A Memorial for Twitter

 

 Well, it looks like Musk may finally have killed twitter, with rate limits causing yet another exodus to new pastures and some old ones. Currently, the site is still chugging along like an old car that's in danger of shaking itself apart at every bump and pothole. Will it collapse for good this time? I don't know, I think its wheels will keep spinning for a few more "genius" reforms from the new management, though what made the site a place I wanted to spend more time than was healthy is slipping away.

I was one of those odd individuals who enjoyed twitter, but I was never starry eyed about it. Musk has been a disaster for Twitter, which was to be expected really, the man has been a disaster with everything he's touched as far as I can tell. But even back in the BE (Before Elon) era the site had many problems. As a platform for discussion it's always been terrible, the character limits kill attempts to demonstrate nuance and balance, sure you can add another tweet adding context or a generous concession, but you're lucky if a tenth of the people seeing the first tweet bother even glancing at the second. It seems like it was designed from the beginning as a mechanism for group think, interactions showing support the like/fav, the retweet and the comment space are only useful for telling its algorithm you want more content like that which overtime limits the diversity of the feed. And conversely the best way to highlight negativity or opposition is the quote tweet mechanic which is an effective means of broadcasting heretics to your supporters for attacks and hostility.

Despite its structural drawbacks, I found the site very useful. As a sort of newswire service I found a lot of information that is ignored by the large institutional media, Anarchists in Ethiopia, feminists in Japan, radical Union campaigns and direct action protests throughout the UK etc. And over time was able to connect with some interesting people from around the world. And in addition, there was also a very interesting phenomenon that I was able to take part in. Twitter with its international audience and usage as an information service led to an organic network of translators. News and blogs that appeared in one language were often boosted by followers who spoke more languages and would translate it. The unusually large Esperanto speaking user base were very good at this, and I played a small part translating information into English for a wider reach. It did also help that I learnt to stop rolling in the mud of twitters negative sides, instead of multiple thread arguments I'll just share some contrary information and then mute the thread, either they'll take it on board or they won't, let nature take its course.

And having used Twitter quite a bit from 2017-now, I can say with certainty that in my experience the service was taking small steps to address some of its worst problems. Its reporting system became more comprehensive and precise, so reactionary bigots, bullies and stalkers who knew not to swear in plain text or use the slurs most well known in the USA were increasingly getting caught. There were still many right wing celebrities using the platform to boost their outreach, but little by little the line crossing was getting too much and a few of them were being shutdown. And that process accelerated during the COVID pandemic since many of them pivoting to vaccine conspiracy talk.  I don't wish to oversell these steps, none of the well known problems with Twitter were solved completely, but for a time it looked like a process of correcting some of the worst parts of the service had begun. 

Then Elon Musk bought the company and quickly reversed what limited progress had been made. On the 28th of October last year, management changed hands at the blue bird headquarters. And things quickly turned to shit. I don't subscribe to the Great Men theory of history, but even I've been taken aback by just how much malign influence a hands-on tech CEO can achieve. The far right celebrities? Well they're back. You found our service to be a useful way to find out about important examples of activism? Well, too bad for you sunshine, we're banning them to make room for the Christian fundamentalists and the "national conservative pundits". The report system that had a chance of keeping up with the mutations of harassment? Practically toothless again. You use Twitter as a news aggregator? Well, here's ads for cryptocurrency scams in the middle of threads to break them up. Musk spent much of the early days of the takeover complaining about bot accounts, well as far as I can see he's made that problem much worse, my account has just over a thousand followers, a minnow in the sea, and yet even my account has been swarmed by fake account follows, and my direct messaging system filled with spam accounts. 

During his short stint as captain of the S.S. Bluebird, he's steered the ship from one crisis after another. And while so far the ship has managed to smash into those rocks without piercing the internal hull, and we can enjoy some schadenfreude at the massive dent to Musk's reputation as both a genius and a savvy businessman, the net result has been a series of exoduses varying in size and a frustrating and increasingly poor experience for those who remain. The rate limit fiasco is just another chapter in what is shaping up to being a very long catalogue of incompetence. 

At the present time, Twitter is still online, and I still have an account, but I'm in the prepping stage for a move. The previous crises lead to some moving to other alternatives, but not that many. Musk's financial lifeline dealing with the plummeting value of the company was his assets in other companies, which he's been selling off in bits and pieces to cover the numerous money holes he's dug for himself. His lifeline in social media terms has been the lack of an alternative Twitter. We use the term social media as a collective label for what in reality is a loose collection of very different services with their own strengths and uses. Twitter was unique, at least at that size and potential reach. It was never as big as some would think given its prominence in journalism and mainstream media, just count how many news stories are broken via a tweet on an average news report for an example of this. But it's still used by lots of people in most of the world. So, while in theory users pissed off with the way things are going to have many places to set up shop, in practice it's not that easy. Facebook, Tumblr etc, just don't scratch the same itch, and they all have their own issues and demographic clashes.

