Alternatives to Twatter

[Polar Bear]

I have never actually been partner the Twatterati but regularly see "news" items where a Twatter comment is cut and pasted and hear as we all do a lot of anecdotal opinion about the platform and it's merits.

I dallied with faceache but escaped before I became even more nauseating (is that possible) and exist on an online diet of YACF and YouTube.  I do have a WhatsApp account and a Signal account, both of which are used in limited ways to keep in touch with friends and family.

I'm curious to know why people use Twitter and if it descends into the musky cesspool that some seem to be predicting, what are the alternatives

[The Family Cyclist]

It's getting harder not to but i actually wonder how sensible or needing to be seen as sensible organisations will act if Twitter becomes a bit wild west

We did have a grumble to the woodland Trust (this probably should be in first world problems) as they wanted us to send in pictures which was fine but was via twitter which we don't use

I've recently logged out of Facebook and again know I'm missing out on things as publicised on socials only but it too was just crap and adverts

[ian]

Critical mass. There's not much point to a social media that consists of you and a weird bloke called Darren who collects novelty underpants. That's mostly luck and timing, and the dark arts of audience building. No one adopted Facebook because it offered an enticing user experience. It looks like it was put together by people who got high snorting entire cans of Lynx Africa.

Twitter is OK for exchanging stupid comments about cats, but it rapidly segues into warring factions with battalions of bots and special sock puppet troopers. The brief format drives divisiveness still if you say you 'like apples and pears,' someone will leap out and declare 'so you hate oranges then' and then suddenly your feed will be full of people angry about the fact you hate oranges. Anti-orange fascist.

Of course, all these systems exist as social amplification, that's what the algorithms do, so small, stupid things get blown-up vastly out-of-proportion. That, and the fact, that a lot of people on these platforms don't appear to realise that it's not real life. Cue all those cheap stories in the media which pretty much consist of here are some things people are saying on Twitter.

[Jaded]

However, what is real life? Or what was it?

Iy almost certainly wasn't the print or broadcast media, which were skewed by owners, editors, sub editors and reporters. And news old happened where there was a reporter, before mobile phones.

Back to Twitter. It really annoys me when companies either require twitter for comms, or respond quicker to twitter than they do to email (is that because it is public...?)

[Ham]

Am I alone in thinking there's particular irony in Musk offering free speech to those who can pay?

[ian]

However, what is real life? Or what was it?

Iy almost certainly wasn't the print or broadcast media, which were skewed by owners, editors, sub editors and reporters. And news old happened where there was a reporter, before mobile phones.

Back to Twitter. It really annoys me when companies either require twitter for comms, or respond quicker to twitter than they do to email (is that because it is public...?)

I suppose it's a measure of some kind of reality, but it's when journalists and the like, make the assumption that Twitter (or any other social media platform) is a representation of actual reality. It's a hugely skewed subset of people with regional, age, socioeconomic and other biases. Plus opinions on their are heavily modified by the algorithms. People are angry about what they're being told to be angry about. The algorithms create large clusters around the issue du jour, which is the main amplifier, you're in a crowd that agrees with you and you agree with them. Rightness breeds rightness. Ironically, it bleeds back into the actual world, I wrote about 'spiking' where nutters were running around jabbing people in nightclubs. It wasn't happening but there huge threads of people on Twitter who knew it was happening. So there were protests, people refusing to go to nightclubs, police action.

But anyway, it's hard to visualise a social media platform that doesn't proceed in this direction. Inventing something that deliberately channels you into ideas and conversation you're not aligned to is a challenge. No one would use it.

Accept it for what it is, but I feel a bit sorry for people who spend their lives battling on there. It's not like they're going to win, whatever winning means.

[TheLurker]

Am I alone in thinking there's particular irony in Musk offering free speech to those who can pay?

Nope.

[ian]

That's because he's a Business Genius.

[Kim]

As discussed in the other thread, social media lures you in with technical features (For twitter this was "Oh, a way to send an SMS to all my interested friends at the same time for free"), but you stay because of the network of people who wouldn't communicate with you another way.

Open alternatives that aren't backed by business interests are IMHO unlikely to win at this game, not matter how technically superior their product.  And the relative merits of relying on enthusiasts vs capitalism aren't clear-cut.

Musk won't change the realities of business and regulation that dictate how twitter works.  He can drive users away by making it unusable and run it down financially, but reality will ensure that it has just enough moderation to attract advertisers and stay on the right side of the law.  Anyone predicting that it will turn into a hellsite obviously hasn't been paying attention to what's already happening, probably because they avoid political topics and aren't guilty of being visibly female, LGBT+ or a person of colour.  That said, it's entirely possible for twitter to be a positive experience if you use it carefully.  I have a gender-neutral profile, and choose who to follow so that my feed is mostly friends talking about what they're doing, people making art, cat pictures, and SCIENCE.  Political issues get retweeted from time to time, but you don't have to engage in a pile-on.

