Twitter Alternatives: Mastodon, Post.news, Threads, Bluesky, and others

115 Comments / Politics

Spoiler: People are evaluating the various Twitter alternatives as separate entities, but if Post.news and Meta’s Threads, follow through with their promise to federate, the way to think of the platforms will be “walled gardens” v. platforms that are connected to the fediverse.

If you know what these words mean and how they relate to social media, you’re in the advanced group and you can skip to the new section on Meta’s Threads:

decentralization
the fediverse
the network effect
walled gardens
Activity Pub
protocol
algorithms
content moderation

Note: I’ve observed that some social media users and Twitter Migrants tend to be territorial: defending their choices while deriding others. Keep in mind that different users have different needs.

I will begin with a way to think about social media and democracy. I will then compare and contrast the social media platforms.

Part I, Algorithms, Internet Triggers, Authoritarianism, and More

A definition:

An algorithm is a technical means of sorting posts based on relevancy instead of publish time, in order to prioritize which content a user sees first according to the likelihood that they will actually engage with such content.

Algorithms help good jokes, cute pet videos, and clever quips go viral, which provides a lot of fun. They can also do a lot of harm. The Pew Research Center says this:

Nearly all the content people see on social media is chosen not by human editors but rather by computer programs using massive quantities of data about each user to deliver content that he or she might find relevant or engaging. This has led to widespread concerns that these sites are promoting content that is attention-grabbing but ultimately harmful to users – such as misinformation, sensationalism, or “hate clicks.”

The Facebook whistleblower Francis Haugen explained that Facebook algorithms incentivize “angry, polarizing, divisive content.” In her testimony before Congress she said:

Facebook repeatedly encountered conflicts between its own profits and our safety. Facebook consistently resolved those conflicts in favor of its own profits. The result has been a system that amplifies division, extremism, and polarization — and undermines societies around the world. In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people. In other cases, their profit-optimizing machine is generating self-harm and self-hate — especially for vulnerable groups, like teenage girls. These problems have been confirmed repeatedly by Facebook’s own internal research.

In a 60 Minutes interview, Haugen explained that content that gets engaged with – such as reactions, comments, and shares – gets wider distribution. Facebook’s own research found that “angry content” is more likely to receive engagement. She said that content producers and political parties are aware of this.

From Stephen Wolfram:

Billions of people are being fed content that is basically selected for them by AIs, and there are mounting concerns about this, as reported almost every day in the media.

Are the AIs cleverly hacking us humans to get us to behave in a certain way? What kind of biases do the AIs have, relative to what the world is like, or what we think the world should be like? What are the AIs optimizing for, anyway? And when are there actually “humans behind the curtain”, controlling in detail what the AIs are doing?

The problem, of course, is that:

Most successful businesses on the internet—including Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter—make their revenue not from their users, but instead from advertisers who are going through them to reach their users.

Metrics:

Content providers on platforms like Twitter can see, in real-time, what content drives engagement. They can see which of their posts get more “likes” than others, and which result in an increase in followers. Most people want to be popular. Twitter even offers users an “analytics” page where they can see which of their Tweets earned the most engagement. People who want to be popular on social media can learn to manipulate the algorithms to boost themselves.

Getting the Fighters Fighting (and keeping them fighting)

The Platformer learned that Twitter, under Musk, maintains a list of around 35 VIP users whose accounts it monitors and offers increased visibility alongside Elon Musk. The list includes:

@Catturds and Ben Shapiro enrage the left. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez enrages the right. Among other things, this list will get fighters fighting and keep them fighting, which of course, stimulates engagement and helps bring in advertising revenue.

Both sides think they win a dunking contest: The dunker (usually a liberal) shows how clever he or she is, and the dunkee (usually a Conservative) gets to be the star of a show entitled “Watch Me Trigger the Libs.”

Internet Triggers

Social media + algorithms amplify what Timothy Snyder, in this video, calls “Internet Triggers,” which he defines as something a person sees on the Internet, often because an algorithm directed the content to the person. The person then feels triggered and repeats it to someone else, who also feels triggered and in turn repeats the phrase. Soon you have an Internet Trigger gone viral.

Snyder explains that these triggers are dangerous for democracy because they prevent us from thinking complex thoughts. People see these Triggers on the Internet because they are directed at them. The people are then transformed into repeaters of targeted memes. Snyder finds this terrifying because democracy depends on us having “some sense of time beyond our immediate outrage.”

Think about that phrase: A sense of time beyond our immediate outrage.

Snyder also talks about how, in Orwell’s 1984, the fictionalized totalitarian government worked on reducing the number of words in the language. Having each of us become repeaters of Internet Triggers accomplishes the same thing by reducing our ability to have complex thoughts.

Is Social Media Turning Us Into Authoritarians?

“Confirmation bias” creates a “pleasurable sensation” and can lead to misperceptions by encouraging people to reject any information that doesn’t affirm ideas they already hold.

I was recently interviewed by a person who called herself a progressive. She was shocked that I didn’t agree with everything she said (she repeated to me many of the statements listed here). When I pushed back and tried to explain what was wrong with her statements, many of which were Internet Triggers, she became visibly upset and later in private said unkind things to me. This woman considers herself well-informed and hosts a podcast. My sense was that she lives in a social media bubble where (1) she is constantly triggered and (2) her triggers are continuously confirmed by those around her. Her expectation was that I, too, would confirm her beliefs. When I didn’t, she could only react with anger.

Confirmation bias + algorithms encourage extremism by encouraging people to hold narrow views and reject nuance.

Political psychologists define the authoritarian personality as one that rejects nuance and complexity (including diversity) and tends to engage in all-or-nothing thinking. Those with an authoritarian personality prefer sameness and uniformity and have “cognitive limitations.” Karen Stenner calls them “simple-minded avoiders of complexity.” For more, see this article.

Internet Triggers turn people into “simple-minded avoiders of complexity.” See the problem?

Personal Note: I essentially wore blinders on Twitter. I followed relatively few people. From the list of people I followed, I created smaller lists. I constantly edited my lists, which I kept private so nobody ever knew if they were being added or removed from one of my lists. I learned about new people when someone I trusted retweeted that person, and even then, I looked carefully before adding the person to one of my lists.

If I did click on the “trending” button, I braced myself.

Before I understood what an algorithm was, I inoculated myself from them.

I freely muted people. (I muted instead of blocked because blocked people know they are blocked and often make a scene. I tried to avoid Twitter scenes.)

Data Collection and The Facebook Cambridge Analytica Scandal

Algorithms and targeted advertisements are made possible because platforms collect data about their users. This raises the possibility of security breaches or platforms selling the data for nefarious purposes. For example, the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal in which Facebook was accused of improperly sharing users’ information with Cambridge Analytica. Facebook settled for $725 million while insisting that its users “consented” to have their personal information shared in this manner. (“Consent” in this context usually means that users click on the standard ‘terms of service,’ which they must do if they want to use the site, and which few people actually understand.)

Twitter and Facebook have done a lot of good:

They allowed communities to form.
They allowed crucial information to be disseminated.
Facebook was a place where people could keep up with friends and family.
They were places where people could chat with friends, exchange recipes, talk about the difficulties of their jobs, and exchange cute pet pictures.
Twitter became a place where journalists could build a following, which often brought them jobs and even provided some job security. It was also where journalists got their news and kept track of what their colleagues were doing in real time.
Twitter allowed marginalized voices to be heard.
Twitter offered elected officials a platform for spreading their messages.
Standard press releases or even emergency announcements could be rapidly disseminated and widely read. Twitter’s ability to rapidly disseminate information even saved lives.

Both, however, became hubs of disinformation.

The Network Effect

When Musk bought Twitter, it had more than 350 million users, with 76.9 million in the U.S. Over the years, Senators, governors, agencies, celebrities, experts in various fields, and journalists who write for major publications found their way to Twitter. I often found my Tweets quoted in major publications.

Twitter has thus achieved a network effect.

The network effect occurs when a product increases in value as more people come to use it. The telephone is an example. If only 1,000 people own a phone, your phone has limited use. But if everyone has a phone, a phone becomes essential. Another example is the Internet. Initially, the Internet had limited use, but as more people came to use the Internet and features were added, Internet access now feels essential.

Because of Twitter’s verification system prior to Musk, Twitter also became the place for breaking news and emergency announcements. Among other things, blue verification checks were awarded to journalists and official government entities. That way, you knew if what you were reading really did appear in the New York Times and if there really was an emergency in your area.

Musk removed the verification system. To be verified now on Twitter, you simply need to prove you are a real person and pay $8. The site, therefore, is likely to lose its importance as a place for breaking news or emergencies.

Facebook remained a place to talk to family and friends. Facebook far surpassed Twitter in numbers of users: Facebook has 2.95 billion global monthly active users. The U.S. has 243.58 million monthly active users. In 2021, there were 1.21 billion monthly active users of Meta’s Instagram has over 2.35 billion monthly active Instagram users.

PART II: Twitter Alternatives

Mastodon

I will begin with Mastodon because it allows me to introduce these concepts:

- Decentralization
- Fediverse
- Activity Pub
- Protocols

Mastodon was created in the hopes of solving the problems caused by:

Owners using and selling personal information
Targeted advertisements
Algorithms that incentivize rage-generating and polarizing content

Mastodon launched in 2016 when German software developer Eugen Rochko (working for a nonprofit) didn’t like Twitter so he wrote the Mastodon code and made it public. Anyone can use it. Nobody “owns” it.

Mastodon does not collect user data, so there are no targeted advertisements and no concerns about data breaches. And the default does not contain an algorithm telling people what they should see or suggesting content.

Metrics are de-emphasized: “Liking” a post does nothing to help boost it. It’s also hard to tell when looking at a post, how many “likes” it has, and because Mastodon is decentralized, the number is misleadingly small. The idea is that content should matter, not metrics.

There is limited search ability because this was too often used on Twitter to find people to harass (although there is talk of this changing).

Mastodon is decentralized: Anyone can download the Mastodon software, set up a server, and enter the conversation. Individuals, organizations, and institutions can operate their own servers.

For about $10 per month, you can use a dedicated Mastodon hosting provider and have your own server. You can see the costs here. For about $40 per month, you can host 500 Mastodon users. Or you can do it the hard way and have complete control by following these instructions. which takes some technical expertise. Warning: It’s harder than it looks and needs to be done by someone with technical experience.

The “fediverse” is thousands of Mastodon servers and other sites that communicate with each other through a protocol called Activity Pub.

(Being a non-techie I had to stop here to try to understand what a protocol is. A techie friend helped me, and here is what I gather: Protocol is bunch of code (looks like gibberish to non-techies) it’s set of rules that allow people and/ or code to work together with understanding. Diplomatic protocols enable officials from different countries to know what to do around each other. Table protocols prescribe which fork to use. Software protocols allow software code in one place to communicate with code somewhere else. Analogy: In the early days of email, you could only send email messages to people on your own network. Now email uses a protocol that lets Gmail users send emails to, say, AOL.com users.

If the server is on this list, anyone can join. Because there are no advertisements, servers open to the public are usually funded through donations.

