OKCommuter
PwnallthethingsTwitter was special. But it's time to leave
https://www.pwnallthethings.com/p/twitter-was-special-but-its-time
jprestonian@Pwnallthethings It wasn't special. You just grew accustomed to its face.
Your Face is Not Enough
JenL@Pwnallthethings “ If you’re terminally online—and let’s be honest, if you’re reading this you are” 🙈
Matilda
@owlislost @Pwnallthethings the opening to an excellent article. The only thing I would add is that even if you could block out the forthcoming Elon drama, I suspect that behind the scenes the bird algorithm will be tweaked to suppress legitimate journalism and human rights advocacy, while protecting Elon and his autocratic patrons (China and Saudi Arabia, to start).
ThatKomputerKat 
@Pwnallthethings @jelasher Feeling seen and it’s uncomfortable.
@thatKomputerKat @Pwnallthethings Yep. In the end, Elon will have done me a favor by forcing me to stop using Twitter so he can’t monetize my attention. Inadvertent altruism, if you will.
Eva Libuše Debora Pavlíková
Raineer 
🦆@Pwnallthethings This is a great read! I didn't even know you had a blog...I just knew the tweeter
Stephen Tatton@Pwnallthethings i'm out soon
Jacqueline Homan@Pwnallthethings I requested my archived data for download. I still didn't get it. As soon as I do, I'm deactivating my Twitter account. I refuse to contribute ANYTHING to fascists.
Andrea Marie@jacquelinehoman @Pwnallthethings it took about three days to get mine. I had been on Twitter since 2009.
@DaniPayson @Pwnallthethings I just requested mine yesterday. Meanwhile, I blocked both Musk and Trump so I don't have to see their nonsense before I leave for good.
@jacquelinehoman @Pwnallthethings I’ve had them both blocked for years. People not worth ever seeing, but now I don’t even want to go back to the bird site.
Foundling@jacquelinehoman @DaniPayson @Pwnallthethings excellent job taking care of your mental health and overall wellness
CarpeDiemT3ch 
@Pwnallthethings @jacquelinehoman make sure to unzip the file before you deactivate it since you need a Twitter account to initially access it
If you want to switch the files to a really readable format you can use this free resource to help https://github.com/timhutton/twitter-archive-parser
@CarpeDiemT3ch @Pwnallthethings Thanks for the heads up. Will do!
Dave 
🇺🇸🇺🇦@jacquelinehoman @Pwnallthethings Do you ever feel that, sure they're fascists, but only as long as fascism is profitable?
@heydaave @Pwnallthethings I think the profitability aspect is one factor, but I think a bigger one is power. Which is why fascists never stop on their own volition—they have to BE stopped. Hitler and Mussolini didn't stop just because fascism was no longer profitable. They stopped when enough people fought back and defeated them.
@heydaave @jacquelinehoman @Pwnallthethings myself never beacause I will always choose the side of human rights and equal rights over money.
Myrha Cheval 🦆@Pwnallthethings You said exactly everything I've been thinking and feeling for the last couple of weeks.
@Myrha @Pwnallthethings where is that from?
@Foundlingbythesea @Pwnallthethings
It's from Pwn's own article. It hit me as being incredibly cogent. https://mstdn.social/@Pwnallthethings@mastodon.social/109374733568920027
It's from Pwn's own article. It hit me as being incredibly cogent. https://mstdn.social/@Pwnallthethings@mastodon.social/109374733568920027
Pwnallthethings (@[email protected])
Twitter was special. But it's time to leave https://www.pwnallthethings.com/p/twitter-was-special-but-its-time
@Pwnallthethings Mastodon UI… sux.
They should go public and hire some ex Tweeps to work on it.
They should go public and hire some ex Tweeps to work on it.
mattlqx@soobin @Pwnallthethings open-source couldn’t be any more public.
@matt @Pwnallthethings I meant like IPO to get more funding so they can hire more designers and engineers etc.
Django
Carl Andreas Myrland
Roni Rolle Laukkarinen@soobin I disagree. Mastodon has much better UI than Twitter. @Pwnallthethings
Raider of the Lost Docs@soobin @Pwnallthethings Nobody is stopping you from writing your own client that works however you want it to. Mastodon is only a protocol, it's up to the user how they want to present it and interact with it.
@raider @Pwnallthethings yea im noob, i didnt realize it was open source. I thought it was a company.
