Leaving the Nest and Joining the Herd
I’ve been using Mastodon, a open-source application that implements a specification for micro-blogging social networking (basically Twitter) for some time now. It’s gotten to a point where I can run around and have fun with people (thread) I’ve met on there as well as those I’ve met from Twitter. It provides an interesting (and so far, more successful) take on handling abuse and harassment then some of the larger alternatives. I can go on and on about how, since Facebook brought the digital era of the selling of your data, your behavior and your interactions with anything that the imperative and need to move to and convince larger outlets to shift is overdue.
That’s not why I’m writing this. I’m writing more to acknowledge a lot of people who’ve decided to stop using Twitter completely (I still have a dual-account setup) because of the state of affairs of the platform. Thomas Fuchs wrote a post about why they quit - and I resonate with it. Then I found a post from Derek Powazek about they quit as well. You can find more in this Mastodon thread. Twitter was fun and exciting in the beginning, when it was green (literally). Now it’s becoming a argument machine. You can learn more in this WIRED article.
I can’t knock Twitter entirely though - I’ve met people, gone to events, got job interviews and done a lot because of the people I met on there. However, the vitrol and the way that the platform inherently permits it is something we as a digital collective need to fight against.
If you’re needing a place on the Fediverse (federated universe) - let me know.