The Twitter eXodus

[WillPS]

Was going to post in the High Street thread, but decided it was a bit off topic.

Has everyone moved over to Bluesky yet? I'm part way between, still checking both but really preferring what I see on the Bluesky side.

I wondered if anyone had managed to find WHS_Carpet on there yet - it seems the Twitter profile is gone but I can't find a Bluesky equivalent.

[all new Phil]

I just can’t get into Bluesky. Twitter can be such fun when there’s something takes over the discussion (ie Gary Barlow’s massive son) but I’m not really getting that at the other place. Bluesky’s too serious and worthy.

[WillPS]

That's fair. I normally nip on to pictures of crap retail, which never gains quite the traction.

I have found increasingly that I'm being fed right wing nastiness by X tho - if not in my feed then in comments to stuff.

[bilky asko]

I've found that enough people have moved over that I can actually scroll down through the "Following" feed and have something new to look at every time I do.

I suppose a lot of it depends on what your discussing - a lot of TV presentation people have moved over, but certain topics only seem to get any traction on Twitter. I'm treating it now as a read-only feed for the occasions where it's the only place something is being discussed.

[james2001]

I left Twitter literally as soon as Elon took over, it was clear even then what sort of person he was and he was doing to the site, a shame it's taken so long for other people to finally catch up, but at least it's finally happening. I got a Bluesky invite quite early on, so have been there for a while, but haven't been too active on it until recently when others finally started making the move.

Been quite amusing to see the trolls on Twitter get bored because the people so many of they'd usually harrass have left the site and they have nobody to "own"... then finding themselves swiftly moderated or banned on Bluesky when they tried behaving the same way on there as Elon lets them on Twitter- refreshing to finally remember what a properly moderated social media platform feels like! Not to mention no paid blue ticks getting their bile pushed to the top.

[cdd]

I still find X useful for certian niche interests, but it has become a version of #DontReadTheComments because if you do they'll just be a combination of hate speech, people with blue ticks outputting AI slop, and porn. (Sometimes all at the same time!). Of the three, I find the LLM slop to be the most destructive to the platform. It takes effort to identify it as worthless and is thus the literal definition of a waste of time.

That said, I think the real trick is to leave X and not join a replacement. Even at their best, endless-scrolling platforms are just terrible. Endless-scrolling portrait video platforms are even worse, but at least I don't use those features - which is ironic since YouTube Premium is my most valued subscription by far.

[barcode]

The whole point of Twitter was to make it easier to highlight information and cat pics.

Ie your bus/train journey has been axed, or the local school is closed today because of wasps or Where is the lidi or coke a cola xmas truck this week is.

The trouble is its all to political, and Elon made it worse when he kept on changing people feed to " for you" instead of following. Mind you I see on Bluesky they do the exact same. There now claims X help win the election for trump, that a very dangerous idea to float, that either means that how Biden won in 2020 and also public are just sheep.. I don't believe either.

Bluesky’s too serious and worthy.

I have to agree, and this mass blocking and reporting is rather not great either, I can see coming to a head if JK rowling ever popped her head over there. No one is any better than anyone else on either platform and people just need to keep your political views to your self and have fun instead.

[thegeek]

That said, I think the real trick is to leave X and not join a replacement. Even at their best, endless-scrolling platforms are just terrible. Endless-scrolling portrait video platforms are even worse, but at least I don't use those features - which is ironic since YouTube Premium is my most valued subscription by far.

I never really posted much on Twitter - but it was always useful to read. I've more or less given up on it now though, largely because of its owners.

I'm still persisting with Facebook, though there's so little organic content from people I know that I'm not sure it's even worthwhile either.

I do miss the early days of social media where it was genuinely useful for keeping in touch with friends and seeing what they were up to - I'm not sure if it's the stage of life I'm in or the way people are using the internet now - WhatsApp groups are probably the nearest equivalent to that for me at the moment.

Ie your bus/train journey has been axed, or the local school is closed today because of wasps or Where is the lidi or coke a cola xmas truck this week is.

new favourite barcode post just dropped

[Charlie Wells]

a shame it's taken so long for other people to finally catch up, but at least it's finally happening.

I think it's a case that until now there hasn't really been a breakthrough alternative to Twitter/X.

Threads was buggy at launch, which I suspect put some people off, in addition to it being yet another product from Meta. Mastodon doesn't seem to have gone mainstream either.

Bluesky by contrast has an instant familiarity to how Twitter used to be. The ability to link a username to your website also seems to be a draw for some, as it instantly gives them authenticity.

I believe there's currently over 21 million users on Bluesky. It'll be interesting to see over the coming months if more high profile users and businesses start using it.

[Philip]

If I could surgically remove the “For You” feed from X then my experience would be a lot better. It defaults to that every time I open it and I just end up scrolling through a load of junk before I realise.

It’s been a slow decline but I have become ever increasingly uncomfortable remaining on there.

Bluesky was still pretty quiet until very recently, but I’m going to try and spend all my time there now and have deleted the X app. We’ll see how it goes.

[bilky asko]

Bluesky’s too serious and worthy.

I have to agree, and this mass blocking and reporting is rather not great either, I can see coming to a head if JK rowling ever popped her head over there. No one is any better than anyone else on either platform and people just need to keep your political views to your self and have fun instead.

The majority of JK Rowling's tweets are about her transphobic views. Too right people would want to block that sort of shite.