What tips or advice do you have for using Twitter with Musk in charge?

January 3, 2023 4:43 PM

Do you have any tips, tricks, or advice, for people staying on Elon Musk's Twitter, from a liberal perspective? How to deal with trolls, data security, blocklists, or anything else is all helpful. Any apps, plugins, usage guidelines, or other ways for progressives to make the most of Twitter? Thanks!
posted by andoatnp to Technology (15 answers total)

In April, when the transaction was announced, I started building alternative digital spaces (including signing up here, after lurking for 17 years.)
I made sure my block-list was strong, and took my account private.
I made a list of the accounts I actually care about and continued to read that list through an app (because that spared me the ads), made a pinned tweet explaining what I was doing and where I could be found, and a couple days later, made my account private (friends-locked it.)

And a couple weeks after THAT, a friend of mine was horrifically attacked by their ex, and I needed my full reach to help locate the ex. So I opened up again, and used Twitter as a platform.

The attacker has been apprehended and is now detained, awaiting criminal proceedings (this didn't happen in the U.S. so the specifics would sound strange, but the general picture is as I described.)

Other than in order to help my friend, I have said nothing there since I left and have read no ads. In other words, I am not adding content and not generating ad revenue. The only contribution I make to the site is views, and I hope to wean myself off of that in time.
I am finding my voice and space in other places (hi!) and it's not easy at all. In fact, it's hard: I lived there for a long time, and I'm internationally (dis)located in a whole bunch of ways. The reading includes a bunch of local gov't agencies, which publish either there or on FB (ugh). I hope they'll come over to Mastodon or maybe even put up appropriate RSS feeds.

My general sense is that it is inappropriate to contribute to the wealth of fascists - and that a platform a couple of thousand readers wide must be used for the benefit of the world, including friends. My tactics derive from those twin impulses.

It's hard. I hope it gets nationalized. And that the fascist gets tried for crimes against humanity, since taking over the world's closest simulation of telepathy (flawed as it was) and silencing speech to the extent that he did is exactly that, in my opinion.
posted by Shunra at 5:30 PM on January 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

You can replace "twitter.com" in every link with "nitter.net" and the link will work without engaging.

"Nitter is a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy and performance. The source is available on GitHub... No JavaScript or ads. All requests go through the backend, client never talks to Twitter"

The only downside is that Nitter can get overloaded, however there are dozens of instances to use. This means that if Nitter.net is overloaded, you can swap it out with nitter.it, or nitter.cz, or any other instance, and get the same result.

If you use Firefox or Chrome, then Nitter Redirect is a plugin that can do this automatically.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:45 PM on January 3, 2023 [8 favorites]

OP isn't asking for alternatives to twitter. If twitter survives this period* the links we have there will remain invaluable.

Until two weeks ago I'd never blocked anyone, the level of bad (esp racists, far-right & wannabee porn stars) has gone up a lot.

I don't use any tools. I follow ~100 accounts spanning from XR & Christian-Anarchist to reasonably right, and a lot of farming(quite right wing), climate and activism accounts. I've met some great people IRL via twitter & it's a useful thing for personal and business.

In a nutshell I block/discontinue:
• If grammar is off when bio suggests person's level is higher
• If their tone is abusive
• If tone is harsh in context - e.g. a 'nurse/PH' person two days ago expressing disdain for ill people
• Anything bitcoin/nft; it's a sign of deeper troubles

I tick not interested on almost all ads, have yet to see anything of relevance to me - weird when the system can parse my content.

*I went to check my twitter to see what I'm doing to avoid toxicity but it's gone down again; has been offline across much of Oz & NZ today.
posted by unearthed at 6:50 PM on January 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

I started using the Fritter app, synced my follow list to it, and deleted my account. Of course if you intend to continue to Poast that won't do it, but I can still conveniently read all the people I used to follow and I don't see any of the other shit, no ads, no nothing.

I genuinely feel great about being a complete parasite on the Twitter infrastructure.
posted by potrzebie at 7:32 PM on January 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

As I understand it, there's no end-to-end encryption, so assume anyone at Twitter can read anything, even if it's not public.
posted by Alterscape at 7:51 PM on January 3, 2023

I use tweetdeck. No ads, it uniquely marks who has paid the $8, etc.
posted by user92371 at 8:00 PM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

I use Twitterific so I don't see any ads, and my timeline is in chronological order with no weird algorithmic interpolations. I follow about 200 people categorized into private lists based on my interests, with retweets turned off. I only follow people after I've skimmed through their timelines to see if they have something interesting to say and I unfollow rapidly if they are annoying or offensive in any way (for me this includes tweeting too often). I've never regretted unfollowing anyone, no matter how unique their perspective or how I value their insights in other venues.

I never interact on Twitter but use it as a flat news source that tells me what insightful people are talking about in the areas I'm interested in. I look at it one or two times a day, no more, and avoid following breaking news. If there are signs of an interesting discussion I might click to see replies but never follow it as it unfolds, just come back to it as part of my usual daily check.

I've barely noticed the Musk transition. Some people I follow have disappeared, but not too many. I recognise it's not how many people use the service, but my system works well for me and I am one of the few people I know who never feels the need to grumble about their experience of Twitter these days.
posted by tavegyl at 8:17 PM on January 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

Block early and often. Don’t post or dm anything that you wouldn’t want shared publicly. Find interesting people on twitter, but engage with them elsewhere. Oh, block the twitter owner, certainly, no need to engage with the $8chan main character. And export your backup. Delete all pertinent interests from the ad preferences gizmo so you can’t be served up meaningful ads. Keep random, weird irrelevant interests there so someone is paying for you to get served irrelevant ads.

