Flying the coop


To no one's surprise, Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, is trashing it. Now he's banning journalists who criticize him. He's also banning people who post in real time where his jet is (information that is readily available on numerous cell phone apps). This as he re-admits a slew of MAGA clowns who had gotten themselves barred in the past, and for good reason. Not to mention completely ripping out Twitter's human resources and replacing them with "hard core" twits who kiss his ring. 

His site, his rules, I get it. But it's too much for a lot of users; they're becoming Twitter quitters. 

I will miss that place when it fully implodes. I already miss the Twitter we had for many years until just a few months ago. It's been great for breaking news. And for comedy! Some of the funniest people on the planet have been on there, and they have gotten belly laughs out of me on a regular basis. 

If you need an example of the evils of wealth concentration in the world, and especially in the United States, the story of Musk and the bird site is a pretty good one. He didn't like its content, so he bought it, and now he'll either kill it, or turn it over to the extreme right, including those way over on the wacko end. Another train wreck where capitalism crosses paths with truth.

Where are all the disaffected tweeters going? There's no one place. I'm now on Post, which feels a lot like Twitter; on Tribel, which feels like a bland blend of Facebook and Twitter; and on Mastodon, which I'm not sure I understand. With Mastodon, there are hundreds of different "instances," or servers, to pick from; the most popular ones are closed to new members at the moment due to the surge of tweeters wanting in, but I have found a home on one called zirk.us. I've been able to use the moniker bojack on all three of these new homes.

There doesn't seem to be much of a point for me to post links here to these new pages, because ever since I resumed blogging two and a half years ago, I have used social media as a way to send people to this site, and not vice versa. And besides, it's not clear how long these new services can survive if they're going to be asked to carry the load of a Twitter. The jury is still very much out on the viability of any of them.

And so I'm keeping my Twitter account, at least until having one becomes some sort of implicit endorsement of Space Karen and his psychoses. That day may be coming quite soon.

Users who haven't shut down entirely are downloading archives of their tweets, in case a final exit becomes necessary or is forced on them. I did that with mine a few weeks ago, but I don't think the file will be of too much value. Twitter has been like radio in some ways: The content goes out over the air, and then it's gone, except for maybe a kid with a tape recorder going somewhere. Nobody takes my tweets seriously the day they're posted, much less five or 10 years later.

Anyway, Twitter has suddenly been transformed from the place you go to get the story, to the story itself. When that happens to an information and entertainment service, it's time to put the undertakers on speed dial.

Comments

  1. Absolute power corrupts absolutely

    ReplyDelete
  2. Truth will eventually surface. It’s going the be painful to some

    ReplyDelete

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