Twitter Alternatives: The Great Migration

[Kriselda Gray]

Something to be aware of with Post is that Mark Andreesen's group is one of its major investors. They are also heavily invested in Twitter. The founder of Post, Noam Bardin, who also started Waze, says he's discussed the potential conflict with them and says it won't be a problem, but its still good to be aware of it.

Also, their goal is to allow journalists and authors to charge for their articles. From what I understand, rather than subscribing to an author or news site, you'd instead buy each individual article you wanted to read.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/28/post- ... tive-a16z/

[p0rtia]

I've been slowly figuring out Mastodon and Post the past couple of weeks. Post is glitchy for me using certain browsers; I've sussed out how to use Mastodon and wish it wasn't so difficult to follow people, but other than that, it's fine and very Twitter-like.

Mastodon is much better when you use the light-colored mode (I don't think I would have survived the dark screen background.

This weekend a huge number of people I follow on Twitter have turned up on Mastodon (which is why I got so good at adding them).

I googled to see how many users Mastodon now has, and found a site that claims 6 Mil. I'm interested in tracking that over time.

Post, as far as I can see, has far fewer users. I think I saw about 2 mil?

Twitter is unusable in its current state. It is the plaything of a monster and that is all anyone talks about. Was really happy to see more and more of the big media organizations opening up Mastodon accounts.

[Reality Check]

Thanks. I will poke around a bit and see if I can figure it out. I see Mastodon has lists what can somewhat function like Tweetdeck.

[Kriselda Gray]

Thanks. I will poke around a bit and see if I can figure it out. I see Mastodon has lists what can somewhat function like Tweetdeck.

Lists are nice, and it also let's you follow hashtags. I use the web app in advanced mode so its like tweetdeck, and to follow a hashtag, I just click on the hashtag in someone's post, which opens it up into a new column. I then pin the new column and if there are related hashtag terms I want to also follow, I can add them in that area, also. It's really easy and very handy!

[Lani]

Registered as Leilani. Haven't posted anything. Just playing around on mastodon. I never posted on twitter b/c it was too crazy.

[Kriselda Gray]

Registered as Leilani. Haven't posted anything. Just playing around on mastodon. I never posted on twitter b/c it was too crazy.

Which Mastadon server are you on?

[Lani]

I think it's a cup of tea.

[Lani]

I think it's a cup of tea.

I can't reminder the password. I'll figure it out.

[Reality Check]

I am on Mastodon. Reality Check @r_c_radio@mstdn.party

[p0rtia]

@p0rtia@kolektiva.social

[Reality Check]

I see Mike Dunford has changed his mind and is abandoning Twitter.

Screenshot 2022-12-19 at 11-28-25 TweetDeck.png (38.5 KiB) Viewed 747 times

[RTH10260]

Mike as obvisously signed up as mutliple personalites:

@questauthority.jpg (48.04 KiB) Viewed 739 times

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

MarciaBarnes13@counter.social.

JJ MacNabb is on counter.social.
MarciaBarnes13@toad.social. This is my mastodon account.

[p0rtia]

Mike as obvisously signed up as mutliple personalites:

@questauthority.jpg

There are a lot of folks with multiple Mastodon accounts. No idea why.

[RTH10260]

Mike as obvisously signed up as mutliple personalites:

@questauthority.jpg

There are a lot of folks with multiple Mastodon accounts. No idea why.

Possibly cause the local communities matches their interests. I understand that one follow the local posts without getting bothered what happens elsewhere.

One can transfer ones account from one instance to another if one feels like signed up for the wrong one.

[Kriselda Gray]

There are a lot of folks with multiple Mastodon accounts. No idea why.

I have three for a few reasons. For one, if I tried to follow with one account all the people I follow using 3 accounts, I'd get overwhelmed having that many posts to read at any one time. This let's me deal with just a portion of my followings at a time. Also, sometimes iI just want to focus on the news or I don't want to read about issues related to being disabled, etc. This way, I can just read the stuff I'm interested at that time.

Mainly, though, I realize that not everyone wants to read all my stuff. My topics are kind of different from each other, and someone who wants to read about news and politics may have no interest in my spiritual or disability stuff and vice versa. This way, a person can follow just what interests them. By default, when I follow anyone from Fogbow, I do it from my news/politics account, @Kriselda@universodon.com

Just FYI, I don't cross-post between the servers, so if you want to read all my stuff, you can do so without getting duplicate content from me. I don't know if that's how most people with multiple servers do it, but it just makes sense to me to do it that way.

