Matisyahu's Blog

Although I have moved to Mastodon there are benefits for everyone in the Fediverse with the launch of Meta’s own Twitter alternative that will make use of ActivityPub (link) – the benefit being that a large number of people on Twitter are also on Instagram which then opens up the ability for people to leave Twitter and use Meta’s own platform instead. Now, this is where the interesting part begins, because it is using ActivityPub it’ll mean that those on Mastodon will now be able to follow those Instagram users who make use of Meta’s Twitter alternative.

With each passing day and each pronouncement put out on Twitter by Elon Musk, I would say that those who are high profile on Twitter are looking for alternatives. The most recent rumination by Elon Musk that he is interested in getting rid of the block functionality on Twitter (link) which was a reply to Andy Ngo:

Andy Ngo claiming that it allows people who spread hoaxes and use the ‘block’ feature to shield themselves from being reported while ignoring the fact that the report feature is routinely used as a form of harassment in much the same way flagging on YouTube is routinely used by retractors to harass people on the platform. I refuse to believe that Andy Ngo doesn’t understand why the block feature behaves the way it does.

As the platform becomes a bigger toxic cesspit it appears that advertisers, who are at the moment rationalising where they spend their money, have decided to pull back on advertising on Twitter based on the most recent reduction in spending (link). I’m sure we’ll hear Elon Musk come up with either denial or claim that it is part of a wider industry phenomenon but it ignores the fact that although Twitter was one of the smaller social networks (before he bought it) organisations were still willing to advertise on it. Since Elon bought Twitter and turned it into a toxic cesspit free for all where white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, conspiracy theory whack jobs, crypto bros selling their latest get rich quick scheme etc, it isn’t surprising that organisations are deciding that maybe that isn’t the sort of thing they want associating with their brand.

To quote an excerpt out of the ‘The Verge’ article I linked to earlier: “We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run” – there is demand for a Twitter like micro-blogging platform but those demanding want it run by an adult not some man-child who snuggles up to some of the most undesirable people on Twitter while claiming to be a centrist (link) and a free speech absolutist (link).