Content Moderation is always a headache. As Mike Masnick said in 2019 when describing moderation on major social media sites like Facebook and Twitter;

“. . . almost no one is happy. Some feel that these platforms have become cesspools of trolling, bigotry, and hatred. Meanwhile, others feel that these platforms have become too aggressive in policing language and are systematically silencing or censoring certain viewpoints.”

Mastodon leaves content moderation up to each individual server. If you don’t like how your server is moderated, you can move to another and transfer all of your followers with you. There are Mastodon servers where Nazis and spewers of ugly stuff are welcome. Gab, for example, is home to avowed Nazis. Every server on this list, has Gab blocked.

In addition, users on Mastodon, as elsewhere, have tools to help with moderation. They can block entire servers or individuals. They can also mute individuals. They can report offensive posts to the administrator of their server.

Growing numbers of platforms have been joining the fediverse:

Medium recently announced that it is now operating a Mastodon server for the writers who publish on Medium . This offers Medium writers a way for their work to have wider exposure.

MIT set up a Mastodon server for the MIT community. A Stanford University professor recently asked Standford to set one up for the Stanford community.

The latest: Mozilla is now operating a Mastodon server.

A WordPress will soon support ActivityPub ,allowing WordPress websites to join the fediverse (it is still in beta). WordPress powers a whopping 43% of the Internet. If each wordpress site can connect to the fediverse, the implications are huge.

One developer is talking about an app that will allow cell phones to operate like a Mastodon server. In other words, if you have a cell phone, you can create your own server/account and connect.

Those who believe Mastodon is the future argue that the fediverse has the same potential for growth as the Internet itself. The analogy (flawed but useful) is to email: Originally, email servers could only communicate with each other. If you had an AOL account, you could only communicate with others who had AOL accounts. Then the barriers came down so that anyone with an email account could email people who used other providers.

No Algorithms Can Feel Weird/ Some people may miss them. I say good riddance. You have to work a little harder to find content that interests you, but it seems to me it’s worth the effort.

People complain that Mastodon isn’t intuitive and takes some getting used to. Learning a new platform takes always time. I understand that people are busy and may not be able to. At the same time, I suspect that figuring out how to select a Mastodon server no harder than deciding which candidate to vote for in a local primary.

II. Post News

A few months ago, Noel Baron, co-founder and CTO of Post News said this:

Before I get to what Post News may look like after supporting Activity Pub, a bit about Post News:

Post News was founded by former Waze CEO Noam Bardin and is funded by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and investor Scott Galloway.

Post News says it takes moderation seriously and they don’t put up with trolls and they banish Nazis and other extremists. The site tilts to the left.

Here are my reservations:

Post is limited to news and current events and platforms like Twitter are much broader so network effect is unlikely.
It is a blogging rather than a microblogging platform and conversation doesn’t work as easily.
Post plans to use reputational algorithms.

Reputational Algorithms.

Noam Bardin, founder and CEO of Post News explained how back-end reputational algorithms will control behavior on the platform:

“From a vision perspective, what we want is a situation where, if you are a verified user…and there’s no verification not being under your real name…you’re going to get into our recommendation engine, and we’re going to try to distribute your content. If your score, your reputation score goes down because people are complaining about it, we’re going to take you out of the reputation {sic} and suddenly your content will only go to your explicit followers, and, if you continue to misbehave, then your followers will not be able to re-share that content on the network, until the point where we throw you off. (For the source for this, see this post.)”

News reporting obviously should not be a popularity contest. Not everything true is popular, and sometimes the truth can make people angry.

And now, the question of the hour . . . (cue suspense music, da dum, da dum, da dum. . . )

What Will Post News Look Like After Supporting Activity Pub?

The question is: Will Post News essentially join the Fediverse? Or will it remain a “walled garden”?

“Walled Garden”: The term for a platform cut off from the rest of the Internet.

The answer is: Nobody really knows.

- - Will this mean that accounts on Post will be able to follow accounts on Mastodon?
  - Will Twitter Migrators not need both a Mastodon account and a Post News account?

Post News could become the place Mastodon users go for their news, while Mastodon may be the place Post News users go to hang out and talk.

It’s also possible that nothing will come of this announcement, and Post News will remain a walled garden with a narrower focus than Twitter.

III. Threads

Meta’s Threads took the social media world by storm on Wednesday, just a few days after one of Twitter’s major technical meltdowns.

Unlike other Twitter alternatives, many of which were basically siphoning users from Twitter, Threads (part of Zuckerberg’s Meta) allowed Instagram users to download an app, press a few buttons, and join Threads, bringing a ready-made community of their friends and contacts.

Prior to Wednesday, the record for the most downloads of a single app was OpenAI, ChatGPT which acquired 1 million users just 5 days after launching.

Threads had 2 million signups in two hours. Two days later, Threads was up to 70 million.

The negatives are obvious: A lot of people don’t trust Mark Zuckerberg, and they don’t like all the ads on Facebook, and they don’t want Zuck to have access to their personal information.

Now here’s the important part: Threads will Federate.

This means that from any server in the fediverse, you can follow any Threads account. A person with a Thread account can follow any account on the fediverse.

Beware: From Mastodon, you can only connect with Threads if your server allow it. There are some servers that want to cut themselves off from Threads.

Threads’ verification is limited to widely known celebrities and brand names. Threads is also actively courting celebrities. Within a day, the following celebrities were on Threads:

Oprah Winfrey
Steph Curry
Jake Paul
Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe Kardashian
Kylie Jenner
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Gavin Newsom
Tom Brady
Dalia Lama
Jennifer Lopez
Shakira
Gordon Ramsay
Michael Strahan
Ellen DeGeneres

Unlike on Twitter, where verification means nothing, fans on Threads will know that they are following and talking to the real Jennifer Lopez.

Wait, you ask. What about news organizations?

Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram had the following conversation with Alex Heath.

Heath:

Will be interesting to see how the news industry does/doesn’t embrace Threads.

Meta as a company has spent the past few years actively distancing itself from news and literally downranking it in FB and IG. Killed the news tab, etc. Now threatening to pull all news in countries proposing laws that would require payments to publishers to host their links.

But if this app is going to be a real Twitter competitor, it’s going to need the news industry to embrace it. Is Meta ready for that?

Mosseri:

The goal isn’t to replace Twitter. The goal is to create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry place for conversations, but not all of Twitter.

Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads – they have on Instagram as well to some extent – but we’re not going to do anything to encourage those verticals.

How do we reconcile this with Mark Zuckerberg’s obvious desire to kill Twitter?

The answer is federation, which will work like this: If you are on Threads and you want to follow breaking news, you follow any of the journalists or outlets on Mastodon or Post (after it federates.)

Threads becomes a one-stop-shop and Threads doesn’t have to do the really hard part of moderating: verifying news sources, worrying about lies and polarization.

Threads can be a fun place to wave to Oprah Winfrey. The difficult political conversations can happen elsewhere.

This is how Threads can (1) kill Twitter and (2) avoid the hard moderation decisions.

People on Mastodon were worried about Meta federating. They had questions like,

We will have to see all those horrible ads?
What about all the Nazis that roam Facebook? Will they overrun us?
Will Zuckerberg be able to farm our personal information?

The answers are no, no, and no. Eugen Rochko, Mastodon CEO and developer, wrote this in response to the worried questions.

People who find Mastodon too difficult can join Threads. It will be easy peasy (instead of requiring some decision-making.)

Zuck will make it easy for you. In exchange, you have to look at his ads. Nothing is free, after all. If you want to avoid ads, you can create an account on any other federated instance or server, or platform and wave to Oprah Winfrey from there.

If you have a Mastodon account, your friends on Threads can follow you and chat with you there.

“But why isn’t it federated yet?”

Quite obviously, Threads wasn’t ready yet for release, but Zuck wanted to seize the moment when Twitter was in meltdown. Federation (which apparently will happen) is supposed to be “soon.”

IV. Bluesky

In 2019, Jack Dorsey announced that Twitter was funding something called Bluesky, which sounded a lot like Mastodon:

Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open-source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard.

He then explained why:

First, we’re facing entirely new challenges centralized solutions are struggling to meet. For instance, centralized enforcement of global policy to address abuse and misleading information is unlikely to scale over the long term without placing far too much burden on people.

In other words, moderation over a global platform is just too difficult. Also:

the value of social media is shifting away from content hosting and removal, and towards recommendation algorithms directing one’s attention. Unfortunately, these algorithms are typically proprietary, and one can’t choose or build alternatives. Yet.

He also recognized the problem of rage-inducing content:

Existing social media incentives frequently lead to attention being focused on content and conversation that sparks controversy and outrage, rather than conversation which informs and promotes health.

Dorsey added another reason for Twitter to decentralize:

Finally, new technologies have emerged to make a decentralized approach more viable.

Dorsey next cited Mike Masnick’s “Protocols, not Platforms” thus implying that the solution was for Twitter to decentralize to let individual communities make their own rules and decide for themselves how content would be optimized.

The plan for Twitter seemed to have been to decentralize where each separate entity would create its own rules for moderation, thereby freeing Twitter itself from that headache. Twitter would be both decentralized and a walled garden. The goal would be to shift the burden of moderation outward.

In 2019, Dorsey also warned that it would take many years for this to develop. When Musk purchased Twitter, Bluesky continued on as a would-be Twitter competitor. (The CEO is Jay Graber. Dorsey, one of two co-founders, is on the board.)

Bluesky is now being rolled out and is in the beta phase. We now know from reporting that:

Bluesky plans to be federated, meaning that endless individually operated communities can exist within the open-source network. Bluesky is calling its software AT Protocol. Evidently, once things launch, any developers outside of Bluesky who build their own social app using the AT Protocol, can interact with users on Bluesky, and Bluesky users can jump over to the new app and port over their existing followers, handle, and data.

Notice: Bluesky will not use Activity Pub, the protocol used by the fediverse. Instead, Bluesky is building its own called AT Protocol. Here is the license.

In 2019, when announcing the plan as part of Twitter, Dorsey did use the phrase “open source” to describe AT Protocol.

Does that mean that Bluesky will interact with Mastodon, Threads, Post.news and others, which of course, would reduce the competition between sites and the tendency of users to become territorial?

Cue the song: 🎶Oh the cowman and the farmer should be friends🎶

While some developers are already working on “bridges” between Bluesky and other platforms, it is unclear how much interconnectivity there will be.

At this point, I think we can assume that the plan is for Bluesky to look like Dorsey’s plan for Twitter in 2019: a walled decentralized platform in which communities do their own content moderation (thereby relieving Bluesky of that burden) and decide how they want their content optimized.

In such a Bluesky, therefore, Trump would not be “banned” — he would be free to find a home in an entity that will have him, and bring his followers and his following list with him. He could similarly move around Mastodon. This comment on the differences is from software developer Dan Morris:

My guess is that Bluesky will have a layer that will aggregate totals (likes, views, etc…) from all entities, so it wouldn’t be like Mastodon, where an entire server like Gab would just not exist anymore. You’d still see it. People would still want access to it if they can see it. And the ugliness would still be there.

If Bluesky and Mastodon become competitors, you can expect nastiness between users of each platform because the users of each platform will hope that their choice will achieve network effect and become the Next Big Thing.

