Some Basics For Facebookers About The Twitter Exodus, Mastodon, CounterSocial etc.
Nothing to see here, just millions of people flipping out
Despite the fact that Trump’s Twitter account was reinstated last night, I’m not leaving Twitter yet. I made some good friends there and am busily trying to get them over to CounterSocial (I’m @esaeger there) and Mastodon (esaeger@universeodon.com). I follow back everyone (as long as they’re not obviously crazy or far-right), because that’s how I roll.
Let me first say that if you’re happy at Facebook, just keep being you. You don’t have to get into the “Fediverse” (a constellation of big and small social media spaces, including the Mastodon subset) to be one of the “cool kids.” Facebook Groups are a really underrated resource. My wife runs a terrific, close-knit support group on Facebook for chronic pain sufferers (she also sells handmade goth/witch/etc stuff on Etsy and has a Facebook Group for that). While researching my current book I’ve had some very productive discussions on one or two other FB Groups. As well, I’m literally amazed at how many great, smart and funny progressives, leftists and anarchists I’ve met on Facebook in the past few months since I started working toward platforming my books there.
That all being said, the Fediverse is indeed the future of social media, at least for Twitter-heads who like to run into the occasional celebrity, make dumb one-liner jokes and all that. I think eventually most people who do move their Twitter trips over to Mastodon will congregate on the general-interest Mastodon.social “instance” (group), but it’s closed for new members right now; they have nowhere near the amount of hardware to run it with the gigantic stampede of people heading over there from Twitter.
But everything is fluid right now, being that Elon Musk is running Twitter into the ground, that is to say, his (and his apparent crony Jack Dorsey’s) ideas about allowing “free speech” read fine on a cocktail napkin, but it’s been a disaster as put in practice by that microdosing dipshit. There’s way too much racist/misogynist/etc 4chan-style ugliness to be found there, which no advertiser wants to see, ever (advertisers have been leaving Twitter in droves, as have celebrities, pundits and others who built large Twitter platforms; even CBS News stopped tweeting altogether yesterday), and of course Trump — who’s still free as a bird despite being guilty of pandemicide, inciting insurrection, gleefully helping himself to illegal emoluments, etc — was reinstated by a small margin of votes (now there’s an election result worth challenging, isn’t it?), so the floodgates have opened wide. A lot of people aren’t even announcing their departures, they’re just leaving.
It sucks. I’ve had many great friends leave Twitter for Mastodon and CounterSocial (a site built on Mastodon technology but which was banished from the Fediverse because it disallows users from Russia, Syria, etc). These are good folks and I hope I run into all of them soon.
BlueSky is a different matter, a social media site that isn’t live yet. It’s supposedly a “next-generation Twitter,” but it’s not looking too enticing at present. Jack Dorsey (BlueSky’s driving force, also the guy who originally founded Twitter) is in cahoots with Musk somehow (nobody really knows) and the more you dig into it, the kookier it all seems.
Dorsey (and by extension Musk) seems fixated on making cryptocurrency a part of BlueSky. The only people I’ve seen getting excited about BlueSky are crypto/NFT/Metaverse nerds. Ooookay.
Gossip found on CounterSocial and elsewhere says that you’ll have to have a crypto wallet to sign up for Bluesky, which, it’s thought, “means your data will not be safe, and you could be hacked into oblivion, lose your house, etc.”
If that’s the case, beware (hard pass from me). I seriously doubt that you’ll have to have a crypto wallet to use the service for just chilling with your buddies and all, but whatever. Be careful out there if you check out BlueSky whenever it lands.
(Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if the capitalists would actually allow their politician henchmen to shut the US down until Covid’s solved so we could go back to seeing people and doing all the usual fun stuff without hesitation instead of communicating over those horrible apps so much?)
Anyone disagree, I’d love to hear about it, as long as you’re not a crypto bro. Love ya mean it, but you’re unintelligible and weird and nobody likes you. Besides, I have no idea how people are hacking crypto, but they’re doing it, so my take is that it’s not ready for prime time (I wrote about blockchain’s genuine potential for good in my 2018 book Russian Nazi Troll Bots, but I don’t think the technology’s there yet). Neither are NFTs, which aren’t legally protected, and Zuckerberg’s Metaverse is… I mean, wow, do people really want to buy pirate clothes so their little cartoon Second Life-style avatars will look cool while they invite their great-aunts over for a barbecue? Good lord, the cringe. I heard he’s losing money in a flood.
The times, they are a-changing. Somewhat.
If you want to be fully, genuinely informed about the political troll/bot invasion of Election 2016, 2020, and Elections-Yet-To-Come, buy my last book. There’s the tiniest bit of technical stuff in there, but you’ll get it, I promise. A second book is about to be announced, but meanwhile, my Twitter is @esaeger.