There will, of course, be a Next Big Thing.  We can't predict what, but I'm reasonably confident that for most communities^[1] it won't be Mastodon.


_{[1] No doubt some will thrive there, like they have in places like Dreamwidth and YACF.}

[FifeingEejit]

That's because he's a Business Genius.

Suppose that's one way of writing it

[Beardy]

 Virtually the only time I go on twitter these days is when I follow a link from these hallowed halls.

[The Family Cyclist]

Have to try and remember my MySpace login

[ian]

Bebo is where it's at.

Sold by its creators for $850 million in 2008. Bought back by its creators for $1 million in 2013.

I'd give it 5 years and Elon will be buying Twitter back from himself for £500 billion. That's because he's a Business Genius. And probably the only person left working there.

[TheLurker]

What is, "a twitter"?
Mr. Justice Cocklecarrot

[Mrs Pingu]

To answer the OP, Mastodon.

Anyway, my Twitter feed seems to mostly consist of people moaning about Musk, or pointing put the foolishness of his business model.

[MikeFromLFE]

To answer the OP, Mastodon.

Don't think so.

I don't /think/ I'm technically illiterate but Mastodon completely confuses me - and if it's going to get widespread acceptance then it needs serious dumbing down or a different interface from those I've seen to date.

[Kim]

It's not going to get widespread acceptance, because it isn't being pushed by a big business to accumulate as much market share as possible.  It may well become a valued tool for specific communities.

[Basil]

To answer the OP, Mastodon.
.

Well, I've joined that, I think, I'm struggling and finding it as user friendly as a cornered rat.

[Mrs Pingu]

I don't think it's as different from Twitter as it seems once you've done the wild stab in the dark and selected a server. (I went for .scot on the basis that nothing else was obvious, like cats)

[perpetual dan]

I have three somewhat active twitter accounts, which I guess makes me a counter to some of the more dismissive points of view here …
Work me (data science); cycling / music / art me; and political me.
There’s a bit of overlap, e.g. William Gibson.

The political one started as the social one, but cycling bleeds into road safety and green and around brexit it got a bit full on. I’ve left it political, because it gives me a chance to vent, to grink my MP and Southern Rail in public, and to hear from interesting people (Russ in Cheshire, Ian Dunt etc). I can also ignore it from time to time, which is more healthy.

The other two, as noted above, will have some politics (I find some of the women and queer tech people to give a really helpful counter to the techbro side of work) but that doesn’t mean I have to jump in or seek out more of that.

Mostly it’s a positive in my life.

I’ve yet to get the same from e.g. Instagram. I’ve got a mastodon account, but it is a bit geeky at the front door and I’ve yet to find the people that will make it sticky for me. Maybe that will be easier this week.

[Mrs Pingu]

@garius has done a bit of a newbs summary on how to use Mastodon here https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588827775628369920?t=LvU9vpbPd3H_i9jULftcCA&s=19

[jiberjaber]

I just signed up to Mastodon - had to find some random server to get an acount registered because there's a back-log of twatter users making the jump but once on, seems easy to move around the servers so far.

@jiberjaber  (surprisingly! LOL)

[quixoticgeek]

I just signed up to Mastodon - had to find some random server to get an acount registered because there's a back-log of twatter users making the jump but once on, seems easy to move around the servers so far.

@jiberjaber  (surprisingly! LOL)

We need to have the server bit too. This is something that confuses new people to mastodon.

Incidentally I'm on mastodon.social, and you can probably work out the username.

J

[perpetual dan]

I just signed up to Mastodon - had to find some random server to get an acount registered because there's a back-log of twatter users making the jump but once on, seems easy to move around the servers so far.

@jiberjaber  (surprisingly! LOL)

We need to have the server bit too. This is something that confuses new people to mastodon.

Incidentally I'm on mastodon.social, and you can probably work out the username.

J

The needing the server is obfuscated by the search facility.
E.g. I search for a name. Search gives results, including ones on some other server. I click the follow button. I look on their profile page, and it shows I’m following. I look on my (somewhat buried) followers list and only see the ones on the local server. I look on my home page and it’s not yet clear who I’m missing, because not everyone is saying lots.

At that point I had other stuff to do, so I’m not quite sure whether I’ve got the intended effect or not.

[jiberjaber]

I just signed up to Mastodon - had to find some random server to get an acount registered because there's a back-log of twatter users making the jump but once on, seems easy to move around the servers so far.

@jiberjaber  (surprisingly! LOL)

We need to have the server bit too. This is something that confuses new people to mastodon.

Incidentally I'm on mastodon.social, and you can probably work out the username.

J

I see - it's just like stepping back in to arpanet of the 80's 

@mas.to would appear to be where I registered