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Are you leaving Twitter?

I'm still on Twitter and don't plan on leaving unless something drastic happens.

I have a few accounts for various reasons including work.

Just in case, I've secured my main account's username on Mastodon. I should probably do the same with the others too.
 
I enjoy Twitter and have no plans to quit.

I have noticed an increase in contentious posts on my timeline recently. Many more Tories, anti-immigrant stuff, general right wingness. It seemed to start shortly before the Musk takeover. Anyone else noticed this?
If it's on your timeline, why don't you just unfollow them?
 
It'll probably become like Facebook for me. Still nominally on there but its use limited to checking out one or two niche feeds. I'm already tweeting less (nothing to do with Musk, more to do with it's often performative nature).

As for Mastodon. I quite like it so far I like that it's a bit awkward and people aren't quite as gung ho in their posting style. I also like that it requires a bit more effort to interact rather than getting sucked into pointless posturing.

That may well change, but, I'm not emotionally invested in any of this stuff so I'll just roll to whatever is next to carry on my grumbling into the void.
 
I permanently logged out of Twitter a couple of years ago, when I began to recognise the same negative mental health impacts resulting from habitual use that I observed before choosing to permanently log out of Facebook.

From this experience I can deduce that algorithmically-driven social media is just bad for my mental health all-round.
This
 
These aren't posts from people I follow, they are ones from people followed by people I follow. And I usually mute them.
Have you switched to only view latest tweets? It's the star symbol in the top right of the app and makes it so you only see tweets from people you follow.

I swear most of the stuff people complain about on twitter is because they haven't done that.
 
Have you switched to only view latest tweets? It's the star symbol in the top right of the app and makes it so you only see tweets from people you follow.

I swear most of the stuff people complain about on twitter is because they haven't done that.
Thanks. I never knew about that.
 
Find it interesting how different people's experience is, I mean, if your twitter is a cesspit of hate and fury isnt that due to your choices of who to follow and what to read? My timeline there is largely long nerdy threads on various topics, links to other reading and some pictures of cats.
Do you reckon? Or do you not find that, when there's something big going on, your long nerdy thread/link/catpicture posters tend to engage with that and get in arguments about it? Idk, I'm just thinking about how I've seen two different people complaining about how nasty the knitting community on instagram got a few years back, and I swear I saw something about mad drama in the fountain pen instagram community, so it's not like you always have to go looking for mad shit for it to turn up on your doorstep. Different platforms but similar principle innit.
Do you mean whether you choose to engage with nazis and stuff? Course that would rather change your experience if you chose to do that, instead of looking at cat photos and threads about history or whatever.
I just don’t engage with anyone there at all, not even ‘likes’ I just read, like a weird eavesdropper. Have learnt loads that way.
Yeah, I mean tbf I don't have an account but read a fair amount on there, so suppose I'll probably keep on doing that until the people I'm eavesdropping on stop posting?
But seriously, its a platform for counter-discourse against mainstream news, among other things. That side of it shouldn't be downplayed I think. I'd love it if something equally open but not owned by dickheads could replace it, but Mastodon so far doesn't feel like it actually encourages interaction. I do think that in the course of trying to make money Twitter accidentally created cross-planetary communication on a scale we've not seen before and might not see again.
Isn't this one of those myths that twitter users like to tell but isn't actually true? Like, I accept that twitter's probably a bit larger than u75 is, but in the grand scheme of things almost no-one uses it - this site reckons that it's actually smaller than telegram and pinterest, which sounds surprising to me but who knows?
Not really sure why people are ditching Twitter at this stage*. I know everyone has their own thresholds, but every corporation out there is owned by evil billionaires.

You can put him on mute, you know? (I have).
Fair, but not every evil billionaire is actively promising to make their site worse and more unusable the way that Muskrat is with the bird website. And I suppose if he manages to piss his tech staff off effectively enough, it might end up not being a choice, he's certainly doing his best on that front.
 
I don't know whether it's just luck, or what, but I've managed to stay fairly clear of unpleasantness on tweeter.

I appear to have been on there since 2014, and the only two things I can remember is seeing two friends fall out with each other over politics (I'm still on speaking terms with both), and a few months ago I person A posted a photo of an underground station taken some time in the early 20th century, person B added a bit of information, I added a bit more, and person B seemed to think that only they had the right to and got shitty with me about it. Block function applied (or whatever it's called on there)

And I get one or two spam conversation invites a week, which again get deleted and blocked fairly rapidly.

One of today's interactions was around a photo of Lewisham High Street from about 1906.
 