(So the cowman and the farmer won’t be friends.)

Pro Tip: You will not help your chosen platform achieve a network effect by trying to shame people for their choices or begging your favorite celebrities to join the platform of your choice. The network effect, if it happens, will happen organically.

Bluesky Today:

It is by invitation only, so it feels like an insider club.

It is also easy to join Bluesky because all users enter the same entity, bsky.social (which sounds a lot like mstdn.social, right?) Blue Sky also looks and acts like Twitter, so Twitter Refugees have no trouble getting started.

Suggestion: Perhaps this isn’t actually “beta testing,” it’s letting in the big fish in the hopes that if the big fish get addicted, then everyone else will follow thereby achieving a network effect and making Jack Dorsey and his co-board members even richer.

Bluesky Tomorrow:

Bluesky plans something called “composable moderation.” This is from Wired:

A key goal of Bluesky Social is that it be decentralized—people linked across independently owned servers that use the AT Protocol protocol, with the Bluesky UI/UX overlaying it all. Crucially, users and servers will be able to label posts or specific users—e.g., with a tag like “racist”—and anyone can subscribe to that list of labels, blocking posts on that basis. Bluesky calls this “composable moderation.”

Color me skeptical, but it’s hard for me to see this working. What if someone labels something ‘racist’ but it isn’t?

Lots of questions about Bluesky remain:

How will these individual entities come about? Will people create their own when they become dissatisfied with bsky.social? Will foreign governments maintain their own to bring moderation in line with local laws and customs? Will Bluesky help create them?
If the federated entities are privately owned, how will they raise the funds necessary to maintain a presence on the Internet?
Will the moderators still be employed by Bluesky? If not, how will they be paid?
How will ad revenue be divided?

IV. Counter Social (A walled garden)

Counter Social, like Truth Social, uses the Mastodon software but has elected not to be part of the fediverse. In other words, Counter Social is a Mastodon server (with tweaks) disconnected so that you can only communicate with others who have joined Counter Social.

In other words, it has become a walled garden.

Counter Social promises “unique protections: No trolls. No Abuse. No Ads. No Fake News. No Foreign Influence Ops.”

Basically, Counter Social offers a “safe” place.

The best way to give my opinion of Counter Social is to recount my personal experience:

In early November after Musk purchased Twitter while we were all exploring options, a number of people urged me to try Counter Social, so I opened a Counter Social account. Once weekly, I posted a link to my blog and occasionally I reposted something I’d done elsewhere. I had no strong feelings about Counter Social.

Then one day I had an unfortunate encounter with Jester, the anonymous owner of Counter Social. What happened was this: One of my followers, asked, “What about Counter Social?” Emma, who has since left Twitter altogether, said, “I don’t trust the owner of Counter Social.”

She did not tag Counter Social or Jester, but he found her tweet. Either he was searching for mentions of Counter Social or someone alerted him.

Emma, by the way, is here in the comment section. You can find her with the “search” function.

He directed two Tweets toward Emma. In the first Tweet, he demanded evidence for her assertion. In the second, he went on the attack. He used the phrase, “if you are so stupid.” Three or four of Jester’s followers piled on and said unkind things to Emma.

This was all on my feed, so I stepped in and said, “Is this how you all behave on Counter Social?” and I asked them to stop the pile on. Then, Jester’s supporters turned on me. One Jester supporter told me that I deserved what I got because I “attacked” Jester. Another said, “four people is not a pile on,” and another said, “That was the gentlest pile-on I’ve ever seen.” To counter that, I showed a screenshot that one of them used the “f” word in attacking Emma. Two of them then mocked for being sensitive about the “f” word. One said, “So you never go to r-rated movies?”

As this was going on, I tried to log on to Counter Social to delete my account. I intended to scrub it of my personal information but I found I was locked out. I asked people to check, and they told me my account had been deleted.

Evidently Jester deleted my account and locked me out. He then deleted his tweets to Emma. On his feed, tweeted the lyrics to “Shake it off.” (His response to the incident.) He also blocked me.

I emailed Counter Social’s help account and asked for my account to be reinstated long enough for me to scrub it so that my picture and other information were no longer there. The person lied and told me that I had deleted it myself. (I hadn’t.) The person responding to me said he wasn’t Jester, but the snide tone was the same.

I had a similar experience about 10 years ago. I created an account on a forum for writers. It was loads of fun. I met other writers. We exchanged ideas and talked about writing, literary agents, publishing (traditional v. self-publishing), and everything else of interest to writers. Then the platform was purchased by someone who was combative and argued with people who disagreed with her.

Initially, she agreed with my views and all was good. But then I formed an opinion about literary agents that she thought was wrongheaded. I stated my opinions anyway. She didn’t want me to spread my views on her site. It was her platform so she had the power to control the content. I deleted my account.

Even people on the same side of the political spectrum—and even members of the same political party—can have furious disagreements. Just look back at some of the more contentious primaries. Just because you and the owner both dislike right-wing extremists doesn’t mean the day won’t come when one thinks the other is spreading misinformation.

In other words, banning Nazis does not assure harmony.

V. Spoutible (Another walled garden)

The two stories I included in the last section illustrate why I am unwilling to invest too much time in a centrally-owned site where the owners can decide they don’t approve of my content or they just don’t like me. It’s happened twice now. It could happen again.

I started drafting a section on Spoutible with examples of things I have observed which have raised red flags for me, but it comes down to this: I am reluctant to invest my time in another centrally-owned platform, even if that person is someone I like and think I can get along with.

Adding: Spoutible, like every other platform except Mastodon uses algorithms to generate engagement.

VI. Other Walled Gardens

Walled gardens can serve a purpose for a particular kind of social media user. It is a good place to chat with friends or talk to like-minded people. You must be willing to accept the decisions of the person in charge and prepared to leave at any time if you and the person in charge find that you do not get along.

I can see this working well where people on the platform share a common goal or interest.

VII. Substack

Substack is a blogging platform, as opposed to a microblogging platform. It’s a place for long-form writing. Basically it does what a WordPress site does with two exceptions:

WordPress sites cost money to build and maintain. With Substack, all you have to do is open an account and start blogging.
Substack allows people to monetize.

Substack has recently opened a new feature called Notes, which acts like a social media platform, allowing users to talk about the substacks they’ve read and to share links. Notes is a way for readers to amplify content they deem worthy. Whereas Medium did this by means of a Mastodon server, Substack choose instead to remain a walled garden.

A number of my favorite Twitter experts have chosen to migrate to Substack, which means I have a lot of Substack subscriptions.

The disadvantage is obvious: Twitter users are accustomed to scrolling through their feeds and getting quick takes from dozens of experts. Paying $5 a month for each one can quickly become prohibitive.

Conclusion: Future Possibilities

It’s possible that for the foreseeable future, no single microblogging platform will achieve a network effect. Many Twitter refugees will then maintain accounts in various places and watch to see what develops.

However, given the kinds of numbers that Threads is showing, and the sheer brilliance of making it a fun place to interact with celebrities while shuffling the hard political content and moderation elsewhere, the choice is more likely to be binary:

Join one of the platforms connected to the fediverse and connect widely, or
Select a walled garden, a safe place to huddle with your friends and people you feel comfortable with.

Facebook

Twitter

115 thoughts on “Twitter Alternatives: Mastodon, Post.news, Threads, Bluesky, and others”

MrsE
December 31, 2022 at 4:08 pm

If you can put aside your prejudices and biases, you might find a wonderful community in counter.social.
Teri Kanefield
December 31, 2022 at 5:53 pm

Did you read about my experience with Jester? Or did you write that comment before reading the post?

(This is actually the kind of behavior exhibited by fans of Counter Social. It’s very strange. How would anyone expect a “wonderful community” with someone who comes along and tells me I am prejudiced and biased after I described my personal experience?)

I had one Counter Social fan on Twitter accuse me of “attacking” Counter Social by virtue of the fact that I kept talking about Post.news and Mastodon, but never mentioned Counter Social.

It’s like they cruise around looking for anyone who is not a true believer.
Riktol
January 1, 2023 at 6:06 am

The issues I have with micropayments is that they are inefficient for following a particular person. If I want to read 90% of someone’s content then a micropayment is a barrier to get to the content, compared with a subscription. I also want to maintain access to the article, not have to re-buy it after some time (not sure if post does this but last I checked there’s very little info on how the site works).
Finally most microtransactions are implemented using proprietary credits rather than real money, so you have to put money into a system you barely know or trust to start using it.
Samegirlie
January 1, 2023 at 6:41 am

Teri_Kanefield lol I had a counter.social troll attack on me as well and I had joined it long long before joining Mastodon. It was silly, like adolescent silly, and they really squandered an opportunity to be ‘all that’ for many of us.

What is good is they could join the Fediverse if they wanted to in the future … that said, could Post do the same, I wonder?
DG
January 1, 2023 at 6:50 am

I created an account on counter social before realizing they are not mainstream fediverse participants. So, I don’t use it. Counter Social came across to me as a walled garden managed by arrogant people of perceived high self importance. That immediately created a distasteful image in my mind. If you are running from Twitter you would have to be crazy to join another controlled and small group of similar nature. If counter social stays separate, they will simply disappear in future along with their huge ego.

Post will be another failure. The basic business premise is off base and as you have pointed out some of it, this was a business idea which is fundamentally flawed. Again, I know that so-called investors and popular tech personalities will think that I am a naive idiot. But time will tell.

I don’t host my server. I can. But I have no substantive internet presence as an incentive. My day job and hobbies are enough to keep me occupied. But I think self-hosting is the best strategy. For a free thinker, I don’t know how one can be fully satisfied with someone else’s control over his/her speech.
Jerry Lerman
January 1, 2023 at 7:04 am

This is an outstanding analysis. You backed up your assertions with evidence. Sadly, I also see other evidence in this blog post that some people feel the evidence is extraneous.
I gained some new perspectives and understanding.
I am going to bookmark this and recommend it to people who want to understand the choices, differences, and historical impact of the various social sites.
Thank you for writing this.
Carey
January 1, 2023 at 7:06 am

Thank you so much for this thorough, non-technical summary. You didn’t include Project Mushroom, and TBH I’m not quite sure what it is. Is it a server on Mastadon? A separate thing? Is it worth talking about?
Teri Kanefield
January 1, 2023 at 7:08 am

I didn’t do Hive either only because I haven’t heard much about it and the people I know are not going there or talking about it. Mostly in this post I was answering the questions I’m getting.
Kmlisle
January 1, 2023 at 7:12 am

Thank you for your descriptions of other social media besides Twitter and Mastodon which I use. One question is, how does a non-journalist use Post?
Regarding your description of Nazi values (?), it has occurred to me that they fear POC will treat them badly because that is what Nazis/fascists/racists have done to POC for centuries. It’s kind of a reverse of the intent of “Do unto Others” .
As for the seditionists being jailed because POC are treating them badly. The justice system is jailing them based not on their race or even on their beliefs, although those beliefs undoubtedly led to their actions, but on evidence and facts. We often get frustrated with the evidential rules in our court system because they are pretty rigid , but that hopefully protects the innocent.
And that leads to my reason for not wanting to engage with Nazis, We have different facts or as I see it they have no facts at all. Not a good start for a productive conversation.
Thank you again. I was introduced to you through Emptywheel and follow you on Mastodon. I really like not feeding the billionaires there.
Teri Kanefield
January 1, 2023 at 7:25 am

There is a lot we don’t understand yet about Post because it is not in its final form. They opened it up early when Twitter imploded faster than they expected.
E. Chang
January 1, 2023 at 7:28 am

Counter Social used to be part of the Fediverse. It runs on an older fork of Mastodon (with proper attribution). When the Jester decided to block all content coming from 6 nations known to engage in influence operations in the US, the Mastodon community (with its lead developer leading the charge) mounted a campaign against Jester and Counter Social. To be clear, Jester didn’t break any rules. He was acting within his rights as a server admin. The accusation against him was that he and his server were engaging in racism, fascism, xenophobia, and ethnonationalism (sound familiar?).