There have been Twitter alternatives for some time, under the old management right wing types who found even the light touch moderation of Twitter unbearable split off onto a dozen right wing alternatives, but they're small, explicitly politically partisan so have no chance of scoring big advertisers and are run and controlled by a tiny group of thin-skinned wannabe führer's, so they haven't grown so much as stagnated or collapsed into infighting. Now, though, Twitter is facing some competition on at least two fronts. The old management have been working on a new Twitter called Bluesky, and Zuckerberg's Meta is pushing something called Threads.

They both look like Twitter clones, and many of the latest crop of Twitter exiles have set up accounts on one or both of these services. This should worry Musk since if either or both get traction he's no longer in charge of the only game in town. Personally, I think both aren't very good, in the interests of transparency I must be up front and disclose that I have no account on either platform, Bluesky is invite only, at the moment and while I know people who can give me an invitation, I didn't see the point in going through all that rigmarole before I know if the service will take off, my plan has been to wait for it go public and let others fight for the clout that comes with first one in the pool. And as for Threads, I left Facebook years ago, and haven't been impressed with any of Zuckerberg's products since then, a Twitter under his benevolent gaze did not excite me at all.

So much of what I've heard about these sites is second hand, but I think I was right to be sceptical, both services have issues that do not appeal to me at all. I think what Bluesky and Threads show us is that as bad as Musk's tenure has been, it isn't exceptional. Musk isn't doing anything beyond his position of owner of the company, he's just terrible on the job, I suppose it's like the difference between using a shotgun or a sniper rifle to take out a threat in a crowded room. They're both tools designed to kill people and both will get the job done, just that one's clumsier and messier than the other. 

It's early days for both these alternatives, they might get better if there's enough pressure for it, but I won't be holding my breath. Though if Twitter does collapse, or I finally reach my breaking point, I might find myself setting up an account on one of them. 

Still, there is some positive news. The other commonly cited Twitter alternative is Mastodon. If you have a Twitter account, you're probably sick of hearing about Mastodon. In simple terms it's essentially Twitter, a short messaging service where you can react to other users messages, contact them, share your thoughts and photos and videos and links. But it's open source and decentralized, so there isn't one all powerful body making decisions for the entire user base. Open source and decentralisation have become ugly buzzwords for internet marketers, but in Mastodon's case the old usage, multiple users working to build something together, still rings true. 

Mastodon has been around for a while, it's where many of the earlier waves of Twitter exiles popped up before. So why hasn't it taken off before? Well, it sort of has done, just at a slower pace, but there are some barriers to entry. First to create an account instead of going to Mastodon.com and clicking sign up you have to pick what's called an Instance to join and create an account there. Instances are like private clubs they have their own rules admins and even special features, all of which should be available to check before you join. Once you've picked an Instance its usually pretty simple to set up an account, and there are even dedicated apps like Tusky on smartphones now to make it easier.

Another barrier is the absence of algorithims, in my expereince algoritihims are things you only notice by there absence. Much of the content social media sites like Twitter use algoritihms aggresively not just to shove adverts in your face but to deliver content to you too. If you've ever wondered why you aren't seeing content from accounts you follow even though you know they're still active its because the algoritihm isn't showing you their stuff anymore. The absence of an algoritihim to me is a positive, it gives you freedom to build your own feeds and make your own judgements. But, on the otherhand this can be daunting at the start since the point of social media services are to show you things you want to see and give you opportunities to engage with them. So at the start Mastodon can be very sparse, you'll have an Instance feed (the content produced by other users on that Instance) and the Federated feed essentially the global feed of all users on the main network without a filter for your preferences. So, it takes awhile and some active searching to find users posting stuff that you like and value and find interesting. Hashtags aren't just for spamming messages on Mastodon they're actually useful. So, usually what has happened is that many setup accounts on Mastodon, find the transition awkward and don't stick around.

Though over time Mastodon has grown organically, the Fediverse which is the name for the main federation of Instances now registers over 13 million users, and recently registered over 2 million active at the same time. It took awhile for me to build up a feed but at present I actively look through the feeds several times a week, find things I like most times, and have chatted with others. Still not using it nearly as much as I used to use Twitter, but I hope the trends continue in a positive direction. In addition, although Mastodon clearly used Twitter as its main inspiration there are other quality of life improvements. For example, you can't quote tweet or quote toot as its called over there. This limitation has done a lot to limit aggro behaviour. And two or three Twitter exoduses ago several Instances were setup by tech savvy reactionary types, and in addition to clogging the federated feed their userbases started harassing other users. The response was quick, since their admins wouldn't reign in the behaviour other instances defederated, essentially a group wide block, so those Instances can't see our activity and we can't see theres. On Twitter targeted harassment is ignored and the accounts being targetted have to play a game of whack-a-mole or adopt a third party block list, and third party applications are increasingly being throttled by the new direction the site is going. And the system has been integrated into several others including video and music streaming.

So, looks like I'll be giving my meagre support to Mastodon, I'd like to see a better internet not dominated by six blokes who seem to be going through a permanent mid life crisis and a never ending game of asset hoarding. I can be found here.