You've left out the most important reason for leaving: eyeballs/users = ad revenue. I refuse to help put more money in Musk's pocket. Right now, Twitter can point to the fact that legitimate (by which I mean, non-Nazis) users frequent the site to drum up business. I say, let them be limited to My Pillow and the NRA for their ad money and let's see how far that gets them.
Also, you're right that other platforms haven't reached a critical mass. That's partly due to the sheer number of people who are waiting for a critical mass to happen before actually being part of making it happen.
exactly right. and TBH the main reason influential folks are staying is because important journalists are staying while they hedge their bets on an alternative. if we want an alternative, we should follow those journalists to their new home(s) and make those our new homes.
@Bob and @Dawn--I'm not sure we're putting much in Musk's pocket, it sure seems like the opposite actually--he's been burning money. But I've never been a power user or poster. Personally I'm still waiting for a real federated solution--maybe Nos.social will be it.
I know that the "money in his pocket" argument isn't the strongest one, but just lending my name to him by using his product is a leap that's way too far for me to take. And in aggregate, yes, I think that the folks who are fence sitting while waiting for the next new thing *are* helping boost his business. It's just not worth it.
In the meantime, the ethos on BlueSky seems to be to block trolls immediately without once engaging them. My experience there has been lovely so far.
Maybe your reasons to stay for make sense for you, but everyone who stays needs to draw a line for themselves as to what will impel them to finally leave. Waiting until one of the alternatives reaches the same scale isn't a legitimate excuse - everyone who moves to an alternative increases its scale and helps encourage their own networks to move. Now is the time to pick your alternative platform and begin to use it more than Twitter. If you get a decent percent of your Twitter engagement there, then it would be time to pull the plug.
Sep 5, 2023·edited Sep 6, 2023Liked by Micah L. Sifry
I’ve been spending progressively less time on Twitter. Musk’s anti-ADL tirade yesterday was my last straw. I acknowledge your “reasons to stay.” I recognize what I’m giving up. But I’m no longer willing to give time and attention to Musk’s platform. I deactivated. The Iron Door is closed.
Are your followers really seeing what you are posting now that Musk has "tuned" the algorithm to favor paying (too often abusive) accounts?
How about getting a Mastodon account and inviting/encouraging your followers to join you there and only using your Twitter account to keep up with people you follow who are not yet on Mastodon?
Mastodon can't gain the critical mass you say is necessary unless people like you work to get it there.
I stepped away from Twitter in July because I wanted to put my energies in more positive places. It seemed like more effort to persuade than on other platforms and I knew I would cause a greater impact elsewhere. Since being off, it's been great to not have the negativity. It's amazing what you will notice when negative energy is gone.
I hear you! I suppose I should have mentioned that I've been on there for 16 years and derived lots of benefit and community from it, so breaking the connection feels psychologically harder.
I hear that too! I feel like I miss out on local discourse because many of my connections were on Twitter. It’s a really tough place to be in. Hopefully Elon’s financial woes catch up to him and someone else can buy him out.
Sep 5, 2023·edited Sep 5, 2023Liked by Micah L. Sifry
Until this weekend I was generally ambivalent about those who chose to remain, though I was always sympathetic to those who *had* to remain for professional reasons. (For the record, I quit the night Mush started banning journalists over “ElonJet”).
But now I think he’s definitely crossed a line and people have to actively confront the fact that by staying they’re signaling implicit support for someone who has demonstrated his willingness and capacity for causing untold levels of harm to marginalized groups, to democracy, and to social stability in general. Even if people aren’t spending money there or if they’re using an ad blocker, they still have to realize that in staying they’re unwittingly giving him intangible support in the form of “views,” attention, and legitimacy. Worse, by effectively signaling that “this is not a dealbreaker,” they’re also contributing to the gradualistic normalization of this sort of despicable behavior: meaning it inevitably (and gradually) will get worse over time. So if not now, where and when do we draw the line?
Now, I recognize the inescapable and unfortunate reality that shitty people do exist and they have a noxious tendency to accumulate themselves in positions of great power. Thus, pragmatic considerations dictate that one must pick and choose their battles wisely and occasionally “hold their nose” and do what they need to do. But there are also times when those shitty people cross clear, bright red lines, and then basic morality demands that you do have to take a stand, even if it means personal sacrifices.
That said, maybe the best course of action here is to give it a week or two and see what happens: will cooler heads intervene to convince him to quietly back down and scale back his public bigotry and support for some of humanity’s most vile and odious scum or will he double down and carry out his threats? In the latter case I think the resolution to this problem is clear as day: leave.