The servers controlled by Eugen Rochko (which was most of them at the time) blocked Counter Social, and other servers were encouraged to do the same. Because of all the negative content and attacks being aimed at Counter Social, Jester opted to defederate altogether, so Counter Social now operates as a private social media environment.

Did Jester overreact? Yeah. But he’s had a long history of being overreacted at for his choices as a server admin. I think there’s plenty of blame to go around. Personally, I have nothing against Counter Social. I have an account there, myself, but I rarely use it. The scientific community, by and large, is migrating to Mastodon, and that means I can’t get the kind of content I prefer on Counter Social most of the time. That said, I’ve already moved Mastodon servers once because the same sort of thing (Rochko engaging in a campaign against a server admin because said admin didn’t block a particular instance at the server level) started brewing over there, and I didn’t want to get caught in the fallout. So, even as a decentralized non-profit, Mastodon isn’t totally immune to the whims of tech bros and their sometimes-irrational behavior. I think it’s probably the best available option, but not totally failsafe.
RoJoCo
January 1, 2023 at 8:00 am

“is thus not adding value to Elon Musk’s site or helping to put money into his pocket.” By being an “active user”, aren’t you helping with Elon’s counts and ability to generate revenue through ads? That is why I stopped posting at all and now only use Mastodon. Am I off base?
Patty Kimura
January 1, 2023 at 8:06 am

Thank you for your measured insight. I am not a techie or a journalist, I am a happy and curious nobody who read Twitter for over 10 years and left because of the Nazis for Mastodon. My opposition to “feeding the Nazi owner” has led me to stop reflexively clicking on Twitter links that add to Musk’s advertising engagement numbers. I never link to Musk’s business. What are your thoughts on this aspect of continuing your account there? Thank you, again for your work.
Teri Kanefield
January 1, 2023 at 8:07 am

You are not at all off base. In my case, I still have 197,000 followers on Twitter, and unless something changes, eventually they will need to go somewhere.

I reached an uneasy compromise by putting my original content elsewhere and providing links on twitter.
Teri Kanefield
January 1, 2023 at 8:08 am

I just answered that for someone else. Maybe I should put the question and answer into the post because, well, if two people asked others are wondering.
Victor Caston
January 1, 2023 at 8:41 am

Amen! Excellent survey and assessment. Thank you, Teri, as always.

I have found so far that Mastodon gives me all of the news and on-going developments, without any of the nastiness; and I have actually had enjoyable discussions both in my own field and in my interests. Completely different vibe.
Tim O.
January 1, 2023 at 8:42 am

Thanks for such a clear and concise summation and analysis of the various choices we are being bombarded with. For myself, I went with Mastodon based upon the emotional feel it has of the internet before Facebook became ‘King of the World’, combined with the realization that a distributed system the only way to keep the internet free of domination by despots.
Victor Caston
January 1, 2023 at 8:44 am

Amen! Excellent survey and assessment. Thank you, Teri, as always.

I have been wonderfully pleased with Mastodon so far. Since most of the academics, journalists, lawyers and politicos have moved there too, I have been able to get all of the up-to-the-minute updates I wanted, without any of the nastiness; and I have enjoyed discussions both in my own specialities, as well as my interests. Completely different vibe.
Colin Oatley
January 1, 2023 at 8:44 am

Thank you. for creating this overview. A few comments:

1. It appears that one major news organization, Reuters, is conducting an experiment with micropayments on Post. Reuters is a frequent poster there. Some of their posts are free, and others cost 1, 3, or 5 points to read. Perhaps they are trying to find the pricing sweet spot that will maximize their micropayment revenue.

2. Mike Masnick (@mmasnick@mastodon.social) has published a helpful guide for getting the most from Mastodon. I found his suggestion that users create lists to help focus our news feeds really helpful. See his tips here: @mmasnick@mastodon.social

3. I agree it’s necessary for people who care about truth and democracy to leave Twitter. I haven’t logged in to Twitter for a few weeks now, and I see no reason to go back.

4. I’m using both Post and Mastodon, but I’m finding more content worth reading on Mastodon. I’m also more confident that Mastodon’s business model (volunteers working to support a community) will remain aligned with my own goals as time goes by.
Colin Oatley
January 1, 2023 at 8:48 am

Correction. You can find Mike Masnick’s artcle here: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/29/some-tricks-to-making-mastodon-way-more-useful/
Harold Schmidt
January 1, 2023 at 9:20 am

Thank you for your insights. I found your analysis and commentary very useful. I noticed the exclusion of Facebook in your blog. Having left that sight back before the last election, I understand. It has also become filled with “ both side commentary “ as well. Their manipulation of partial facts and propaganda was the final straw for me.
I started listening to conservative radio back during Bush, Jrs administration to find out how they manipulated and distributed propaganda. I cannot not listen anymore. I feel my IQ slip a couple of points every time I turn them on. The vitriol they spew is also over the top.
Rojoco
January 1, 2023 at 10:31 am

Fair enough! I appreciate the response.
Teri Kanefield
January 1, 2023 at 11:09 am

There’s always the chance that Twitter will come back (That’s the hope that a lot of people there are holding on to). Also the fact that this particular article can reach so many people still on Twitter is good (and bad for Musk), right?
digadigadig
January 1, 2023 at 12:06 pm

Project Mushroom is a custom Mastodon instance…I had followed the Kickstarter for it and decided not to bother since I was already on Mastodon and happy with my server, so didn’t see the need to get into the PM mastodon server…
digadigadig
January 1, 2023 at 12:14 pm

I joined Post as soon as I was able, but by then had been on Mastodon already for about 2 weeks. Once over the initial learning curve at Mastodon, I realized I preferred it for all of the reasons that Teri mentions above…the open-source fediverse not owned by any one person is a much better thing to support than something controlled by a person or company with profit as a goal. I find too that Post feels more like a blogging platform with commenters joining the chorus or echo chamber, where Mastodon I am able to engage in real conversations with engaging people. And I greatly dislike the SHOUTY HEADLINES on all of the posts on Post. I think the main reason people prefer Post is that it was easiest to sign up for, and at first seems most similar to Twitter, but then you realize it is turning into a series of LiveJournal/Substack like posts, and there is the encouragement for you to tip…so I have decided I am mostly MEH about Post and prefer my mastodon interactions. I check my account on Post rarely now and do not find my opinion of it has changed at all whenever I do.
Stephen
January 1, 2023 at 12:59 pm

Great overview of the current situation! Small correction: “It’s called “reboost” on Mastodon.” The word, as you correctly used elsewhere in your post is “boost”.
M. Scott
January 1, 2023 at 1:29 pm

Another reason to stay away from Post is Galloway. Used to respect him, but he has become shady ever since he invested in OpenWeb and becoming a Board Member, too. @nandoodles on twitter tried for weeks to get serious answers from him.
https://twitter.com/nandoodles/status/1447625971436335109?s=46&t=AOE9qS6plBy6AkmQLSAfqg
Maya
January 1, 2023 at 2:20 pm

> My plan is to watch what unfolds and change my strategy as necessary.

Same here, the current social media environment feels unprecedented, it probably always was from the beginning and the majority recognized too late what such enormous social media & therefore manipulation power rests with a few powerful individuals.

I hope the crisis around Twitter will be a lesson for many.
Meredith Russell
January 1, 2023 at 3:33 pm

I enjoyed reading this article, and learned some useful tidbits from it. Here’s my experience.
I am on both Post and Mastodon. Reuters was one of the first accounts I followed on Post. After I used up most of the original points reading Reuters articles, I realized I might be better off just subscribing to Reuters for a while, and I have looked at Post less and less lately.
Mastodon has been an entertaining work in progress. I chose my original server from a list of ones that were open, because the name seemed easy to remember. Now that I understand the set up a little more, I may move to a more content specific server. Or not. I like Mastodon’s sorta homemade, slap dash, fly by the seat of your pants ambience. And I appreciate a lack of Nazi and Qanon bids for attention! I am happy when I got there, even watching the updates on the Ukranian resistance.
Meredith Russell
January 1, 2023 at 3:34 pm

Go there. Geez. Sorry for the typo!
Elene
January 1, 2023 at 8:16 pm

I appreciate Teri’s analysis and the experiences of people here. I’ve joined Mastodon but haven’t used it much yet. (I didn’t use Twitter much either, and most people I interact with on a regular basis weren’t on it.)

I find Facebook extremely useful, and I’m afraid I don’t understand Harold’s comments about that *site very well. As with social media in general, it depends on who one follows or friends. I am never in contact with “both side commentary” or right-wing nonsense on FB. Instead I’m in contact with my dance, poetry and music colleagues, some of whom I found only because of FB, planning events and sharing our creations. I’m also involved with local and international Star Trek fandom there (although some Trek groups on FB are pretty toxic– I no longer visit those). And on top of all that, I have a page for my medical practice and I administer one for my profession’s state association. Other types of social media are not as convenient for any of these.

FB has glaring faults, but I appreciate its existence for these reasons.

The egos of founders and admins seem to be a major reason for problems. I am distressed to hear of the Jester incident.
Elizabeth Horton
January 1, 2023 at 9:24 pm

As always, you’ve given me lots of information to digest. I’m off Twitter, so much pure hatred on that site. I’m on Mastodon and Post exclusively, but I miss the communities I had become part of and feel a real loss of the connections, and I haven’t gotten the hang of the new sites yet. It all feels so weird after having been on Twitter for over a decade. Really weird.
Alaric
January 1, 2023 at 11:29 pm

With as many followers as you have, I can imagine that leaving twitter will be a very hard decision. I think the mastodon instances will continue to grow though, so perhaps there will come a point where making the jump permanently to set up base there is possible. I’m really excited about the whole fediverse, it feels like a very creative moment for the internet, like we have broken down the garden wall and are exploring a new landscape.
Neil Federspiel
January 1, 2023 at 11:42 pm

The Fediverse is more than just the thousands of Mastadon servers that make up the network of Mastadon instances. Mastadon is just one of the applications that make up the Fediverse and in fact it is not the only micro-blogging application that is a part of the Fediverse. There are several other micro-blogging web apps including Friendica and Calckey.

In addition to micro-blogging, Friendica includes a calendar app as well as an email app and it provides interfaces to several other social media networks. In addition, Friendica provides an implementation called Quoted Shares which is similar to Quote Tweets on Twitter. And, I believe the largest share size on the instance of Friendica that I have used is 3,000 characters.