I’ve found twitter to be useful to help identify and migrate my social graph. I read through my twitter follows to see who is on mastodon now, and follow them in the fediverse. Once I’ve followed them elsewhere, or are on their email list, I usually unfollow them on twitter, which is real easy.

I’ve cut down my twitter follows by 4/5, shut off retweets and likes for most of the remaining accounts, and I find that I have much less desire to mindlessly scroll through that site. I don’t post or like there anymore. If I have something to say to or about someone/something on twitter, I say it by email or elseweb. Search still works there, which might be the best reason to keep my account active.

Truly, my mental health has improved since I stopped engaging with twitter on elon’s terms.
posted by enfa at 8:23 PM on January 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Use Tweetdeck. It's part of Twitter, but it doesn't use The Algorithm and doesn't show ads.

You can show multiple columns. I show my regular feed, my notifications, and a set of friends (so I see their tweets even if I don't get through the regular feed).
posted by zompist at 9:49 PM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

• Make sure your timeline is showing Latest Tweets and not For You tweets.
• Don't look at Trending. Just stick to your timeline.
• Turn off Recommended Tweets (there must be a way to do this because I don't see them anymore).
• Trim the list of accounts you are following. Remove anyone who posts toxic content or who you think is less reliable.
• Block an advertiser if you don't like their ad.
• When looking at replies, only read the first few. Stop reading the replies if you start to see toxic content.
• Follow additional accounts that you fully trust to post good content.
• Don't use Twitter to get into debates with people you disagree with.
• Don't use Twitter to watch debates between people who disagree with each other, unless the people are mature and the debates are civil and rational.

That's how I use Twitter, and somewhat surprisingly I haven't seen an increase in toxic content at all since Musk took over. The site has become less reliable, and I spend less time there. But I haven't noticed big changes to content (other than more junky ads).
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:32 AM on January 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I generally ignore Twitter, but still follow people there by subscribing to their feeds via RSS. My experience is with Newsbin, a $5/month web-based feed aggregator, and NetNewsWire, a free Apple-only newsreader (which will act as a front end to Feedbin). Both let you follow individual Twitter feeds. If I want to reply, clicking a tweet will take me to it on Twitter and reply. Feedbin lets me turn off retweets at the source.

It is by far the most effective way I've found of staying away from Twitter while still following people I am interested in. Of course, it goes hand-in-hand with carefully curating the feeds I follow
posted by lhauser at 6:41 AM on January 4, 2023

I use Tweetbot, which does not serve ads, promoted tweets, or anything but tweets from people I follow in chronological order. While many of my friends have reported massive technical instability/unusability from the official Twitter app, Tweetbot has continued to function normally for me (no crashes, I can post without problem, etc).
posted by CtrlAltDelete at 7:05 AM on January 4, 2023

I use Tweetbot too. No ads, chronological feed of just ppl I follow. I use Twitter to follow sports journalists and live sports events, local politics and agencies, a few funny people, poetry stuff, and to check trends once or twice a day to see if anything interesting is happening. I only post when it's a "retweet to vote" kind of thing. Other than a noticeable drop in the number of tweets in my feed, it hasn't been different for me.
posted by donnagirl at 7:44 AM on January 4, 2023

Assume that Twitter could possibly go away at any moment and make sure you have an up to date export of your data (if you want it) and your follow/follower lists (if you want those) and find them on Mastodon (if you use that).

In terms of continuing to use Twitter, I agree with what people are saying which is to presume your messages can be read and to block early and often. I used Block Together which had some downsides but mostly worked but now it's shut down. There are some workarounds that require a bit more skill. I basically have a "one chance" block process for people. Any account who is following more than they have followers who shows up with some"just a question" stuff with me gets one response that is polite and presumes they may be coming from a position of actually wanting to know more. If my response is met with more "Just another question" stuff, I usually block.

I mostly use Twitter via the desktop app and the usual ad blockers keep me from seeing ads there which works well for me. I maintain lists that are my main interaction with the platform so I don't get a lot of algo-fed stuff. I make sure location services are turned off and set my application location to Saudi Arabia. I regularly check the apps which I've authorized to use my account and prune it to only necessary ones.

More to the point, I mostly interact with library twitter (which has split somewhat with some folks fully moving to Mastodon) which hasn't gotten significantly worse since the Musk times even as I've watched the platform degrade. I think the usual social media hygiene applies. Think about what you want to use the tool to do, see if that's how you're actually using it. Don't get in fights with internet randos. Don't trust what you read without verifying. Look for Twitter's Birdwatch content notes (if you are in the US) which can help with sketchy claims that seem untrue.

And lastly presume that continuing to use Twitter is a choice you made and don't just use it for hate reading things. I don't expend a lot of mental energy with the MetaTalk equivalent of debate-about-Twitter (you may wish to which is fine) and I've found that has helped me sort of get in and get out and do what I need to do there. Short of homespun decentralized ad-free networks, there is no ethical consumption of giant social media sites but the same can be said for capitalism and we all try to do the best we can.
posted by jessamyn at 8:05 AM on January 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'm always surprised when the List feature doesn't come up in Twitter discussions; in this case it's been mentioned in passing but not emphasized. "Lists" is available in the left-hand navigation (you may have to click 'More' to see it). You can create one list of all the accounts you follow, or make multiple lists by topic, etc. I find using a list very useful both to limit whose texts I see, and to get those texts in chronological order. Twitter's help page, more information via Google.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:37 AM on January 4, 2023 [1 favorite]