I think he crossed the line a while ago, but I'm still not convinced that staying there automatically = signaling support. Silence would equal signaling support but I don't think I'm being silent on Twitter (or elsewhere) about Musk.
I've been on Twitter from the early days. (I refuse to call it X, but not out of any great passionate attachment to its former identity; the past few years have burned that out of me. My slogan these days is "You can have the name Twitter when you pry it from my limp, unresisting fingers.") And yes, I've found it difficult to wrap my mind around leaving. Still, that's where I'm leaning. I've frozen my personal account, and next on the block is the account for the organization I work for.
As we grapple with that question, we're weighing similar pros and cons. But one particular consideration has been weighing on me in recent weeks (and more so since Musk announced blocking would be coming to an end). It's that by posting and engaging there, we're telling our audiences that we believe this is a safe and appropriate place to converse. And my concern is that we're either providing false assurances, or sending the message that we see the harassment and abuse they'll endure as an acceptable cost of being on Twitter.
Maybe there's a way to inhabit that space without implying any of that, but I'm not convinced — and I'm not sure that such an approach would be worth whatever diminishing gains we're seeing from our presence there.
Your list of plusses and minuses is aligned with what I tell the organizations I train. I tell orgs who have a good track record on twitter not to assume that Twitter will be there for them in the future. Don't make it the backbone of a social media strategy. But don't delete unless there's some organized effort that will make a mark.
I'll add that Twitter isn't/wasn't just about accessing journalists so tracking down and understanding where the other communities are online is important. Many issue areas like covid justice are still heavily active on twitter. This isn't groups or journalists, its people impacted by covid. I see some on Bluesky now but its still largely a twitter based community for the time being. It doesn't surprise me that a disability justice/public health community has stayed put. But I really do hope it migrates to Bluesky or mastodon over time.
For me, the concept of Permission Marketing is still the practical tactical metric: Where are you building an attention asset that's useful and worthwhile? I haven't re-tweeted my blog in about a year and there seems to be few ill effects--you should own your channel of communication, not be a tenant with an erratic landlord. The second, bigger issue is whether you want to put your priceless attention dollars into a negative/fading platform when you have other choices that are more generative, resilient and culture-improving.
Wise words, as always. I'm spreading my dollars around (definitely Substack being the main place) but not enjoying the sense of fragmentation. Time will tell.
I think a fragmented future is most likely. Fragmentation means organizations will really need to understand who their intended audiences are and how to spend time where they are (I've got a training on this coming up of course). But I will also add that substack itself has funded writing by transphobes. I don't mean that transphobes use it, of course they do-- I mean that when the platform was starting up some of the content creators that substack paid to use it were using the platform for transphobic hate speech. Queer groups complained but nothing changed. Now obviously this is not a problem at scale of what Musk is doing to twitter but if we are talking about substack in the same breath as twitter in terms of where to put money and eyes I do think its important for folks to at least know this fact. Many trans writers are using ghost.io or buttondown instead.
I started this newsletter on buttondown but switched because it had substandard usability and people also were getting posts in weird formats. Ghost has a better payment model than Substack, which is attractive. What are its policies and practices like when it comes to inclusion etc?
Ghost's TOS are pretty normal and exclude hate speech. They are a nonprofit which is interesting. Good to know that buttondown had those formatting issues! That can be a real deal breaker. When was this? I get quite a few newsletters from them
that look normal to me but they may have simplified structure. Here's the ghost about us fwiw https://ghost.org/about/
There are Nazis and neo-Nazis in the park too, but that's not a reason not to use it. (Not a perfect analogy I know but at least engage with the arguments I made for staying.)
The Saudi royal family (or entities that represent it) put up a substantial portion of the money that Musk used to buy the platform. Why? So they could track, pursue and ultimately torture and execute dissidents and other enemies. Like journalists. Musk is apparently fine with this.
Seriously thinking about quitting; have stopped making new tweets entirely. On BlueSky and Mastodon, but don't use either to the degree I once used X - that's because neither has made it to the Share button (yet).
Bigger question: Should Apple quit advertising there? Ian Betteridge asks: "Should we be considering boycotting Apple and other companies that advertise on Twitter? Let’s frame that another way: if you found out that a company was actively funding hate speech, would you want to buy products from them?"
You've left out the most important reason for leaving: eyeballs/users = ad revenue. I refuse to help put more money in Musk's pocket. Right now, Twitter can point to the fact that legitimate (by which I mean, non-Nazis) users frequent the site to drum up business. I say, let them be limited to My Pillow and the NRA for their ad money and let's see how far that gets them.