In addition to micro-blogging, Calckey also provides a Quote Tweet type of function called a Quote Renote and you don’t Toot, you post a Note. And, the maximum size of a note on the instance I am registered on is 3,000 characters.

Of course, each of the web apps has its own look and feel when viewed as a web app, and when viewed through a Mobile App on a cell phone, the user interface and user experience will also differ from the web app. Each of the three micro-blogging apps I mentioned have some similarities and also several differences and all three of them are a part of the Fediverse, each with their own instances.

In addition to micro-blogging, you will find other apps that are a part of the Fediverse including an app that provides streaming video similar to Youtube or and app that manages and displays your images. I am only just becoming acquainted with the what is available on the Fediverse,

I have a lot more to learn about these federated applications that make up the Fediverse. From what I have learned so far, it is important to remember that Mastadon is not the Fediverse, it is a part of the Fediverse. And, if a Mastadon instance does not deliver the functionality in micro-blogging that you’re looking for, there are other options without leaving the Fediverse.

In my case, I have registered as a user of a Mastadon Instance, a Friendica Instance and a Calckey Instance. I have done this as I want to learn first hand what makes them different and how they federate in the Fediverse. Independent of which of the three web apps I am using, I can follow and interact with exactly the same group of people across the Fediverse. The three applications are federated.

Anyway, I hope my ramblings help more than they confuse.
Paul
January 2, 2023 at 2:33 am

Thanks for your article.

Twitter has been incredibly influential and a lot of that has to do with the presence of journalists, politicians, businesses leaders, celebrities etc

But another community who are also important are tech people.

And I’m getting the feeling that tech people (and especially early adopters) are now moving to mastodon.

There are technical differences with the mastodon platform which have lead to the need to overcome a sort of learning curve.

Some of these differences are by design (distributed instances or servers) but some are due to the fact that mastodon as a platform is not as mature as twitter.

I get the feeling though that these tech early adapters have seen some of these problems and are working on solutions.

I have heard of a mobile client app in beta just now that users have described as making the mastodon experience no different from the twitter experience technically.

So I think shortly there will be no excuse from a technical standpoint not to migrate.

Wether mastodon will reach critical mass though is still an open question.

There is a certain stickyness to twitter although the banning of journalists on the whim of one man is certainly a wake up call.
Aaron
January 2, 2023 at 5:12 am

That’s really interesting, thank you for the pointer. I listen to Galloway and Swisher on their Pivot podcast which I generally enjoy but have always had the feeling they were another of the VC bubbles they like to skew. Will be more cautious forthwith!
Jessica
January 2, 2023 at 6:03 am

As a long time Twitter user I def had a learning curve moving to Mastodon but honestly just over a month into it I absolutely will take it over the old way any day. Even using lists/chronological feed on Twitter the nastiness sneaks in. The constant outrage farming/main character cycle there bleeds into everything and that doesn’t even include the “promoted tweets” that any one (hate mongers, liars, disinformation peddlers, etc) can buy and inject into my timeline. The journalists, academics, and scientists are migrating to Mastodon and the controls there under my control with zero algorithm make it a slam dunk in my book
Larry Sinclair
January 2, 2023 at 9:01 am

GREAT article. We await how to transfer all our Facebook friends and relative to Mastadon.
ahimsa
January 2, 2023 at 9:37 am

I wanted to let you know that the mastodon instance journa.host (in your post where it’s accidentally called journo.host) been blocked by many other instances. I believe the main reason was that the admin for that server did not moderate anti-trans content that was posted. Some details in this article:

https://thedesk.net/2022/12/mastodon-journa-host-lgbt-instance-server-blocked-170/

I have not followed the situation closely myself so I can’t tell you anything more. I’m adding this comment so that journalists who choose to migrate to mastodon end up on different instance/server.

I hope this is helpful. I was unable to read your whole post due to energy issues and cognitive dysfunction but I do hope more journalists create accounts on mastodon.
willaful
January 2, 2023 at 12:53 pm

Hehe… I also had my “technical support staff” aka “my in house geek,” aka my husband start a server for me. We have married-nerds privilege.

Your story makes me glad I deleted my countersocial account.

I’m currently trying to decide whether to reactivate my twitter account before it’s gone. I think it’s unlikely I could ever feel comfortable enough to really connect with people there again, so I probably won’t.
Teri Kanefield
January 2, 2023 at 2:09 pm

One question is: was there anything in that account you’d like to preserve? You contacts? One option is to keep it inactive. There are a lot of factors in the decision. For me, there are still people there I want to keep in touch with. If a miracle happens and Twitter doesn’t go down the drain, I will still have it. If Twitter gets worse, I can redirect people to Mastodon.
Elizabeth Moon
January 2, 2023 at 3:56 pm

Thanks for this info on Post and Mastodon. As I’m working hard to finish a book and then some reports and then get back to the next book, I haven’t taken the time to investigate anything other than Tribel…Mastodon now sounds better than it did at first, and what I’ve loved about Twitter is access to a number of academic accounts, esp. in science, some in history. I was put off by the report that Mastodon (at least some parts of it and how do you know up front?) require academic publications to find/access academic accounts. I have degrees n two fields, am moderately (educated adult reading journals) familiar with a couple more, and thoroughly enjoy the magpie “shiny bits” that people drop where I can find them.

As one of an older generation (pre-Boomer, though not by much) with failing vision, I’m reluctant to have *many* social media accounts; I have more than enough passwords and usernames to keep track of now, and plenty of things to do onine besides social media. So weeding out the ones I won’t like sounds reasonable and I”m grateful for those who take the time to try them and report on them.

And now…back to the book
CB
January 2, 2023 at 5:01 pm

Post.news built a proof of concept for publishers to help them understand how micropayments differ from subscriptions. All safety features are in queue until they buy in. I don’t think I need to detail how problematic this is and how it has caused major problems already ( for me ) and others. However, if one says anything about it being a problem on the platform they are attacked cult style. An extremist cult mentality lives within the platform.
CB
January 2, 2023 at 5:19 pm

Additionally, within Post.news platform one cannot speak facts regarding who a16z are and any background/current information/details et al. on them as investors of post.news. When one does, they are attacked, harassed, and told to leave the platform. The platform advertises itself on being “civil” but the level of vitriol and cruelty endured and witnessed there is traumatizing. Again, simply sharing this will be met with attacks from within the platform. As they’re enmeshed in their cult of a we are saved idealization.
Gardenermerc
January 3, 2023 at 7:28 am

Thank you for this informative article. Tribel is run by Omar Rivero of Occupy Democrats. I blocked Occupy on Twitter when I noted repeated ill-informed tweets by them. This was before the issues around Omar & his brother were discovered. I am learning how to make Mastodon useful for me by pinning hashtags for topics of interest.
Meredith
January 3, 2023 at 8:43 am

Without going into unnecessary detail, let me start by saying that I’m a retired woman on a limited income. I have exactly one paid online subscription (WaPo) and a number of unpaid substack.com subscriptions. I exited Twitter when I noticed that my anxiety was ratcheting up anytime I logged into it and I knew that was a clue to change my habits. BUT, in spite of being more techy than many of my elder cronies, I’m very unsure of how to set up a mastadon server by myself. I was intrigued by the suggestion in your post that if someone is looking for a wide variety of news, coverage by journalists, et al. then it can be done outside of social media entirely. I’m not sure what to do and I guess it’s good that there are options! (And, I wonder how one sets up an RSS reader; I’ll see what I can find out …). Thanks for a great and informative post, per your usual good work.
Teri Kanefield
January 3, 2023 at 9:46 am

You definitely shouldn’t set up your own server. That is more for a group or organization.

You should be able to join any of these servers: https://joinmastodon.org/servers. I had good experience with Mstdn.social, but I don’t know if they are taking new users. I’m waiting for an organization I trust to open a server so I can send everyone there.
PDaly
January 3, 2023 at 3:01 pm

Advice for people leaving twitter is to NOT delete your twitter account. If you deactivatte your account then your twitter handle can be recirculated after a certain period of time (30 days?). Then someone else can tweet under your former handle, and you cannot do anything about it.

I am not a twitter user, but from what I understand, keeping your twitter account locked is a better way to control your twitter handle from being repurposed by who knows whom in the future.
Teri Kanefield
January 3, 2023 at 3:45 pm

Yes, I added this. Correct.
Walt Corey
January 4, 2023 at 6:29 am

Good morning Teri, et al! First off, I’m a consumer not a producer so that’s changes the equation some. My sense is, since Musk, comments I may have to your observations as well as others, appear to get “lost”. Replies I’ve gotten over the years to any given post or reply have never been in the hundreds or thousands but they’ve been greater than zero. Since Musk they’ve been pretty solidly zero. Are they not being seen or had I forgotten deodorant that day. My sense is, on Mastodon at least, if I enter a conversation there’ll be some >0 acknowledgement I entered ta discussion. I don’t require center of attention status but acknowledgement foresters inclusivity. Musk actually did chirp about deboosting. My timeliness also never seemed to so much as appear chronological.
GrrlScientist
January 5, 2023 at 4:00 am

hi teri

i am a scientist and journalist, and was a member of journa.host until i discovered they were being blocked by other mastodon servers for racist comments. i’ve had a look around to find out what the dealio is, but was unable to discover much outside of a lot of negativity, and heresay, especially in the scientific community. at least some of the scientific servers i am on (yes, i’ve got 6 or 7 mastodon accounts now, sigh!) claimed they could find no evidence, or maybe just “sketchy” evidence, that journa.host was misbehaving. however, the drama and uncertainty and the banning of journa.host by entire servers really bothered me (very little reach when sharing my own work using journa.host!) so eventually, i merged my journa.host account with newsie.social, which seems not to have these problems. so far. >crossing fingers<

also … since merging two mastodon accounts means you keep your followers but not your posts, what happens to those? do they disappear? are they orphaned?

thanks for all you do. i love your reading work.
Teri Kanefield
January 5, 2023 at 7:53 am

Thanks. You can down load them and repost them to your new account. You might want to check which servers blocked them before you move. There are some crazy servers out there and a lot of really really good journalists on that server.
Lisa W
January 5, 2023 at 1:31 pm

Dear Teri,

Thank you for another wonderfully informative piece.

I am still on Twitter for now until there is a place I can follow government and journalist accounts, and get news about urgent domestic matters, etc. I almost never interact there in any way and click posts as rarely as possible. I have felt invisible there for years and it was frustrating and demoralizing.

Being on other social media sites which don’t utilize algorithms to artificially boost posts from notable accounts made me realize how awful Twitter felt. I imagine many other people with non-special &/or small accounts felt frustratingly invisible too. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that was partly responsible for people feeling they were so invisible that no one would notice their nasty / negative comments. It also made me see how detrimental it is for a democracy to treat Americans like Twitter (and soon Post) treats its accounts – boosting the privileged at the expense of the majority.

I have an accounts on Post, Mastodon, and Counter Social.

