Sat, 03 Dec 2022

Twexit: a farewell to the Fowl Place

I’ve given up on Twitter.

I joined up in November 2006 — hence the three-letter user ID. This is not a decision I’ve made lightly. Any time you’ve invested 16 years in a platform, moving on has a real cost.

I’ve left my account active, but private — no more posting, though, unless management arrives that values the wellbeing of users and employees.

I’m happy to say I’ve found a (much more than adequate) replacement. I’ve joined the Fediverse, landing at a2mi.social. There’s something that feels very right about setting up shop at a locally administered server — I have strong ties to the Ann Arbor area, having graduated from the University of Michigan back in the early 1990s. The place feels small and homey, with a friendly community of a couple hundred people mostly from the Ann Arbor/Ypsi/Metro Detroit area.

I like that no one “owns” the platform. The best you could say about Twitter’s prior owners is that they maintained the platform with moderately benign neglect. About the active malignancy of the new owner, the less said the better.

Simply put, I feel much better putting my posting energy into Mastodon, rather than doomscrolling on Twitter.

:: 11:50
:: /tech/computers/internet/social | [+]
::Comments (1)


posted by John Abbe at Mon Dec 5 23:36:58 2022

https://mastodon.social/@slowenough


Congrats! I remember we met in the early blogosphere ~20 years ago, and of course followed each other on Twitter not long I think after I set up my account myself in 2008. (I knew it was a bad idea, and I eventually did it anyway. What was a dedicated netizen to do?)

I really can't thank Musk enough for turning up the heat so quickly that a critical mass of frogs noticed and started emigrating. Not quite ready to go private myself yet, but I can see the writing on the wall.

Not going to keep mastodon.social as my main Mastodon account. Maybe Project Mushroom (just got my account a couple days ago, their plan is to start slowly federating at some point soonish), but maybe I'll center on social.coop, or kolektiva.social, or a locally-focused like yours if a good one in Eugene emerges.

We're lucky - we're getting a second shot at a more commons-based Internet and web. Let's pull it off this time! https://eqpa.wordpress.com/2022/11/27/peak-twitter-is-behind-us/

p.s. Noticed you're on pinboard.in as well! Subscribed.


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