Mastodon has reached eight million accounts today. That’s close to the population of Switzerland and two million less than London. Mastodon is growing because it was ready to scale up at the right time. As Musk and Twitter shift towards the Right, and as Musk perpetuates conspiracy theories, on a daily basis, so he prepares the idea conditions for other social networks and opportunities to thrive.
As Twitter loses users, and engagement so other social networks are more likely to thrive.
Today during the walk I saw an orange van moving by the side of the road slowly. It was stopping regularly. I crossed the road and looked towards it. I saw an open door and a person placing traffic snow poles into the bollards at the side of the road. Winter is coming and the roads are being made ready for when it snows. I wanted to film but I was told not to, so I didn’t.
I used to like Facebook and Instagram because they were extensions of my social life. I left both of them when I saw that only two or three people reacted to my posts. Although social media platforms had started as being solitary, they had become social with time, and then lonely again, as time went on.
I left Facebook because it made me feel lonelier to use it than stay way.
Le Roi est Mort, longue vie au Roi (article) is a popular phrase in French. It signifies that if the king died royalty would continue and he would quickly be succeeded. Social media has just entered a new age, I believe. Twitter, Facebook and other giants have grown too big, and algorithms have destroyed the sense of community. That an individual could buy Twitter, and affect it’s political leaning has affected people’s perception of Twitter.
I find myself tempted to give up on social media and focus on blogging instead. I am tired of social media after decades of use. I am tired that users, that provide all of the value are ignored, and that greedy boards of directors can sell users as if they were lumps of coal or sugar beets.
By being sold to Musk Twitter has become a symbol of the Far Right, and Far Right ideologies are being pushed.
With the current situation at Twitter I have chosen to take a twitter break. Twitter hasn’t been fun during the last three years, which is part of the reason I went anonymous, private, and then public but anonymous again. It used to be about having conversations with people that I would eventually want to meet in person.
Now that Twitter has shifted political slant and verified account have lost their status there is little to keep me on Twitter.
Twitter is alive and healthy, with vibrant communities and an opportunity to converse with people and find information that mainstream media are sometimes slow to report on. Over the last week that balance is swinging towards less positive times.
In Europe, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression require people to say things that they can back up with evidence and facts. If you say something that is demonstrably false, or demonstrably misleading then you are held to account for this.
Recently I have noticed individuals tweeting as if they were people, asking questions and getting 120 or more comments. They ask a question like “What was your first OS” or “What is your current setup” or other questions. These are generic questions that everyone has an answer to, so everyone answers to them. Those answering think either that they will get a personal answer back, or that they will increase their visibility by answering to these questions where no one cares about the answer, except marketers.
We’re in a pandemic, and it makes sense to invest time in learning. I completed the Become a JavaScript Developer course last night and today I played around with some code to see if it worked for what I wanted. It didn’t. I also listened to a live stream which discussed geojson, smapshot and other projects. I like the idea of geotagged data, and an open API to allow for the data to be shared more easily
richard - Jan 0, 2022
Last year I did walk in the dark, with a head lamp. I did see animal eyes staring back at me sometimes. It isn’t that pleasant. Normally I would use rain as an excuse not to walk but as it never rains I had to settle for a windy day.
Yep yep on the early sunset-daily walk problem, as I’m having it as well at the moment.