Ask HN: How many are switching to Mastodon?

I'm not going to up and close my Twitter account for no reason, but I did just finally get around to opening an account on a Mastodon server. I've been meaning to start moving more to the Fediverse anyway, so this isn't a complete knee-jerk thing. But all the recent brouhaha over Elon buying Twitter did serve as sort of a nudge to finally take some action in that regard.

I do eventually intend to (at least mostly) wind down my use of all "walled garden" sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc., but I will probably do so gradually. And I may leave the accounts open and populated with a bot that periodically posts a reminder of where I can be found, or something. Not sure yet.

freedinosaur · 3 years ago

+1 to the winding down by trying to use alternatives, and working on the gaps

Facebook Messenger < Signal < XMPP. I have a few stragglers on FB Messenger, but don't have the app installed.

Facebook Marketplace < Gumtree. Gumtree at least is searchable without an account.

I subscribe to Mastodon and Twitter accounts via RSS.

Github < Sourcehut: I only use Github for contributing to other repos.

Mobile Linux > Open app stores > closed app store: WIP. :)

Every once in a while I'll think, maybe Twitter isn't really the garbage dumpster fire I think it is, and I'll go try to find some useful information via Google searches. Just tried it for something I'm interested in, i.e.

site:twitter.com financialization of the economy

Yup, still a useless pile of garbage, full of one-liners, silly memes, links to corporate media articles that aren't worth reading because you already know what PR message they'll be putting out, etc. Best thing that could happen would be for Musk to buy it and then just pull the plug, although that seems fairly unlikely.

least · 3 years ago

I think there's valid criticisms of Twitter; the medium encourages a writing style that I find pretty cringe-worthy a lot of the time. It does encourage hot takes and isn't a very good place for nuanced discussion of charged topics. It is, like all social media platforms, a contributor to polarization in all sorts of topics, some that matter more than others.

The value in Twitter depends heavily on how you curate your feed, though. If you fill it with thoughtful people that are experts in the fields you're interested, it can be quite enlightening. If you fill it with people who mostly post memes, you'll get memes. If you fill it with pundits, you'll get bite-sized takes. You get to choose that.

mindcrime · 3 years ago

rogerkirkness · 3 years ago

I created a Twitter account for the first time since 2014. Excited for the show.

kleer001 · 3 years ago

I was on in 2011 and tweeted for a while there when I had a friend network that did the same. Time changes us and people grow apart. I dropped off the tweet train hard in 2015 and got on with my life.

I'm just sad that social networks are dying under the strangling weight of advertising instead of being simplified, made robust, and turned into public utilities.

jscheel · 3 years ago

I've had a Mastodon account for a pretty long time, but I've never really done anything with it. I've found discoverability to be quite difficult.

rvieira · 3 years ago

I moved to Mastodon almost 6 years ago, but I didn't close Twitter.

It's amazing that in the professional world, some people still raise an eyebrow if you don't have a Twitter account. It's better to have a dormant one, than none at all in my experience.

After 6 years, my Mastodon account has fewer followers than my Twitter inactive one. It shows that Mastodon is smaller, less active and (if you filter out bots and spam) you start to recognise most of the active people. It's like a small town. But with the passing years, I start to see that as an advantage. It's less stressful, there's not as much FOMO.

I'm currently in the process of setting up a small instance just for close friends and leave behind the mind-numbing daily drama of planetary social media for good.

lynndotpy · 3 years ago

This is a "free speech" guy, not a free speech guy. If Twitter follows other "free speech" platforms, it will become very one-sided. I'd expect all the newly banned folks to set up elsewhere. Maybe Mastodon, maybe something more established like Tumblr.

gjsman-1000 · 3 years ago

I don’t know if that will be the case. Previous free speech platform attempts only attracted a specific crowd - but Twitter has the opposing crowd quite firmly entrenched, so it may balance out better.

Deleted Comment

NotYourLawyer · 3 years ago

Is it really gonna turn into a hellscape just because people you disagree with will no longer be silenced?

jon37 · 3 years ago

The concern is not about disagreeable ideas, it's about abuse and threats.

Not all censorship is de jure.

The motte: censoring abuse and threats.

The bailey: Twitter censoring NY Post during election time.

Disclaimer: I don't follow US politics, but do follow online censorship.

A hellscape for people with fragile ideological bubbles, thin skins, and too much time on their hands, absolutely.

galangalalgol · 3 years ago

I don't do Twitter, at all, who are we talking about?

Dead Comment

photochemsyn · 3 years ago

Nemo_bis · 3 years ago

The easiest way to have a sense of the numbers of account deactivations by day on Twitter is to see how many followers Obama loses: https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/barackobama

Most movement is happening in specific language and thematic communities, so a global average may tell little. https://mamot.fr/@nemobis/109275934357821538