I like many of the people on Counter Social, and enjoy the engagement there. I don’t feel invisible on social media for the first time in years. (Twitter used to be like that years ago…sigh). Reading about the creator’s bad behavior feels so disappointing I’m strongly rethinking maintaining an account there. My affection for my Counter Social account does not make me blind to certain matters. First, I have witnessed true disinformation attacks against Counter Social on Mastodon and Twitter as well as disgruntled rule breakers and trolls who sound off their grievances. I do also believe Counter Social may legitimately have been wronged by Mastodon, but I did not witness this first hand. That being said, there is no excuse for Jester’s bad behavior or allowing supporters to pile-up against legitimate criticism. That is very unprofessional. It reminds me of authors who get upset about bad GoodReads reviews and attack the reviewers. No good comes from that.

I find my Mastodon and Post experiences to be similar to Twitter in that I experience little engagement. I can forgive Post, because it’s openly geared towards interacting with journalists. Mastodon, on the other hand, is really disappointing on that score. Maybe if I change servers? I’ll have to play around with it and do more research.
Teri Kanefield
January 5, 2023 at 1:48 pm

Here is my understanding of what happened: When Counter Social blocked entire countries, large Mastodon servers blocked Counter Social.

The argument was that not every person living in an authoritarian country should be banned.

Counter Social had the right to ban entire countries, and other servers had the right to ban Counter Social. But Counter Social didn’t like it and de-federated.

The reality is that if large servers ban your server, you are isolated. I have my own server and take that risk. If large servers ban me, it would not be good for me. For example, if banning entire countries would mean that large servers would block me, I just wouldn’t do it.
Lisa W
January 5, 2023 at 3:42 pm

I agree with you about not blocking countries just because couple of people from those countries were attacking some others through social media.

Those disinformation attacks did interesting things for America. It created more diversity than many of us wanted by putting open extremists like MTG in government. Diversity is a good thing, even it it is inconvenient and uncomfortable. Hopefully, we can talk at least some of the extremists down until they can be voted out.

Unfortunately, Jester did not see it that way. He got fed up with the social media disinformation attacks by China, Russia, etc, but instead of just leaving social media, like a sane person, he created a separate place where he could shut off that noise by blocking where much of the noise originated. He got shut out in return, fair and square.

Others rightly said there were innocent people who deserved to be heard – even though they could still be heard on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tik Tok, etc. People deserve to be heard anywhere they want, but he ignored this sentiment and now he has to suffer the consequences of people not liking his rules. He should at least be professional about it.

Here is his one-sided version of the situation with Mastodon.

https://countersocial.documize.com/s/c30dhakp0nhtab60utag/countersocial-blog/d/c5piofvuaqg133k3is90/the-history-of-countersocial-and-mastodon

I confess to liking a troll-free environment, but I don’t agree with his behavior, so I will wean myself back into invisibility and trolls and go back to Twitter until I can figure out Mastodon better.
John Seiffer
January 8, 2023 at 3:42 am

This is a great explanation. I have a couple of questions.

1 – If someone doesn’t have many followers how easy is it to get a large number on Mastodon without an algorithm to give exposure? (I realize the problems with the algorithm but there are times when it’s effective).

2 – Can someone host a subscription from Mastodon that emails out posts (like substack does)?
Teri Kanefield
January 8, 2023 at 4:53 am

No, there is no email function as with substack. As far as building followers with Mastodon, no I don’t think the algorithm helps with that. I think that there are tools for finding people to follow, but that’s different.
Kent
January 8, 2023 at 8:26 am

When you disappeared from CounterSocial and I saw the accusations flying over how/why you were no longer there I was skeptical. I’ve enjoyed CounterSocial for the most part, but the blind idolization there of this anonymous Jester always left me creeped out. It’s way too similar to the cult worship of Trump and Elon for my liking. The cult behavior came out in full force when your account disappeared. I won’t get into it in detail, as I’m sure you can imagine, but the one post that really hit a nerve was someone suggesting that we go to Twitter to troll you. I waited a day to see if the great defender of all that’s right in the world, aka Jester, would remove it. As I suspected, he did not.

As you pointed out, Jester actively searches out anything negative said about him/her/them (who knows?) on social media and goes after them, then returns to his little secure castle to his followers to show off how he defends himself in the safety of the walls he’s built around himself, and his followers treat him like some kind of Batman figure who’s defending everyone from evil. As I said, it’s really creepy behavior.

Reading this blog post was the final straw for me. It confirmed what my gut was telling me all along. I deleted my account there after reading it. I’m on Mastodon for now, I tried Post and deleted my account after a few days because of the Twitter-like algorithms, and I’m on the waiting list for the beta of Spoutible … all while questioning whether I really want to be on social media at all anymore.

Time will tell.
Til Klem
January 8, 2023 at 8:29 am

On Mastodon Boosting more and favoriting more should help gain followers.
Teri Kanefield
January 8, 2023 at 8:34 am

Kent, it’s truly crazy and very much like a cult. The idea that they should all troll me is completely nuts. I actually spent a long time trying to decide whether to write out my experiences of what happened because I generally avoid any kind of Internet fight, but what I saw Jester do and say in my timeline was completely unacceptable. Literally the only thing I did was protect one of my followers and then they all turned on me.

It’s a microcosm of what can really go wrong in political systems.
Til Klem
January 8, 2023 at 8:37 am

Mstdn.social stopped taking new users for a while after Musk bought Twitter. They couldn’t table the huge numbers. Then they opened up again. I believe they’re still open. That’s where I am and I’m enjoying it immensely. My blood pressure goes up when I check in with friends still on Twitter. I’m doing that less and less now,…
Teri Kanefield
January 8, 2023 at 9:40 am

I also had a good experience on Mstdn.social
Tim J
January 9, 2023 at 11:29 am

Thanks for this really helpful article. I’m coming back to it every so often when I want to remind myself what the people on places like Post have joined. (I’m on Mastodon and enjoying it, though I feel the mass influx of Twitter behaviour has caused the atmosphere to deteriorate somewhat since I joined in November.)

By chance, I noticed a small typo which I hope you won’t mind me pointing out: the penultimate paragraph of the Post.news section has repetitional instead of reputational.
Teri Kanefield
January 9, 2023 at 11:32 am

Thanks! will fix (I tried a few times but autocorrect really doesn’t like reputational.
Tim J
January 9, 2023 at 11:42 am

My feeling after a couple of months there is that large numbers aren’t actually necessary, because the followers you get are ones who are interested and who engage. They’re not passively viewing a “broadcast”, but there to interact.

I’ve now got about 25% as many followers on Mastodon as on Twitter, and only follow about 15% as many as on Twitter, but if I post something in both places I invariably get more response on Mastodon. Often a lot more. In fact the same was true when both those figures were around 10%.
Tim J
January 9, 2023 at 11:45 am

I should add that this is after being on Twitter for 14 years, albeit with a 6-year break from 2013 to 2019.
Tim J
January 9, 2023 at 12:18 pm

I think servers which temporarily stop taking people usually still allow registration via an invitation link from an existing user—that’s how I joined mastodon.social. (The settings page includes the option to create one.)
Ande Jacobson
January 12, 2023 at 8:38 am

I initially thought this was your old post comparing Mastodon, Post, et. al. I now realize that it started there, but it’s been almost completely rewritten based on a lot more experience with the various platforms. Thank you for the expansion and clarification and for sharing more of your personal experience.

While I originally wanted to hang on and see how the Twitter story turned out, I have since locked my Twitter account down (made it private), and no longer post original content there except for a very rare comment on somebody I follow if I feel so inclined. I also check it very infrequently. Like you (although without my own personal server) I’ve made Mastodon my primary social media outlet now. You captured my biggest concern with Post with:

“My bias toward Mastodon is that it seems to me that (ideally) a public sphere is not a run-for-profit business.”

Exactly! Post.news wanting to monetize the public square really bothers me whether it’s through tips, micropayments for content etc. I have an account there, but I’ve used it just to see how that platform works and haven’t posted much content at all. I follow a few of the experts I like, but I also follow them on Mastodon which seems to me the far cleaner environment.

Reuters experimenting with the whole micropayment idea seems completely counterproductive given their content is free on their own site. And if somebody wants a news aggregator, something like Apple News for free or Apple News+ for a low subscription fee already exist and do an excellent job of it. And of course traditional media subscriptions also help journalism directly.

Also like you, I have long been bothered by the idea that news must be entertainment. No, news should be factual reporting on the events of the day or of concern. Going even further and making the news a popularity contest is surely a means to destroy a common understanding of the truth.

A lot of what happens in the world is not popular. It’s not something that makes us feel good. But it’s important that we understand what’s really happening. Perfect cases in point are your explanations of the legal filings for things of national concern like massive national security document thefts by a rogue former president or an insurrection to stop the peaceful transfer of power in the U.S.

Thank you for continuing to share, educate, and work for our democracy.
Teri Kanefield
January 12, 2023 at 9:08 am

I’ve noticed strange things happening on Twitter over the past few weeks. Did you?
Ande Jacobson
January 12, 2023 at 3:21 pm

I have noticed a few things, but the most obvious is that the platform has become far less stable from a systems perspective. It’s much slower these days. Since I normally am pretty deliberate in my usage going straight to pages of interest, I haven’t really noticed a huge amount of change in the content I see though other than many of the people I follow have either stopped or greatly curtailed putting their own content there. They tend to post links to other sources or retweet stuff that interests them now.
Jess
January 13, 2023 at 1:17 am

Jester is not a good person. After I spoke with him on Twitter about an account issue, he called me a sexist slur and then had his followers harass me for sport. Over twenty of them tried to bully me and make me feel small.

He is not a good man, even if Counter Social is a fun community. Be careful — no matter who you are, he will cyberbully you if you say the wrong thing. And it doesn’t matter if you are a woman, person of color, or LGBTQ… he will try to use power against you.
Amerilis
January 23, 2023 at 4:18 pm

Hi! I know I’m late to this question, but thought I’d see if my 2 cents might help.

I’ve been on Mastodon since Nov 2022, & I’m also following Teri there. For a minute, it felt a little lonely, but then as I began following peeps coming over from Twitter, my follower count grew, as well.

Also, as you continue to participate & comment on posts, that also helps w/gaining followers.

That said, for me, the # of followers doesn’t matter. But, I do enjoy interacting w/others. This action alone seems to help me attain followers.

So….in the words of Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams: if you build it (interact), they will come (followers).
PerryM
January 25, 2023 at 7:34 am

Teri … I view Twitter as I do sour milk. When anything goes bad, sticking around doesn’t make sense. Sour milk doesn’t go well with Frosted Flakes and a glass can make you sick, similar to Twitter, and it will not get better!

I too found Mastodon a better place than others. It takes a bit of relearning but it’s pleasant and is not really difficult. The people are exponentially more interesting, better stories and photos. Even if you disagree with someone, I have yet to see it become hostile.

You are an excellent example! While I do not 100% agree with you, you haven’t called me stupid yet! Thanks for the time you invest!
Teri Kanefield
January 25, 2023 at 7:42 am

If I ever call you stupid, you have my advance permission to say, “Teri, you promised never to call me stupid.”
Ande Jacobson
January 25, 2023 at 7:49 am

Thanks for highlighting the updates in red. That helps. This is a nice, comprehensive discussion of the various models for social media interaction available right now from a user and usability perspective.