Fair, but not every evil billionaire is actively promising to make their site worse and more unusable the way that Muskrat is with the bird website. And I suppose if he manages to piss his tech staff off effectively enough, it might end up not being a choice, he's certainly doing his best on that front.
Sure, I mean it may become unusable. It wouldn’t be a surprise. But it hasn’t yet. It’s still possible to use Twitter as if he didn’t exist.

(Although I fully appreciate that cutting out social media from your life can be better for your mental health regardless. I’ve certainly felt better when I’ve done it).
 
I'm quite entertained watching Musk melt down though - he is making up policy on the hoof and is so pathetically fragile. 'Now people can make jokes again... BUT NOT ABOUT ME! Everyone with parody accounts has to put "parody" in the title!.... BUT THEY CAN'T BE PARODIES OF ME!'

OTOH I am sure this is much less funny for many LGBTQ+ tweeters, people of colour, women who talk about feminism etc on there, many of whom I expect are walking as they can now expect even less protection from bigoted wankers. Someone was commenting that one of Musk's errors (and they are many) is that if the 'alt right' can't 'trigger the libs' because they've all gone elsewhere, his glorious Twitter of Freedom is going to rather lose its appeal with the bros.
 
I enjoy Twitter and have no plans to quit.

I have noticed an increase in contentious posts on my timeline recently. Many more Tories, anti-immigrant stuff, general right wingness. It seemed to start shortly before the Musk takeover. Anyone else noticed this?

I probably don’t understand how it really works to be honest. But how are you seeing this stuff? I use an app and only get stuff on my timeline from people I follow. does the default interface just show you trending shit on your timeline?
 
Wouldn't it also largely depend on whether you try to refute the posts that encourage the cesspit of hate and fury?
Yeah, I think about it sometimes and then realise it'd be a massive waste of time and energy. I will try from time to time to inform people who just seem to be a bit ill informed but probably not bad people.
 
Yes I used to go on a site that had (has) a load of republicans on, "massive waste of time and energy" is what that was too.
 
I don’t know anything about Mastodon’s tech but they seem to be coping well with the massive influx of new users.
 
I look at it sporadically for things I’m interested in and most people I follow are lovely (except my MP who gives me the rage). I don’t really know anything about what’s happening with it so I’ll continue to use it I guess. I have no idea what Mastodon is. Presumably another social media platform? I’ll give it a pass.
 
I enjoy Twitter and have no plans to quit.

I have noticed an increase in contentious posts on my timeline recently. Many more Tories, anti-immigrant stuff, general right wingness. It seemed to start shortly before the Musk takeover. Anyone else noticed this?
Yeah, I've seen this too. Not sure if it's just people I follow arguing with them that puts the stuff in my timeline, or the algorithm doing it. Either way I'm having to block a fair few right wing headbangers.
 
I only seem to notice all the hostility if I look at the replies to some of the people I follow or if I view a Hashtag on a topic.

I did report someone last week for being particularly abusive to someone I follow and, to Twitter's credit, they dealt with it within a couple of hours and suspended them.
 
I deleted my Twitter a long time ago, and had only used it very briefly. It made me feel dizzy and slightly sick.

I was on Diaspora for a bit but people were not talking, just posting videos/links/images. Good if you're looking for info on stuff but I was looking to connect. Also took a long time to get rid of all the alt-right (and worse) cranks in the timeline.

I'm giving Mastodon a go. Previously I'd had a look in and decided it was probably too much like Twitter but now I'm hopeful. Starting off knowing nobody but hopefully will link up with some like-minded (or at least interesting) people soon.
 
I'm quite entertained watching Musk melt down though - he is making up policy on the hoof and is so pathetically fragile. 'Now people can make jokes again... BUT NOT ABOUT ME! Everyone with parody accounts has to put "parody" in the title!.... BUT THEY CAN'T BE PARODIES OF ME!'

OTOH I am sure this is much less funny for many LGBTQ+ tweeters, people of colour, women who talk about feminism etc on there, many of whom I expect are walking as they can now expect even less protection from bigoted wankers. Someone was commenting that one of Musk's errors (and they are many) is that if the 'alt right' can't 'trigger the libs' because they've all gone elsewhere, his glorious Twitter of Freedom is going to rather lose its appeal with the bros.
It reminds me of when someone who hasn’t a clue gets given an admin role on a forum or FB group and goes a bit mad deleting accounts and changing things. Mad to think that the billionaire owner of a social media platform can behave like this. It is entertaining!
 
Yes, I'm having a few smug replies to me pointing out in not sure why people are so upset about they/them pronouns, mainly consisting of people quoting PROOF that 'they' is only for plural usage. Not even bothering replying because it's not grammar they're upset about, is it? :rolleyes:

Singular 'they' has existed in English for centuries, so these people obviously have a problem with reality.
 
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