Grieving Twitter and migrating to Mastodon
How I have come to terms with the demise of my favorite social media network
On top of all the personal issues causing severe anxiety over the past few weeks, the fireball that is Twitter’s new owner era has tipped me over the edge. I’ve just spent the last 24 hours studying up on Mastodon, and I understand it enough now to explain it to other people. (more later)
A moment of silence for my favorite social media network, though. Man oh man, we had good times on there. As a private account, there was so much fun to be had keeping up with the main character of the day; camping out on Twitter as the global watch party for the Big Events like Queen Elizabeth’s passing; the Don’t Worry Darling press tour, and the Jan. 6 Capitol insurgency, to name a few recent goings on. (Watch “party” is a bad term, but you get what I mean!) It’s where we go to check if Instagram is down or if there was an earthquake just now. On my second account, for BTS ARMY shenanigans, Twitter was where you’d find live translations, fan art and videos, screaming watch parties (again) for whatever is going on that day, and so much more.
Twitter was FUN. Personally, and I know this comes from the privilege of having a small locked private account, I didn’t get the toxicity that many of my peers complained about. Twitter is all about who you follow who they follow, and who you let follow you. So I kept a tight grip on my following list and checked out who they were following and interacting with, too. By following so many journalists and culture writers, my interests broadened and deepened on many topics over the years. You’ve seen glimpses of that on this newsletter. Twitter, by nature, is for writers. They are my people. That was my home. “Kunin niyo na lahat ng social media sa akin, huwag lang Twitter,” I used to joke.
So yeah, I’ve taken the changes and layoffs hard. It does not bode well for the app staying as I have enjoyed it for so many years. They fired so many teams that matter to me personally – communications, Employee Resource Groups, accessibility, human rights – and lots of staff on teams that are responsible for platform maintenance and trust and safety. Soooo… what happens when the site crashes? And the stuff we’re seeing on his personal account… it feels like The Cheeto and Du30 and The Current President (huhu) all invaded my house and refused to leave, eating my snacks, grabbing my television remote, sleeping in my bed. I hate it so much.
From following people smarter than me, I have gleaned that Mastodon is where everyone is moving. It’s so confusing and overwhelming! So this is my attempt to demystify it, after spending a day on it.
“What the hell is a server? I just wanna join and see what people are posting.”
Imagine you are moving into a gated subdivision. On Mastodon, that’s called a “server”/ “instance”. You need to pick one gated subdivision to move into when you create an account, but you can switch later. Pick one you like, but you won’t need to stay there forever, so don’t worry too much.
Each gated subdivision has its own rules (ex: no racism, no homophobia) that you must agree to if you choose to move in. The good news is that most subdivisions have an agreement with others that allow you, a resident, to pass through the gates and visit someone who lives over there.
You can add your friend (“follow”) so that when you go home, you can still see their updates (called “toots”). You can also see on another tab called “local,” posts from all your neighbors in the gated subdivision where you live. Another tab called “public” or “federated” will let you see updates from residents from other gated subdivisions too. And as mentioned, you can move subdivisions once you find one that you really like, so you can have a better local feed. Personally, I am waiting for a BTS ARMY server that has rules I agree with, like “no solos, OT7 only.” Fingers crossed!
What about if there’s a bad person in another gated subdivision who starts posting really vile, horrible, hateful shit? You can report them to their admin. That person could get kicked out from their subdivision. Or if their admin turns out to be cool with the hate, our subdivisions could put up walls so that their subdivision is blocked from ours and they can’t reach us.
Is it worth trying? My vote is yes.
Since October 27, Mastodon has gained close to half a million new users. In the places I’ve checked, it’s emerging as the Twitter alternative. The decentralized, federalized nature can be confusing for us Twitter folks who are used to a simple sign-up-and-start-posting workflow, but it functions pretty close to Twitter after that initial hurdle. Some argue it’s better than Twitter, because of the hard stance against hate.
Is it exactly like Twitter? No. It doesn’t have quote tweeting (right now) which is one of my favorite Twitter features. I get why the CEO refused to develop that functionality though — because QRTs are where the “dunking” / “ratioing” happens. It doesn’t allow for keyword search, so you have to be disciplined about using hashtags if you want to find stuff / be found by others. And it’s early days, not a lot of people I know are on it; it will take time to build my following list so that the content is as diverse/interesting as it is on Twitter. It doesn’t seem like I can be a private account? Which is kinda sad but I’ll deal with that grief separately. And confusingly, if you’re DMing with someone and talking about a third person, the tag pulls the third person into the conversation. So yknow, talk shit sparingly!
Do I feel better now, though? Hell yeah, I do. Because I know the people behind Mastodon and its many servers have values that align with mine. Twitter may go down the drain later rather than sooner, but while their boss is the boss, I don’t foresee it to be fun and safe anymore. It’s a shitshow that I can’t stop watching, but at least now I have a safer place to retreat and start rebuilding a new home.
Did this make impending doom a little less daunting? Let me know please! If you want to follow me on Mastodon, my current server is mastodon.world and my username is pinkyslinkies -- @pinkyslinkies@mastodon.world
Links that helped me understand Mastodon:
This Twitter thread from Garius: “Think of Mastodon as like a class at school. You can have friends in any class or year group. You CHOOSE to spend time with them. But you are also in a class, so tend to know a fair bit about ALL your classmates through daily exposure, your year less so, outside that by chance.”
This Twitter thread from ConserveChange: “If we want to contribute to a large-scale collective transition to a federated social network environment, we need to help people understand this shift. They're joining a community first: one networked to many many many other communities.”
Thousands Have Joined Mastodon Since Twitter Changed Hands. Its Founder Has a Vision for Democratizing Social Media — Billy Perrigo, TIME.
“I specifically disagree with his stance on free speech, because I think that it depends on your interpretation of what free speech means. If you allow the most intolerant voices to be as loud as they want to, you’re going to shut down voices of different opinions as well. So allowing free speech by just allowing all speech is not actually leading to free speech, it just leads to a cesspit of hate.
“I think that is a very uniquely American idea of creating this marketplace of ideas where you can say anything you want completely without limits. It is very foreign to the German mindset where we, in our Constitution, our number one priority is maintaining human dignity.”
On Mastodon and Nazis — Maloki, Medium.
“It isn’t immune to Nazis, but offers the tools to everyday users, and local leaders (administrators and moderators) to protect their village from them. On Twitter you can report, and block, but then you have to sit around and wait for that content to maybe get removed or maybe not. On Mastodon you get the chance to join a village, where you know that the admin has made a promise to you that Nazis, racist, or homophobes etc. aren’t welcome there. If your admin doesn’t fulfill this promise you have the power to move to a different village. With Twitter you simply can’t do that.”