On Being Social
This is one of the first posts I made on Mastodon:
"My hot take on Elon's rebranding of Twitter: it's just the latest step in turning the site into what Truth Social failed to achieve. Anybody left-leaning, or even centre, shouldn't be using it anymore - not because a conversation isn't possible between the Left and the Right, but because Elon's strategy is to eventually undermine absolutely everything the Left stands for, and feed the worse element of the Right. I don't want to be a part of it, and hence my move here."
Elon Musk allowed Trump to return to Twitter not because of free speech, but because he wanted to entice the extreme-right back to Twitter. That was also the reasoning behind launching Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign on Twitter (as big a fiasco as the platform's rebranding.) Allowing any idiot to get a blue check, and removing them from people with genuine accomplishments - another way to knock down intellectuals (unless they cough up for a blue check - placing them side-by-side with people who know nothing). Not long ago, I reported a hate tweet from a brazilian woman claiming that the Holocaust was a hoax by Jews and that Hitler was a victim. They got back to me saying it wasn't hate speech and the tweet would stand.
I've been wanting to leave Twitter and Meta for a long time now. Leaving Facebook a few years ago was one of the best decisions I ever made, and I would dearly love to leave Instagram and WhatsApp as well, but rely on them for my guesthouse's marketing. With Twitter, there were a lot of friends on it, comedians and poets, and it was also a good source of info on literary translations and other topics that interest me. I feel sorry for losing that resource as I know it will take time to replicate elsewhere.
Then I think of Livejournal. I remember the straw that broke the camel being LJ's stance on LGBTQ+ rights some years ago, pushing a lot of old timers to leave. I can't even remember the details of that drama (llama) anymore. I stayed behind with a few of you, and continue to use it. I have a handful of active friends still posting. I can go two weeks without reading and catch up on everything - very different from LJ's heyday, when hundreds of posts were waiting for you each morning.
Mastodon feels a bit like LJ and Dreamwidth actually - with its abscense of celebrities and its greater focus on indie writing, fandom and left-leaning politics and news. So far, I have experienced a warm welcome. I suspect a lot of people don't want to leave Twitter because they are hooked on having so many followers over there and fear that won't repeat elsewhere. It does take time to rebuild an online social network. Perhaps this is how things will be from now on as billionaires take over online comms and we move from one platform to the next. I know I'll miss those Twitter connections - already do in fact! - but I feel that I must learn to be content with just a few good online friendships as opposed to helping feed by my presence alone a machine that makes our planet a worse place to live.
"My hot take on Elon's rebranding of Twitter: it's just the latest step in turning the site into what Truth Social failed to achieve. Anybody left-leaning, or even centre, shouldn't be using it anymore - not because a conversation isn't possible between the Left and the Right, but because Elon's strategy is to eventually undermine absolutely everything the Left stands for, and feed the worse element of the Right. I don't want to be a part of it, and hence my move here."
Elon Musk allowed Trump to return to Twitter not because of free speech, but because he wanted to entice the extreme-right back to Twitter. That was also the reasoning behind launching Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign on Twitter (as big a fiasco as the platform's rebranding.) Allowing any idiot to get a blue check, and removing them from people with genuine accomplishments - another way to knock down intellectuals (unless they cough up for a blue check - placing them side-by-side with people who know nothing). Not long ago, I reported a hate tweet from a brazilian woman claiming that the Holocaust was a hoax by Jews and that Hitler was a victim. They got back to me saying it wasn't hate speech and the tweet would stand.
I've been wanting to leave Twitter and Meta for a long time now. Leaving Facebook a few years ago was one of the best decisions I ever made, and I would dearly love to leave Instagram and WhatsApp as well, but rely on them for my guesthouse's marketing. With Twitter, there were a lot of friends on it, comedians and poets, and it was also a good source of info on literary translations and other topics that interest me. I feel sorry for losing that resource as I know it will take time to replicate elsewhere.
Then I think of Livejournal. I remember the straw that broke the camel being LJ's stance on LGBTQ+ rights some years ago, pushing a lot of old timers to leave. I can't even remember the details of that drama (llama) anymore. I stayed behind with a few of you, and continue to use it. I have a handful of active friends still posting. I can go two weeks without reading and catch up on everything - very different from LJ's heyday, when hundreds of posts were waiting for you each morning.
Mastodon feels a bit like LJ and Dreamwidth actually - with its abscense of celebrities and its greater focus on indie writing, fandom and left-leaning politics and news. So far, I have experienced a warm welcome. I suspect a lot of people don't want to leave Twitter because they are hooked on having so many followers over there and fear that won't repeat elsewhere. It does take time to rebuild an online social network. Perhaps this is how things will be from now on as billionaires take over online comms and we move from one platform to the next. I know I'll miss those Twitter connections - already do in fact! - but I feel that I must learn to be content with just a few good online friendships as opposed to helping feed by my presence alone a machine that makes our planet a worse place to live.