Locksmith@raider @soobin @Pwnallthethings ok, but that gets Mastodon nowhere if the goal is to build a large community. The bulk of people do not want to write code, or cannot, to be able to use it smoothly. They just want to use it.
Just as Linux on the desktop, which however is happening for sure in 2023.
@locksmithprime @soobin @Pwnallthethings I think there's an opportunity for someone(s) to write a client that would be a lot easier to use for the masses. If I was going to create bird 2.0, that's what I would do, using Mastodon as the underlying protocol. But I'm not a front-end developer, so...
EvilGinger- Queen of Naps@Pwnallthethings Sadly, I can't delete my bird app account yet. Twitter is a point of contact- the only point of contact- I have for some extended family members in the UK and Europe, and for several contacts I have in my professional life.
They are not all here yet (and may not come here), so until other (more convenient than email) contact methods can be agreed upon and set up- my account there has to exist for a little while longer. 
Matt Blaze@Pwnallthethings well said, and reflects my own thinking almost exactly.
Clipper Chip 
@mattblaze @Pwnallthethings Yet, I want to watch while it burns down :)
aresPersonally I'm done. Not giving one dime for a blue check, or an ad impression, or an electric car.
But it strikes me that this is exactly what he wants.
Purging the site of lefties is easy when we all surrender the territory without a fight.
I've seen his texts from before the acquisition talking about buying the site to dewokeify it.
If your agenda is fash or right-libertarian or antidemocratic or mafia-state, what's better than to fragment and disperse the communications of your adversary?
Are we surrendering the territory too easily?
Bob Davidson@ares @mattblaze @Pwnallthethings
It’s only Elon’s territory (property). This is much better as a true “public square.”
Ben@ares @mattblaze @Pwnallthethings On Twitter, you're not the consumer, you're the product.
Twitter makes money off of selling ads. If you're on the site, you're supporting it.
@MeanestBossEver @ares @mattblaze @Pwnallthethings I cannot take the ads anymore. I kind feel that there is an ad-bubble bursting and that twitter might not be the only company go down. I disabled all notifications from snapchat because they kept harassing me as an example.
chaos 🏳️🌈@Pwnallthethings @mattblaze @MeanestBossEver @ares
imo, the ideal outcome now is for the platform to completely collapse so nobody can misuse it
but if it somehow survives all of us should leave — whatever remained would essentially become an echo chamber for the alt-right…
@rockfeels @Pwnallthethings @mattblaze @MeanestBossEver
That's my reflex and it shouldn't surprise me it's the fedi consensus too.
We'll all jump in life boats and paddle off to a thousand different destinations. Let them splash around in the cesspool they're busy filling with their own waste and disease.
It's like the book "Walkaway" by Cory Doctorow @pluralistic -- when they make our home toxic we can just "walk away" and make a new home.
And when they inevitably pursue us and wreck our new homes, we'll just "walk away" and rebuild again.
But it seems utopian to think that they'll somehow remain confined to their cesspool.
All that toxicity is going to poison us before they suffer any symptoms.
Maybe simply "walking away" feels good but it's probably not in our interest to let that shit keep multiplying.
Nathan Carpenter@ares @rockfeels @Pwnallthethings @mattblaze @MeanestBossEver @pluralistic "keep that shit from multiplying" - that's the crucial point in all of this. Twitter might devolve into an alt-right cesspool, but if it can't make money it will have a hard time growing and spreading.
@n8carp @rockfeels @Pwnallthethings @mattblaze @MeanestBossEver @pluralistic
True, though it's far from certain it can't make money.
Roughly speaking, they had $5 billion of revenue mostly from ads, and $5 billion of expenses, mostly people.
Then the new guy fired 90% of the contractors, fired 50% of the employees, and another 20% of the employees quit.
So expenses are probably less than half what they were, let's say $2.5 billion.
Ad spending will drop at least temporarily, at least until he can recruit the pillow and gold coin scammers from right-wing media.
Not gonna happen, but just for fun let's say 50% of ad spend also disappears.
He's still breakeven, $2.5 billion in both revenue and expenses.
Can he get 10% of active users to pay $8 a month to push their posts to the top of the fertilizer pile? That's $3 billion right there.
Now he can make his billion dollar annual interest on the debt and have $2 billion left over in free cash for settling lawsuits and shutting up whistleblowers.
SpeakerToManagers@n8carp @MeanestBossEver @pluralistic @mattblaze @ares @Pwnallthethings @rockfeels
He didn’t just get rid of a lot of engineers, he got rid of most of the institutional knowledge in the company. Not just the tech, that’ll take awhile to bite him in the ass but right now, bc the payroll dept.is gone and no one knows the passwords and the magic commands to cut checks.
