I'd joint that in a blink, including paying to help it run.) My last two posts have just been pictures of turnbuckles (I kept running into gorgeous rusty turnbuckles), so we'll see what happens.
"Mastodon" is kind of a false generic term, which is a bit of a problem, but I'm pretty happy on it (using Tusky as my android app most of the time).
Most servers have a real diversity problem, and I've seen some reports of harassment already, but it seems like the tools, while clunky, certainly have more humane/just structures built into them than ad-based attention systems like twitter. It's enough for me right now.
So, to the extent I understand the question, I think users like me can find many new satisfactions in the fediverse and enough of the old ones to be good. If you think twitter is actually super important to your career network or something, then I'd make it a habit of reconsidering that notion about once a week.
posted by Mngo at 5:52 PM on November 10, 2022
I'm learning better how Mastodon works and finding lots of new people. I'm able to satisfy my sometimes need for idle scrolling, or reading too much about Ukraine, and can find cat pictures pretty frequently. I'm trying to work out if i want to use pixelfed to replace my dormant instagram habit or if masto is enough for that. I'm trying to figure out if i need an alt account for what they call shitposting from... (There was some discussion on the grey about a mefi server, and I'd joint that in a blink, including paying to help it run.) My last two posts have just been pictures of turnbuckles (I kept running into gorgeous rusty turnbuckles), so we'll see what happens.
"Mastodon" is kind of a false generic term, which is a bit of a problem, but I'm pretty happy on it (using Tusky as my android app most of the time).
Most servers have a real diversity problem, and I've seen some reports of harassment already, but it seems like the tools, while clunky, certainly have more humane/just structures built into them than ad-based attention systems like twitter. It's enough for me right now.
So, to the extent I understand the question, I think users like me can find many new satisfactions in the fediverse and enough of the old ones to be good. If you think twitter is actually super important to your career network or something, then I'd make it a habit of reconsidering that notion about once a week.
posted by Mngo at 5:52 PM on November 10, 2022
I used to be Extremely Online (like, I was Extremely Online when that meant getting a $200 bill for a month of dialup, and it never really stopped) and I was a heavy user of Twitter for about ten years. In 2018 after having a couple periods where I'd basically take a month off and realize that I felt and slept a lot better if I didn't feel that pressure, I wiped my account clean (50K+ tweets gone) but didn't delete it.
Since then I've popped up again every now and then, but mostly in a write-only way (not replying, not paying too much attention to the feed, mostly checking my wife's account). I accumulated only a couple hundred tweets over the past four years, so when it seemed like the sale was really going to happen I logged in and deleted all the new tweets by hand. I left one tweet up (the one I posted when I wiped my account in 2018) but that's pretty much it for me. I logged out just so I'm not a Monetizable Daily Active User (relevant classic MeFi comment: If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold).
I'm moving to a Mastodon-compatible silo I own (on different software, for reasons), simply because it means that my wife can sign up for the same one and yell at me when it doesn't work. Setting it up didn't take me too long. Well, mucking out my server to move from apache to nginx did, but that was technical debt I should have taken care of long ago; setting up the new software in my working nginx config wasn't bad at all. Mostly I'm worried about ongoing maintenance and moderation since I anticipate maybe hosting accounts for people I'm not married to. Keeping it to a small friend group seems key.
posted by fedward at 12:49 PM on November 11, 2022
Since then I've popped up again every now and then, but mostly in a write-only way (not replying, not paying too much attention to the feed, mostly checking my wife's account). I accumulated only a couple hundred tweets over the past four years, so when it seemed like the sale was really going to happen I logged in and deleted all the new tweets by hand. I left one tweet up (the one I posted when I wiped my account in 2018) but that's pretty much it for me. I logged out just so I'm not a Monetizable Daily Active User (relevant classic MeFi comment: If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold).
I'm moving to a Mastodon-compatible silo I own (on different software, for reasons), simply because it means that my wife can sign up for the same one and yell at me when it doesn't work. Setting it up didn't take me too long. Well, mucking out my server to move from apache to nginx did, but that was technical debt I should have taken care of long ago; setting up the new software in my working nginx config wasn't bad at all. Mostly I'm worried about ongoing maintenance and moderation since I anticipate maybe hosting accounts for people I'm not married to. Keeping it to a small friend group seems key.
posted by fedward at 12:49 PM on November 11, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
I've been noticing that Twitter makes me really mean, in a way I really don't like and am actually embarrassed about. It's become more a way to get a Two Minutes' Hate in - and that's been making me really uneasy.
So Elon taking over just forced me into a jump I was considering anyway. I wasn't really "using" it in any real way, so giving it up altogether and not replacing it with anything else is going to be my most likely move.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:56 AM on November 8, 2022 [11 favorites]