Also, you're right that other platforms haven't reached a critical mass. That's partly due to the sheer number of people who are waiting for a critical mass to happen before actually being part of making it happen.
exactly right. and TBH the main reason influential folks are staying is because important journalists are staying while they hedge their bets on an alternative. if we want an alternative, we should follow those journalists to their new home(s) and make those our new homes.
@Bob and @Dawn--I'm not sure we're putting much in Musk's pocket, it sure seems like the opposite actually--he's been burning money. But I've never been a power user or poster. Personally I'm still waiting for a real federated solution--maybe Nos.social will be it.
I know that the "money in his pocket" argument isn't the strongest one, but just lending my name to him by using his product is a leap that's way too far for me to take. And in aggregate, yes, I think that the folks who are fence sitting while waiting for the next new thing *are* helping boost his business. It's just not worth it.
In the meantime, the ethos on BlueSky seems to be to block trolls immediately without once engaging them. My experience there has been lovely so far.
Maybe your reasons to stay for make sense for you, but everyone who stays needs to draw a line for themselves as to what will impel them to finally leave. Waiting until one of the alternatives reaches the same scale isn't a legitimate excuse - everyone who moves to an alternative increases its scale and helps encourage their own networks to move. Now is the time to pick your alternative platform and begin to use it more than Twitter. If you get a decent percent of your Twitter engagement there, then it would be time to pull the plug.
I’ve been spending progressively less time on Twitter. Musk’s anti-ADL tirade yesterday was my last straw. I acknowledge your “reasons to stay.” I recognize what I’m giving up. But I’m no longer willing to give time and attention to Musk’s platform. I deactivated. The Iron Door is closed.
My departure on the eve of the acquisition was based on the proverb “lie down with dogs and get up with fleas.”
Are your followers really seeing what you are posting now that Musk has "tuned" the algorithm to favor paying (too often abusive) accounts?
How about getting a Mastodon account and inviting/encouraging your followers to join you there and only using your Twitter account to keep up with people you follow who are not yet on Mastodon?
Mastodon can't gain the critical mass you say is necessary unless people like you work to get it there.
Oh, I almost forgot, there is a moral imperative here.
Musk has shown himself to be an inveterate antisemite.
Staying says you're OK with that.
Are you?
I stepped away from Twitter in July because I wanted to put my energies in more positive places. It seemed like more effort to persuade than on other platforms and I knew I would cause a greater impact elsewhere. Since being off, it's been great to not have the negativity. It's amazing what you will notice when negative energy is gone.
I hear you! I suppose I should have mentioned that I've been on there for 16 years and derived lots of benefit and community from it, so breaking the connection feels psychologically harder.
I hear that too! I feel like I miss out on local discourse because many of my connections were on Twitter. It’s a really tough place to be in. Hopefully Elon’s financial woes catch up to him and someone else can buy him out.
Until this weekend I was generally ambivalent about those who chose to remain, though I was always sympathetic to those who *had* to remain for professional reasons. (For the record, I quit the night Mush started banning journalists over “ElonJet”).
But now I think he’s definitely crossed a line and people have to actively confront the fact that by staying they’re signaling implicit support for someone who has demonstrated his willingness and capacity for causing untold levels of harm to marginalized groups, to democracy, and to social stability in general. Even if people aren’t spending money there or if they’re using an ad blocker, they still have to realize that in staying they’re unwittingly giving him intangible support in the form of “views,” attention, and legitimacy. Worse, by effectively signaling that “this is not a dealbreaker,” they’re also contributing to the gradualistic normalization of this sort of despicable behavior: meaning it inevitably (and gradually) will get worse over time. So if not now, where and when do we draw the line?
Now, I recognize the inescapable and unfortunate reality that shitty people do exist and they have a noxious tendency to accumulate themselves in positions of great power. Thus, pragmatic considerations dictate that one must pick and choose their battles wisely and occasionally “hold their nose” and do what they need to do. But there are also times when those shitty people cross clear, bright red lines, and then basic morality demands that you do have to take a stand, even if it means personal sacrifices.
That said, maybe the best course of action here is to give it a week or two and see what happens: will cooler heads intervene to convince him to quietly back down and scale back his public bigotry and support for some of humanity’s most vile and odious scum or will he double down and carry out his threats? In the latter case I think the resolution to this problem is clear as day: leave.
I think he crossed the line a while ago, but I'm still not convinced that staying there automatically = signaling support. Silence would equal signaling support but I don't think I'm being silent on Twitter (or elsewhere) about Musk.
I can't stand it. Too much garbage.