He didn’t just get rid of a lot of engineers, he got rid of most of the institutional knowledge in the company. Not just the tech, that’ll take awhile to bite him in the ass but right now, bc the payroll dept.is gone and no one knows the passwords and the magic commands to cut checks.
John Shirley@ares @rockfeels @Pwnallthethings @mattblaze @MeanestBossEver @pluralistic Yes. And the upper atmosphere cannot be walled off. And the rivers connect with the oceans and the oceans meet. And toxics waft and flow. And pesticides and herbicides leach into the water table...and there's no escaping it really...they even toxify furniture and carpets...
Marcus Grant@ares @mattblaze @Pwnallthethings if he just purges the site of the left, they’ll lose the moderates too. This exactly what happens with every right wing site, the left leaves, the right act insane with little push back and form an echo chamber and eventually no one can tolerate their presence
garden center goth@ares @Pwnallthethings @mattblaze when “the territory” is a private company and not a collectively owned thing, it isn’t territory you will ever “win” unless you choose to become a capitalist anticapitalistically or some other impossibility, i think
@Pwnallthethings @ares @mattblaze here’s an analogy. in my early 20s my friends and i would “take over” a bar and crow about how we were the only ones there. like it was especially for our use due to our dominant numbers. but did we not fork over our money to the bartenders? and the owner of the bar? it was never our “territory,” it was a fun illusion
@mood @Pwnallthethings @mattblaze
Yeah, capitalist ownership of the means of production and communication is, like, the actual problem.
But is the solution to just give up without a struggle?
Here's another analogy. In high school I lived in a town with zero public space. Every space that appeared public wasn't actually owned by the public, it was owned by a corporation.
The malls, the parks, the gated communities, the riverwalk, the charter schools, every place was owned, surveilled and policed by a corporation.
Hanging out at any of these spaces without spending money was "loitering" or "trespassing".
Using these spaces to talk, or to plot, or to criticize the owner, or to protest was against the rules.
So did my friends and I "walk away" to our separate cul-de-sacs, divided and conquered?
We did not walk away. We stayed. We loitered. We trespassed. We spray painted the cameras. We posted lookouts. We evaded the security guards.
When you believe that their "ownership" of a space means you have to leave, you're thinking the way they want you to think.
Polywogy@ares @mattblaze @Pwnallthethings Twitter was valuable because a variety of people, institutions, and celebs were there. If people wanted to spout garbage to people who agreed with them, they’ve had several other options. If the lefties and the major corporations and the journalists and the elected officials leave, they won’t want it anymore.
@Polywog @mattblaze @Pwnallthethings
My baseline scenario is that the lefty vanguard leaves permanently, out of principle. That's maybe 2% of users at most, or 5 million people, mostly to the fediverse.
And a second group of lefty normies temporarily leave out of outrage, or just because it's the trending thing, maybe another 5% of users or 12 million people.
That number is split among fedi, substack, Instagram, blogs, etc.
But the vast majority of people remain to enjoy the spectacle.
70% of the second group of lefty normies eventually find their way back because their friends are there, it's fun and exciting, and this fedi stuff is too weird and difficult.
Then the Overton window shifts rapidly to the right, as the new owner releases the worst of the worst from jail, then tilts the algorithmic playing field, all while the lefty vanguard are ghosts.
Media and celebs stay because that's where the people are.
Unlikely it'll do the right thing and just implode from people leaving or systems failing.
The likely outcome is that it will continue operating and become the primary mechanism for promoting, organizing and celebrating the new antidemocratic order.
Xygoat the Inhaler@Pwnallthethings Yep. I'm dating myself but it actually reminds me of the transition from Myspace to Facebook, only hyper accelerated. The tipping point was friday. The orange stain being allowed back only sealed the birdsite's fate.
@Pwnallthethings And also, I've been telling others I interact with on Twitter about Mastodon and TribelSocial (I'm on both now, just have to finish setting up my Tribel profile). I also Blocked both Elon Musk and Donald Trump, too. Trump might be back on Twitter, but nobody has to see his or Elon's Tweets.
Iggy@Pwnallthethings Great piece
Emese@Pwnallthethings well said
JB Emmons@Pwnallthethings Great post. Also, "a blaze of angry tedium" is such a great summary of the hellsite today.
taco