I’ve seen you write that you get a lot of comments about Mastodon being “too hard” or “confusing.” I don’t understand what people are finding so difficult. Is it just that it’s a little different from the platform they were on, and any change at all is too hard for them?
Teri Kanefield
January 25, 2023 at 7:58 am

I think that the barrier for most people is selecting a server and signing up. I think most nontechnical people feel a little bit lost on a new site. At the same time, I suspect a lot of people are repeating what they’ve heard others say.
Ande Jacobson
January 25, 2023 at 9:52 am

That makes sense.

Thinking about it a little more, another factor could be that when the servers slow down a little with a big influx from other platforms, even after selecting a server it can take a while to get the verification email to be able to use one’s new account. That can infuriate some of the folks operating under an “instant gratification” paradigm making it an insurmountable barrier for them.

Of course, taking your tack of creating your own server avoids all of that, but then you either have to have sufficient technical skills and means, or have tech support readily available in house. 🙂 You may not be a tech wizard yourself, but Andy seems rather savvy with all of this and more than ready to lend a hand.
Barbara
February 1, 2023 at 8:52 am

Thank you much for this! I miss you on the bird & finally today signed up with my email tho i have followed you on twitter a long time. I’m very reluctant to give up my email address for not only privacy but because I can now go a week or more without checking email since retirement. Tough to keep it clear now! Hence no account on mastodon-yet. You may ‘see’ me there soon now I read this. Meanwhile, your posts on the bird are a lifeline.
V/R, Barbara
L.A. Murphy
February 2, 2023 at 8:43 pm

I’m delighted to see you in this discussion of social media alternatives. First, thank you for your books. Then, you’ve described much of what I’ve also found appealing on twitter.

I joined mastodon shortly after Musk bought twitter. It’s taking me awhile to find my way around. Seems like a good time investment given the content I’m seeing. Meanwhile, I’ve been checking back with twitter while those I’ve been following are still active there. I share Teri Kanefield’s hope that Mastodon will continue to be shaped by its users and not by a single owner whose interests set the terms for the fediverse. Be well.
elise bowen
February 5, 2023 at 8:04 pm

i got botsentinel and a couple of good users from counter-social.

did not know it was impermissible to stay online but leave the house so that when ED came knocking and you couldn’t answer, you got tossed.
aka defenestrated. with no interaction possible. and based on misinterpretation.

(see Walk Off The Earth, “Hey Ya” etc, some cute songs they have hand-puppets of themselves!
Jester can be confrontational. i’m glad for the users i kept.
Long may Lord Rochester’s Monkey be notorious.)
elise
February 5, 2023 at 8:23 pm

Teri, i look forward to you experiencing Spoutible at some point, and including impressions of it.
it launched Feb 01 2023.
find me – https://spoutible.com/luckysatinback.
following me is your call.
Elise Walker
February 14, 2023 at 11:58 am

Spoutible is only good if the owner likes you. He has blocked me & many others. There is no support person to contact for Spoutible help & the official Spoutible Twitter page isn’t used. It’s only the owner’s personal account you contact- just like Musk
Teri Kanefield
February 14, 2023 at 12:20 pm

I think you meant just like Jester, not just like Musk. Right?
Jennifer Edwards
February 14, 2023 at 4:59 pm

Thank you, Teri, again! I’m on Mastodon at mstdn.social and also on spoutible to watch and see how that goes, light on Twitter to maintain account and check in with friends and locals, some have gone to Mastodon!
Mastodon is my primary now. I think it’s easy to use if you find an interface(or whatever they’re called) like Tusky, Toot, or Elk- which is what I use because it’s for PC and mobile devices.
I had to report one user on Mastodon because of insane, immediate, hateful comments over a recipe of all things. Mstdn.social administrator took them down in minutes after report.
I like it so far, news is improving, patience is required, as in all things.
David M
February 26, 2023 at 11:32 pm

There is also a reference to Jan 6, *2001*. I think there are a couple of places that you intended to be a link (something like “see article *here*”) to another article, but didn’t put the link in.
David Fleetwood
March 6, 2023 at 10:32 am

Exactly this. The Spoutible section could have simply read “See: Counter Social”
jfdonnelly
March 6, 2023 at 10:42 am

I’m also on Mastodon and Spoutible, and still on Twitter for the experts who haven’t left. I do find it difficult to find the people I want to interact with on Mastodon. Since Spoutible is smaller it’s not a problem yet- but there’s something a bit unsettling about a place where everyone is so gosh darn nice. Something sort of Stepford wives about it. But I’m giving them all time since I no longer need a platform for work
Teri Kanefield
March 6, 2023 at 3:32 pm

They may be nice on Spoutible, but they attack anyone who dares question Spoutible. It’s happening and it’s unnerving.
Emma
March 7, 2023 at 10:39 am

I cannot figure out how to respond to Teri’s article, so I’m choosing here. I’m Emma (not my real name), btw, the one referenced under the Counter Social part of the excellent descriptions. And I’m a small fish (like guppy size) in the oceans of social media. I tend to follow smart people from many walks of life, but especially in the legal, medical, and writing/journalism worlds. I’m quite accustomed to making a comment on social media and rarely getting noticed or feedback. I’m (mostly) good with that.

While a member of Twitter since 2012, I became active when Trump was running for office the first time. I’m quite adept it seems, at using Twitter’s algorithm buzz words. I’m passionate about the abuse of other humans. As a consequence, I’ve been in twitter jail a lot. When Musk took over, the vitriol and hatred just proved too much so I started shopping for the “next” place to connect to smart people.

I like Post.com. I occasionally get read/noticed there. I realize it’s left-leaning and have concerns about it being an echo chamber. But since I like to get my news there and I’ve felt safe enough posting personal details, I like it there. I use my real name there. I post about my family. For me, it’s been a good choice. Again, remember, very small fish so my needs are not as great.

Because I wanted to be fair and to make sure I wasn’t missing out (FOMO is real my friends), I signed up for Mastodon (when you’re a guppy this is like being in a hurricane on the high seas for me). Other than feel it is extremely fast moving, I can never find what I’m looking for and surely am rarely seen, I’ve kept my account but have passed on it for now.

I signed up for Spoutible. I signed up for Counter Social. I even have an account on Truth Social. Twitter, Spoutible, Counter Social, Truth Social – all powered by ego-driven men who seem to care more about themselves being the topic of discussion or to be the only ones to decide the rules. Spoutible taking a stance against particular female issues was a 1000% no-go for me. When I tried to discuss it with the owner, WHAM!! Swarmed. I’ve deleted my account. He’s blocked me on other social media.

As a little fish, I observe quite a bit. Jester of Counter Social fame has a history. Because he also tends to be litigious, my efforts at keeping people aware were subtle warnings. Swarmed again. Ego again. I had already deleted my acct there when I realized who the owner was. I checked back with people who knew Jester just to make sure I was remembering my facts correctly and was assured, I was smart to stay away.

And Truth Social, well that’s just a joke of sludge-filled messiness. But I go to read what the ex-guy is doing and saying. Helps to know what the crazies are thinking without having to bathe in it. I check in about once a month and see it is still ego-driven and full of lies and delusions.

For now, Noam at Post doesn’t insist on being worshipped. Site seems even handed at meting out “justice.” There *are* voices that are anti-Biden or anti-Democrat and I’ve managed to engage with them without either of us walking away angry. I like that the news can be found easily and I don’t mind paying to read an article I want to read. I do see where it might not be the way to monetize the site because there’s usually someone sharing the news in a different format for free.

I appreciate you, Teri, for the time you take to make things understandable. You rock.
Lisa
March 7, 2023 at 11:31 am

Yes! I think Spoutible users are too nice (unnaturally so). I think it’s partly because like so many others, they’ve attached themselves to ideals without thinking of all the consequences of how they are implemented. So some users have become rather cultish.

Have you seen the people labeling themselves “First Wavers”? A number of them hold themselves above the rest and never let others forget how “special” they are. They’re Influencers. They often seem to band together on issues and push a stance which others are presumably to adhere to or face social consequences.

The social consequences are brought about by a non-algorithm (bc Spoutible supposedly doesn’t have algorithms). Spoutible de-escalates / limits account’s exposures for various reasons such as if they get blocked by enough accounts, if they aren’t good citizen Spouters and DON’T report problem people/posts when they had a chance, as well as more acceptable reasons such being reported for abusive actions.

During the Courtney Milan / Christopher Bouzy disagreement over one of Spoutible’s policies, people spread misinformation both knowingly and in their ignorance on multiple social media sites (including Spoutible) and divided Spoutible users. Spoutible First Wavers & regular Spoutible fans of Bouzy piled up on anyone who disagreed with Bouzy – on any site. They went so far as to share links to anti-Bouzy, anti-Spoutible posts (from any site) with Bouzy. It wasn’t generally a problem on other sites, but on Spoutible, with their non-algorithm, many people who tried to explain the situation fairly or disagreed with the way Bouzy handled things, or just didn’t agree with the masses got blocked, a lot, which reduced their visibility. Few to no one saw their “Spouts” (posts) afterward.

Spoutible also mutes hashtags they don’t like. I tested this by cultivating engagement and then posted something which should have got attention, only I included the #porn hashtag. No one paid any attention to that post. I reposted without the hastag about 30 minutes later and it got good attention.

People began to say that Spoutible was the Leftists version of MAGA and I was hard-pressed to disagree.

So Spoutible, Counter Social, & Twitter all share having a problem owner in charge of their sites. Spoutible & Counter Social both have cultists who are protective to a fault of their site’s problem owner.

Having problem SM owners and cultists who decide which voices are worth hearing is wrong, foolish, short-sighted, and potentially dangerous. On the one hand, people get the type of SM experience they want, but on the other hand, they get false feedback (eg. get applause for misguided opinions, bad takes, etc) and have very limited view of the “real world”. They they go to other sites, get slapped down, and then complain about being suppressed and attacked.
Lisa
March 7, 2023 at 11:42 am

This is unfortunately true.
Teri Kanefield
March 7, 2023 at 11:47 am

Never heard of first wavers.

From what I understand, Spoutible does have an algorithm. It’s triggered by retweets (or whatever they are called) but not likes. I kept a screenshot where someone complained to Bouzy about this. The person felt that his posts had too short of a life span.

Interesting about the group think. Several large accounts that I have had muted on Twitter happen to be the loudest voices advocating for Spoutible. Coincidence?
Jocelyn
April 22, 2023 at 8:42 am

Hi Teri, just tripped over your site and appreciate all your info on the skew of new Fediverse social media options. Learned far more than I’d expected and love that ppl like yourself help the layman seeking to escape Twitter (I’m inactive as well) and possibility FB as o wean off the only membership I’ve kept since 2007.

