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> Elon’s political antics chased away a lot of good people. Many of my favorite follows have moved to Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky. Also, more and more people

> Elon’s political antics chased away a lot of good people. Many of my favorite follows have moved to Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky. Also, more and more people are waking up and realizing that social media is actually quite bad for you, and leaving it behind. Good for them. Bad for me. It's common to blame the move from Twitter on Elon's politics. And that's perfectly valid. I moved away for a much simpler reason. He killed Tweetdeck for anyone not willing to pay $8/month. Regular Twitter hits you with ads (very disruptively), related tweets they know you want to see, and an algorithm that tries to get you hooked on hits of toxicity. Mastodon is pretty close to what I had with Tweetdeck, but less toxic due to lack of quote tweets. Edit: Rereading this comment, I want to add that the things the author is saying make Twitter bad were to a large extent things we didn't have to deal with when we had Tweetdeck. That's not clear in the original version of my comment.

Ensorceled 3y ago
> It's common to blame the move from Twitter on Elon's politics. And that's perfectly valid. I moved away for a much simpler reason. The bulk of the people I follow (mostly authors, journalists, and geeks) have moved off or drastically reduced their activity on Twitter and it's almost entirely due to Elon's politics and the changes he's making in support of that world view.
- superfrank 3y ago
  It's funny to see the network effect work in reverse. As users start to leave the platform it becomes easier and easier for others to leave as well.
- gorwell 3y ago
  To be fair, that's because he leveled the playing field that was tilted in favor of the elite establishment consensus. They aren't supportive of a platform with free speech. ie, speech one disagrees with. Team Establishment was happy when it censored opposing viewpoints and it's no surprise, although unfortunate, they migrated to regressive platforms where that still occurs.
  - Ensorceled 3y ago
    > To be fair, that's because he leveled the playing field that was tilted in favor of the elite establishment consensus. Do you really believe this? Anyway, most of the people I follow left because of the terrible people and bots, sooooo many bots, clogging up their timeline with right wing nonsense.
    - smsm42 3y ago
      Why not believe it if it's true? Twitter was systematically working with the government to ban people they (and sometimes by weird comedy of errors, also Russian FSB) want to ban. They were also systematically banning and suppressing people expressing opinions disfavored by the elite consensus. Bots don't help of course, but the presence of bots doesn't preclude the tilted playing field.
      - Ensorceled 3y ago
        > Why not believe it if it's true? Twitter was systematically working with the government to ban people they (and sometimes by weird comedy of errors, also Russian FSB) want to ban. That’s still happening. But what does that have to do “elite consensus”?
        smsm42 3y ago
        Who is banned and who is not is determined by that consensus.
AlexandrB 3y ago
I definitely think that if the product is good enough people will put up with ideological differences with leadership. Elon made it too easy to leave Twitter in this regard by making the product worse at the same moment he was posting half baked opinions about social issues.
bee_rider 3y ago
This is sort of a tangential and random, but I enjoyed this post because of a quirk of the writing. It is really common to read, > It's common to blame the move from Twitter on Elon's politics. Followed by some justification for his being annoying. To the point where I was just preparing for the silly justification. > And that's perfectly valid. What a twist, beautiful, haha.
smsm42 3y ago
I have a strong suspicion that from the fact that managers of most major social networks were openly political and all of them to one (the left) side, many people decided this is how the normal situation is - you can only use a service if the owner shares your politics and constantly reaffirms it. When it turned out Elon's politics does not match theirs in some aspects, it was a shock to them - how can we tolerate being associated with a person who disagrees with us?! I don't think that's how functional adults are supposed to behave, but on social media I guess the norms are different.
finite_depth 3y ago
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Ensorceled 3y ago

> It's common to blame the move from Twitter on Elon's politics. And that's perfectly valid. I moved away for a much simpler reason. The bulk of the people I follow (mostly authors, journalists, and geeks) have moved off or drastically reduced their activity on Twitter and it's almost entirely due to Elon's politics and the changes he's making in support of that world view.

superfrank 3y ago
It's funny to see the network effect work in reverse. As users start to leave the platform it becomes easier and easier for others to leave as well.
gorwell 3y ago
To be fair, that's because he leveled the playing field that was tilted in favor of the elite establishment consensus. They aren't supportive of a platform with free speech. ie, speech one disagrees with. Team Establishment was happy when it censored opposing viewpoints and it's no surprise, although unfortunate, they migrated to regressive platforms where that still occurs.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  > To be fair, that's because he leveled the playing field that was tilted in favor of the elite establishment consensus. Do you really believe this? Anyway, most of the people I follow left because of the terrible people and bots, sooooo many bots, clogging up their timeline with right wing nonsense.
  - smsm42 3y ago
    Why not believe it if it's true? Twitter was systematically working with the government to ban people they (and sometimes by weird comedy of errors, also Russian FSB) want to ban. They were also systematically banning and suppressing people expressing opinions disfavored by the elite consensus. Bots don't help of course, but the presence of bots doesn't preclude the tilted playing field.
    - Ensorceled 3y ago
      > Why not believe it if it's true? Twitter was systematically working with the government to ban people they (and sometimes by weird comedy of errors, also Russian FSB) want to ban. That’s still happening. But what does that have to do “elite consensus”?
      - smsm42 3y ago
        Who is banned and who is not is determined by that consensus.

AlexandrB 3y ago

I definitely think that if the product is good enough people will put up with ideological differences with leadership. Elon made it too easy to leave Twitter in this regard by making the product worse at the same moment he was posting half baked opinions about social issues.

bee_rider 3y ago

This is sort of a tangential and random, but I enjoyed this post because of a quirk of the writing. It is really common to read, > It's common to blame the move from Twitter on Elon's politics. Followed by some justification for his being annoying. To the point where I was just preparing for the silly justification. > And that's perfectly valid. What a twist, beautiful, haha.

smsm42 3y ago

I have a strong suspicion that from the fact that managers of most major social networks were openly political and all of them to one (the left) side, many people decided this is how the normal situation is - you can only use a service if the owner shares your politics and constantly reaffirms it. When it turned out Elon's politics does not match theirs in some aspects, it was a shock to them - how can we tolerate being associated with a person who disagrees with us?! I don't think that's how functional adults are supposed to behave, but on social media I guess the norms are different.

finite_depth 3y ago

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