Twitter 🐦 Bird 💀 Flu
According to Ben Sandofsky, Twitter X's value comes from the sheer number of its users. And despite technologically interesting alternatives, those users seemed to always return to Twitter X — ably assisted by mis/dis information, conspiracy theories and A B C D-lister celebrity dramas, racism and homophobia. A network effect indeed! 😱
But that's changed now with Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads all taking considerable user share away from Twitter X. And any substantial loss of users has serious implications for the strength of a network because it fragments it into less substantial (i.e., less marketable and/or profitable) sub-networks.
The value of a network isn't the nodes (or people) but the connections between the nodes. Bob Metcalfe, an internet guy.
And that's why social networks like Facebook constantly try to connect users with other users e.g., ‘People You Might Know’. Plus, some connections are one-way traffic: single accounts followed by thousands/millions of followers making them ‘super-connectors’. So, if these connectors leave their followers can too — imagine the effect of a Taylor Swift abandoning Twitter X!?
Remember users wanting to customise their Twitter accounts?
The non-democratic C🪨al-ition promoting cunts at News Corp bought MySpace to make money instead of updating/upgrading it to compete with (then) new-kid-on-the-block Facebook (not withstanding, Facebook is dodgy and was started by a weird-looking little dude so he and other incels could masturbate 👉✊ 🫴🍆 over pics of uni chicks) which killed MySpace.
… some of these people have pretty horrendous Facebook pictures. I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive. Autistic-looking Mark 'me masturbate' Zuckerberg, being ironic.
Plus, they made it easy to switch over and they kept iterating — with video to kill Vine, Instagram Stories for WhatsApp and were agile enough to see when that wasn't enough, they 💰 bought them out. Now there's Threads …
Musk's Twitter X changes have not been ‘successful’ (obviously, discounting Trump/Vance) as the continuing rise of lies, porn, scams and hate-speech — often via ‘Premium’ accounts — have contributed to the loss of connectors.
Constraint fosters creativity and 140 character
XTwitter was an effective tool for connection and engagement.
Enter the Dragon 🐘 Mastodon 🫵
Mastodon is a non-profit decentralised (with no central control) social media. You sign up through a Mastodon ‘instance’ (provider). The down-side (or at least the perception) is that it's a bit too technical. Unsurprisingly, therefore, its members tend to be on the ‘techy’ side. Twitter should have picked up on this but because its earliest adopters where frequently the same people.
Mastodon's software is NGO funded via donations and grants using a public protocol and is run across instances their own governance and funding model — making it decentralised and federated.
Pulling 🧶 Threads 🫵
Facebook interprets Twitter as nothing more than an endless dopamine factory that only exists to waste your time. Ben Sandofsky, an internet guy.
Threads is integrated with Instagram making it easy to be a node but it's criticised for its bot-friendly algorithmic timeline and Facebook-feeding feeds. And this led to it featuring distasteful content — which they've ‘worked’ on fixing — to keep Threads as bland as marketers need or want, or not.
Fly 🦋 Bluesky Fly 🫵
Bluesky features good user experience and quirky vibe aesthetic and their Starter Packs create instant connections. They built it and celebrities did come. But, technologically, Bluesky is complicated — requiring Personal Data Servers (PDS), Relays and App Views.
Whether the crypto-VC backers of Bluesky can keep this a positive cause remains to be seen but — when will the for-profit deal kick in for Bluesky because investors always expect returns? 💰 🤑
Regardless of the services you select, anything without creepy cunts like Elon having a say in your day is a bloody good thing!
Update: 9 January, 2025 🫵
Reports say that Meta's main masturbator — Mark Zuckerberg (AKA ‘the zuck’) has canned his mob's ‘fact checking’ section in order to appease right-wing extremists DJ Trump and VD Vance so the incel, racist, ignorant and stupid (i.e., not just the C🪨al-ition) users of social media can shit-can immigrants, trans, gay and people of colour or any other minority they dislike.
He's justified it by claiming that these are ‘political’ topics of discussion (i.e., validating bigotry over decency and truth) and so they're just providing a forum for free speech cunty behaviour. And they've solidified this position by giving jobs to conservative cunts like Joel ‘cunty’ Kaplan and angry dickhead Dana White.
The zuck took time out (i.e., took his hand off his weiner to stop stroking it) to explain his posturing, something like:
- Starting in the US [because that's where the most angry, racist, greedy, gullible, ignorant and uninformed people are], we are ending our third party [see, it really wasn't us] fact-checking program and moving to a ‘Community Notes’ model [so racists and incels can self-moderate — a win-win].
- We will allow more speech 😶 by lifting restrictions on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse [so, what would for any normal, well-adjusted adult be seen as ignorant, vile and/or offensive just isn't because there are so many angry greedy stupid ignorant and uninformed racist rednecks talking about them so, like, they're valid].
- We will be focusing our enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations [which are nebulous notions which we can manipulate and do nothing without ramificiation].
- We will take a more personalised approach to ‘political’ content, so that people who want to see more of it [i.e., see more racist, uninformed ignorant conspiratorial incel crap] in their feeds, can.
We’ve reached a point where [truth and fact don't matter anymore] it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. It’s time to get back to our roots. The zuck obscenely misappropriating free expression & history.
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