My gut churned a bit when saw the handle for Fediiverse – it screams Metaverse ugh lol
I’ve been perusing for a safe space while learning all I can to choose ONE ( learning lots about others like a beta shopper ) praying the bugs are dealt with and some feedback available for tried and true w/o getting overwhelmed with all new apps popping up – rather just seeking a new platform to join what is left of my interest in FB.
My main interest is politics right now and science as well. I’m a bit of an advocate for Justice and facts and know to SHOUT when vital FACTS are needing attention lol been called out plenty but sometimes ya gotta raise your voice so my answer when imp. for all, when told I’m screaming is “REQUIRED!” And when dire, like DRUMPF attacking Democracy itself I add
My intent, is fact research and sharing to those who do not able to keep up with the explosion of the internet and upending of the now older social media platforms so I Share all I can and also sound alarms I find in deep dives not found or posted on mainstream networks or social media for that matter – bit of a sleuth I guess but ONLY on the most URGENT Heads UP I WILL GO CAP MODE! Hey! Works for TFG LOL – why? Cause his audience loves the URGENCY of Sensationalism l lmao! AND sometimes ppl not familiar with the nuances of online so called strict etiquette lol – know HEADLINES – like BREAKING NEWS in print – is like highlighting in print. And older ppl’s vision isn’t always set on fine print haha
Little backlash tp pay for waving Red Flags to those far too busy to keep up with geopolitics or domestic terrorists right on home soil.

Lucky for this 68 yr old, my 2003 S/W Dev for Web Services Crash course for remote cross platform was new and I learned just how behind we wrre technically. But it put me in a new world I watched from a corporate level ignorance lol I sold SW for IBM and exposed to the resistance due to lack of interest by C-Level as IT Directors tried to help them upgrade – so slow facing the next gen of green screens lol and server farms. Eye opening ! Eek!

So today, it all is being politicized – not so social anymore is it, when platforms have to compete by political populous hacks.
I’m hoping the Fediverse can help shield us against Muskrats.

Thank you much, I’ll be adding my addy to your blog. We need more citizens helping citizens who missed the “tech age” from the onset. They deserve the rich convo and comments you generate, thank you, keep up your important work for the betterment of ALL 😉 I also tripped a followers page I had no idea was on FB lol almost 50, from where? I have no idea nor do I care. Lol
Thanks so much for your hard work and candid review. I learned so much! 🙂
Teri Kanefield
April 22, 2023 at 8:51 am

Welcome! You may also like my To Do list. It’s a tab on my blog.
Roy Adams
May 16, 2023 at 11:33 pm

Excellent post Teri. You have great explanations on complicated technical details.

Thanks for the insight on Bluesky and other alternatives. I stopped looking after I found Mastodon and it clicked how it works by creating my own feed and lists. For me it has become a great fit and I’ve transitioned to what I call “slow social media” where I often don’t sign-in each day. Getting off the conflict engagement treadmill had been very liberating.
Maria
May 19, 2023 at 9:10 am

Thanks so much for this, Teri. I read it in little bits over a number of days. I like mastodon the best so far. I really appreciated the explanation of protocols. Always learn something from you that’s useful and meangingful.
Michele
July 5, 2023 at 1:41 am

Hi, it’s Michele, aka Fish on Twitter. Following our exchange regarding Spoutible yesterday, I now have had the time to read the comments section. 🙂

To be honest, so far, I haven’t suffered much from Twitter’s downfall, so I haven’t spent much time on other platforms I joined. When Musk took over and began to mess things up, I created a list called “The Good Place” and added all the people whose opinions I liked reading. I pretty much only uses this now. But I don’t use Twitter to make a living, so my quasi non-existent level of engagement is of little importance to me.

I started following C. Bouzy because of his political prediction polls, and I also found Bot Sentinel to be a useful tool. When he began to talk about creating his own social media platform, I was very enthusiastic, because he came across as, what we call in my neck of the woods (Derbyshire) “a sensible chap”. So I joined Spoutible, and posted a few times there, but as Twitter was still doing what it was supposed to do for me, I mostly stayed put. I did think the platform had potential and would be a good alternative to platforms run by clueless billionaires (Dorsey, Zuckeberg) or shady ego-driven cult leaders (Musk, Jester, whom, I just found out today, blocked me on Twitter, probably because, I also called him “shady” there.)

I read and understood your concerns regarding Spoutible and will be more circumspect about completely embracing it in the future. However, please consider that C. Bouzy has had to contend with an insane amount of trolling, which is why he may be a little trigger-happy at the moment even regarding legitimate criticisms.

As for “first wavers” yes, this is very silly, but I guess it’s in some people’s nature to want to put themselves on top of the social media basket, so to speak. This happens on every platform. You just ignore them and do your thing.

Ultimately, when the next mass social media migration happens, we will all follow regardless of our preferences. Over the years, I went from newsgroups to Twitter with many places in between. It will likely be splintered in the beginning, as people initially pick their best fit, but ultimately, we will all conglomerate to the same hub.

I just would like it not to be, yet another billionaire’s vanity project.
Teri Kanefield
July 5, 2023 at 8:03 am

I will address you privately to tell you a few other concerns of mine. I don’t want this page to turn into a discussion / critique of Bouzy.
Geophany
July 8, 2023 at 8:01 pm

Thank you, Teri, this is certainly comprehensive and enjoyable as always. I refrained from sending it to a friend who would like to know more about Mastodon, however, because to my eye you haven’t distinguished enough for the casual reader between hosting a server and the user’s experience. It sounds harder than it is. I agree that there’s a learning curve, as there is with any new platform, but the end user’s task is much simpler than the host’s task.
Teri Kanefield
July 8, 2023 at 8:14 pm

I’m not sure I understand waht you mean. You just sign up for a server and you’re in. Very few people host a server. \

Just pick one of these: https://joinmastodon.org/servers

The first one, Mastodon.social is safe. I also recommend mstdn.social. I had a good experience on that one.
Gary Schulz
July 9, 2023 at 3:17 am

Teri’s is the second mention I’ve seen about a possible enhanced search function coming to Mastodon. The sooner the better. If anybody knows more about this, please advise. I’ve largely resorted to checking to see who other people (like Teri) are following and locating some of my favorite Twitter follows that way. Seems like large, diverse organizations like NASA and ESA should start running their own Mastodon servers too.
Chris
July 9, 2023 at 4:24 am

Well, I’m an odd duck. I read content that interests me on individual websites (such as this one), but not via social media apps where I’m expected to sign up for an account — and disclose my personal info — before being allowed access, let alone being allowed to comment on what I read. Teri, I do appreciate your overview of the pros and cons of certain social media platforms; in a way, it confirms for me the wisdom of my own hesitation to join Facebook, Twitter, etc., despite urging from friends (some of whom are now former friends, thanks to Trump.) Should I in future desire to change my “duck status”, I will consider Mastodon as the best option to start with.
Linda Calhoun
July 9, 2023 at 5:46 am

This was very comprehensive and informative.

I’m not anywhere on social media. I joined Facebook about ten years ago and I lasted about two weeks before I shut my account, because I thought it was a giant time-sucking waste of time. I didn’t realize at the time that I was actively being reeled in; it just felt that way rather than having any cognitive information about it.

Re: To Do list – How do people who spend that much time on social media have time to DO anything? I have a dairy and a restaurant, and it’s all I can do to keep up with it all. Gabbing is fine if that’s your thing, but I’d rather be accomplishing something. I’d also rather be moving around than sitting in one place getting a stiff back.

Linda
Neil
July 9, 2023 at 7:02 am

Hi, Roy. I’d love to hear more about your “slow social media” strategy. At its best, Twitter was a great resource for finding ideas, perspectives, and POVs from outside my liberal bubble–particularly in areas that are highly technical, poorly understood by layperson, and vital for the functioning of a healthy democracy. Things like law (criminal and constitutional), law enforcement, military strategy, national security, intelligence/counterintelligence.
Bruce
July 9, 2023 at 9:13 am

> Personal Note: I essentially wore blinders on Twitter. I followed relatively few people. From the list of people I followed, I created smaller lists. I constantly edited my lists, which I kept private so nobody ever knew if they were being added or removed from one of my lists. I learned about new people when someone I trusted retweeted that person, and even then, I looked carefully before adding the person to one of my lists.

Cool. It seems I wasn’t the only one.

Sadly, there’s a new phenomenon that you’re likely not subject to: spam “likes” or even retweets. Only men get them and probably only those men who don’t get 100’s of likes (so we likely see ’em). You can likely guess what sort of account they are. I report them when I feel like it (about 80% of the time).
Bruce
July 9, 2023 at 9:31 am

> In the early days of email, you could only send email messages to people on your own network

In the early 1970’s, there was already UUCP for copying messages using dialup protocols and “bang” addressing. e.g. att!ucb!eecs!bkorb (approximately)

Here is way, way more than you ever wanted to know, but there has been inter-network email from the beginning:
https://www.jochentopf.com/email/address.html
Myk
July 9, 2023 at 7:15 pm

There was, but most email networks did not interconnect until Internet connection became commonplace, so there was only a minority of email users that could be addressed in that fashion.
Joe Magid
July 9, 2023 at 9:35 pm

If it would be helpful for your friend, I put together a Mastodon Step-by-step slide deck to make it easy for people to get set up and going on Mastodon. Please feel free to share widely.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1czntx6cRqDzqBGa6fDhLvZZaQaQvDHXN9YxHsuLasyI/present?usp=sharing
Catherine Schmidt
July 10, 2023 at 6:46 am

Thank you
Leisureguy
July 10, 2023 at 12:57 pm

“WordPress sites cost money to build and maintain.” I have a WordPress site (https://leisureguy.wordpress.com) that is basically free. I did go for custom CSS, which involves an annual fee, but I believe a plain vanilla wordpress.com site is free.
Teri Kanefield
July 11, 2023 at 11:34 am

Interesting. Thanks for letting me know. I have a fancy one with upgrades. Plus I do my mailing through mailchimp instead of whatever plug in they offer.
PAR
July 11, 2023 at 11:58 am

I’ve never seen any cult styled attacks on Post, and unless I’m blind I see no extremist cult mentality on Post.
Penny Kelley
July 13, 2023 at 2:12 pm

There are two versions of WordPress.

WordPress.com is a free/nearly free way to have a blog and create content that you share with others using a subdomain like myname.wordpress.com. WordPress.com does support custom domains for a small fee. There are rules about the types of content you can publish. (See: https://wordpress.com/support/user-guidelines/)

WordPress.org is the popular website framework used by privately owned and hosted websites. The WordPress installation is free, and there are thousands of themes, page builders, and plugins to add further functionality. This is what most of us think of when we speak about WordPress.
Henning Dekant
July 26, 2023 at 10:03 am

The owner of Spoutible is a black entrepreneur who is adamant that he won’t allow hate speech on his platform. So in terms of Walled Garden platforms I think he is aligned with my values, and the UI and branding makes it very easy to navigate if you like the way Twitter operated.
CA_Curmudgeon
September 10, 2023 at 2:50 am

Teri, for my personal email, I don’t trust the standard options like gmail, yahoo, mailchimp, etc. I don’t want my data collected and sold or used to train AI systems.

I found protonmail.

https://proton.me/mail

Servers are located in Switzerland. Mail is encrypted. They do not respond to subpoenas from US law enforcement. ( Not a feature I currently care about, but you never know! Lol)

Basic accounts are free and offer a decent amount of storage space. You can pay for an account with more storage and additional features. Quick response from customer service.

I’m very happy with my account there.