I've been on Twitter from the early days. (I refuse to call it X, but not out of any great passionate attachment to its former identity; the past few years have burned that out of me. My slogan these days is "You can have the name Twitter when you pry it from my limp, unresisting fingers.") And yes, I've found it difficult to wrap my mind around leaving. Still, that's where I'm leaning. I've frozen my personal account, and next on the block is the account for the organization I work for.
As we grapple with that question, we're weighing similar pros and cons. But one particular consideration has been weighing on me in recent weeks (and more so since Musk announced blocking would be coming to an end). It's that by posting and engaging there, we're telling our audiences that we believe this is a safe and appropriate place to converse. And my concern is that we're either providing false assurances, or sending the message that we see the harassment and abuse they'll endure as an acceptable cost of being on Twitter.
Maybe there's a way to inhabit that space without implying any of that, but I'm not convinced — and I'm not sure that such an approach would be worth whatever diminishing gains we're seeing from our presence there.
Your list of plusses and minuses is aligned with what I tell the organizations I train. I tell orgs who have a good track record on twitter not to assume that Twitter will be there for them in the future. Don't make it the backbone of a social media strategy. But don't delete unless there's some organized effort that will make a mark.
I'll add that Twitter isn't/wasn't just about accessing journalists so tracking down and understanding where the other communities are online is important. Many issue areas like covid justice are still heavily active on twitter. This isn't groups or journalists, its people impacted by covid. I see some on Bluesky now but its still largely a twitter based community for the time being. It doesn't surprise me that a disability justice/public health community has stayed put. But I really do hope it migrates to Bluesky or mastodon over time.
For me, the concept of Permission Marketing is still the practical tactical metric: Where are you building an attention asset that's useful and worthwhile? I haven't re-tweeted my blog in about a year and there seems to be few ill effects--you should own your channel of communication, not be a tenant with an erratic landlord. The second, bigger issue is whether you want to put your priceless attention dollars into a negative/fading platform when you have other choices that are more generative, resilient and culture-improving.
Wise words, as always. I'm spreading my dollars around (definitely Substack being the main place) but not enjoying the sense of fragmentation. Time will tell.
I think a fragmented future is most likely. Fragmentation means organizations will really need to understand who their intended audiences are and how to spend time where they are (I've got a training on this coming up of course). But I will also add that substack itself has funded writing by transphobes. I don't mean that transphobes use it, of course they do-- I mean that when the platform was starting up some of the content creators that substack paid to use it were using the platform for transphobic hate speech. Queer groups complained but nothing changed. Now obviously this is not a problem at scale of what Musk is doing to twitter but if we are talking about substack in the same breath as twitter in terms of where to put money and eyes I do think its important for folks to at least know this fact. Many trans writers are using ghost.io or buttondown instead.
I started this newsletter on buttondown but switched because it had substandard usability and people also were getting posts in weird formats. Ghost has a better payment model than Substack, which is attractive. What are its policies and practices like when it comes to inclusion etc?
Ghost's TOS are pretty normal and exclude hate speech. They are a nonprofit which is interesting. Good to know that buttondown had those formatting issues! That can be a real deal breaker. When was this? I get quite a few newsletters from them
that look normal to me but they may have simplified structure. Here's the ghost about us fwiw https://ghost.org/about/
is ActivityPub the solution to fragmentation?
I'll refer to George Lakoff on this. He's written three pieces about Twitter under Elon Musk.
https://framelab.substack.com/p/with-trump-returing-to-musks-twitter
https://framelab.substack.com/p/twitter-ceo-elon-musk-wants-to-control
https://framelab.substack.com/p/algorithm-warfare-how-elon-musk-uses
Leave. It's Nazis all the way down there. Staying on there says you are implicitly if not explicitly saying this is ok.
There are Nazis and neo-Nazis in the park too, but that's not a reason not to use it. (Not a perfect analogy I know but at least engage with the arguments I made for staying.)
Nazis need punching
How are you still there?
The Saudi royal family (or entities that represent it) put up a substantial portion of the money that Musk used to buy the platform. Why? So they could track, pursue and ultimately torture and execute dissidents and other enemies. Like journalists. Musk is apparently fine with this.
Seriously thinking about quitting; have stopped making new tweets entirely. On BlueSky and Mastodon, but don't use either to the degree I once used X - that's because neither has made it to the Share button (yet).
Bigger question: Should Apple quit advertising there? Ian Betteridge asks: "Should we be considering boycotting Apple and other companies that advertise on Twitter? Let’s frame that another way: if you found out that a company was actively funding hate speech, would you want to buy products from them?"
and answers: "I know I wouldn’t."
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/09/05/betteridge-apple-twitter