[Flatpoint High]

Yesterday Elmo banned Chad Loder from Twitter for his anti-fascist research. Or because Loder was investigating a Twitter thing. Or becuase it was a day ending in Y. It doesn't matter. He also posted a lot of other bat-shit crazy crap about the evil of wokeism* and how the it is trying to stifle free speech (y'know, hate speech). Good lord.

So I started my migration. Joined Mastodon. I note that currently, Mastodon does not want political discussion (I think I read that right). That's a downer, obviously. For now.

Also joined the wait-list for Post (post.news). This is such a great name, I tend to think it has a good chance of catching on. A lot of the well known folks I follow have established accounts there.

Post is currently being overwhelmed, and has a wait list to join of hundreds of thousands. They give you a link that says if you get five others to join up, you move up the wait list. Here is my link:

https://post.news/?r=73cn1

If any of you use it (as I hope you will), perhaps you could say so below? Don't need more than the five. Then, if any of you want to also try to get five sign-ups, we could do a sort of chain sign up for those who are interested.

Don't know what's going to happen on Twitter in the future; hopefully it can be saved from this malign madman. All I know is that it was a sewer yesterday. I like to read responses to the interesting posts of people I follow. But nothing I did could hide the racist, sexist, violence, ignorant shit that overwhelmed the threads.

Where are other going?

https://counter.social/@Exitpass
mastodon: @Th3ExitPass@mastodon.sdf.org

[RTH10260]

So I started my migration. Joined Mastodon. I note that currently, Mastodon does not want political discussion (I think I read that right). That's a downer, obviously. For now.

Cause this four week old post was quoted above, just a note: it's up to the owner of the respective Mastadon instance if they wish to limit discussions. The creator of Mastadon has political discussions excluded on his site. Other sites have been created for an audience with a limited interest in some specific subject. One has to search for the home base that matches ones intestest best. While posting on the local site can be restricted, reading web wide is generally possible (though some sites may have blacklisted other instances cause of hatespeech etc).

[Reality Check]

I have a few observations on Mastodon from a new user perspective:

1. The login process can be confusing. You have to log in to the server where your account resides. More than once I could not log in only to discover I was pointed at the wrong server. I do not see this catching on for casual users as long as the whole sign up and log in process is so disjointed. I know the decentralization is supposed to be a plus for Mastodon but it has its disadvantages.
2. The advanced interface is better than the single column default one but it is not Tweetdeck or even close. Adding a column for a user is not straightforward like Tweetdeck. I finally figured out you have to make a list then add the user to the list. Then you can pin the list.
3. You can pin the results if a hashtag search as a column but as far as I could find you cannot add a hashtag to a list. It would be nice if you could mix users and searches in a list.
4. Reading posts and replies is not as easy as Twitter. I may not have figured it out yet.
5. The Mastodon app does not have the advanced mode option. I seems to have two columns pus a menu bar on the left. I see no way to access lists. I am using the iOS app.

I am sure with time Mastodon will get better. Since they allow third party apps I plan to check some of those out.

[Volkonski]

CNN
@CNN@newsrelay.org
As Twitter backlash grows, rival Mastodon reaches 2.5 million monthly users - Twitter rival Mastodon has grown eight times its size in a matter of weeks, going from approximately 300,000 users in October to 2.5 million in November, according to a blog post by the platform's founder, Eugen Rochko. #twitter #Mastodon #cnn

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/tech/mas ... index.html

[Kriselda Gray]

CNN
@CNN@newsrelay.org
As Twitter backlash grows, rival Mastodon reaches 2.5 million monthly users - Twitter rival Mastodon has grown eight times its size in a matter of weeks, going from approximately 300,000 users in October to 2.5 million in November, according to a blog post by the platform's founder, Eugen Rochko. #twitter #Mastodon #cnn

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/tech/mas ... index.html

Given that the Mastodon servers are all run by volunteers, I've really been impressed with how well it's handling the incredible growth it's seeing, while still managing to keep its atmosphere as being a safe place for people to gather pretty well intact. I have yet to see any kind of hostility or hate speech or other negativity on there. I was worried that with the wild growth it might all just spin out of control, but it really hasn't.

[Kriselda Gray]

I've changed servers for my news and political stuff, and am now at Lyssandri@newsie.social. Any of you that are following me have been moved to the new account, so you don't need to do anything, I'm just letting you know so when you see stuff under the new name you'll still know it's me

I've also changed my avatar to this:

[Suranis]

Is that Athena? Or maybe Freya?

[Kriselda Gray]

Is that Athena? Or maybe Freya?

Freya Nothing against the Greeks or Roman's, but I'm a Norse girl at heart

[Foggy]

I can turn it into your avatar here, if you'd like.

Or you can crop it square and reduce to 125px by 125px, presto.

I really like the new one.