Augie RayFeb 18, 2023

Twitter users: OMG, the #birdsite isn't working.

And: OMG, Musk is charging for 2-factor authentication now!

And: OMG, Musk is amplifying right-wing misinformation!

And: OMG, Musk is hanging with Rupert Murdoch!

And: OMG, abuse is rampant on Twitter now!

Also Twitter users: Here are another hundred tweets creating thousands of engagements that improve Musk's ad revenue.

You're not “fighting a good fight” on #Twitter. You're just helping Elon Musk win!

Show threadDreaFeb 18, 2023
@augieray I get that people have built communities on Twitter but why keep your community on a platform that can be pulled out from under you at any moment based on the whims of some narcissistic billionaire?
Show threadPēteris KrišjānisFeb 18, 2023
@andricheli @augieray if someone can't move on from platform they built on, it was never "their community" to begin with.
Show threadCautionWIP 🎃+🇨🇦+🏳️‍🌈= Feb 18, 2023
@peteriskrisjanis @andricheli @augieray I think that’s a fairly simplistic and frankly privileged attitude. For all its flaws (and there are SO MANY), Twitter enabled the location by members of marginalized communities of each other, and a platform that made the rapid exchange of information and community networking/mobilization possible in a way that no other platform ever had. They are understandably loathe to lose that agent of empowerment.
Show threadWilliam Fonseca 🌲🌲Feb 19, 2023
@cautionwip @peteriskrisjanis @andricheli @augieray Mastodon algo can do it, on reality any other platform can do it (Tik tok (unless you live in US, because the moderation and algorithm is runned by another business not bytedancer), Telegram, Mastodon. But twitter addicted users refuse to leave twitter and use another platform and still fighting like Children
Show threadCautionWIP 🎃+🇨🇦+🏳️‍🌈= 
@Williamfonseca @peteriskrisjanis @andricheli @augieray I’m not saying that’s not the reality in some cases, but I also think there are a fair number of people with reasonable factors keeping them there. Also, there is no Masto algorithm. It’s entirely self-curated and any virality is organically generated.
Feb 19, 2023 at 3:20amWeb
Show threadWilliam Fonseca 🌲🌲Feb 19, 2023
@cautionwip @peteriskrisjanis @andricheli @augieray My criticize is for the people who keep insisting in use twitter over the argument that there is no other option, but in the reality we are no longer in 2010s where we only have Twitter and Facebook, we are living the age of the multiple networks, the people who keep insisting in the argument that they keep in that because there is no other option is only doing it because is addicted in its algorithm and the confusion that it causes.
Show threadWilliam Fonseca 🌲🌲Feb 19, 2023
@cautionwip @peteriskrisjanis @andricheli @augieray Example: I live in Brazil, and here twitter never was a very influential plataform, the most used app here nowdays are Facebook 💀, Tik Tok, Kwai, Halo, Instagram and Telegram, twitter was most used for consume erotic content, gossip and defamation (because the other platforms have more harder moderation against it now), and we never needed the twitter have our voices hear, the LGBTQ community achieve their goals using most Tik Tok and instagram
Show threadCautionWIP 🎃+🇨🇦+🏳️‍🌈= Feb 19, 2023
@Williamfonseca @peteriskrisjanis @andricheli @augieray I hear what you’re saying, but TikTok and Instagram are very different media formats compared to Twitter, which is more text based. For many people (I include myself) communicating through video and image isn’t really a workable format. Some folks prefer text. Again:not saying Twitter is good, just that some have good reason to grit their teeth and keep using it.
Show threadDreaFeb 19, 2023

@Williamfonseca @cautionwip @peteriskrisjanis @augieray Interestingly, for all the attention it gets, Twitter isn’t nearly as widely used as other social media platforms. It has certainly resulted in some active communities and political attention, but by the numbers it doesn’t have nearly the reach as the other platforms.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

Biggest social media platforms by users 2025| Statista

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube are the most popular social networks worldwide, each with at least 2.5 billion active users.

Statista
Show threadPēteris KrišjānisFeb 19, 2023
@andricheli @Williamfonseca @cautionwip @augieray Twitter has always had this "there are so many politicians and journalists" vibe, which given, can make it feel like sort of "global market place of ideas". But in same time, people have tendency to overestimate importance of the platform at larger scale. One could argue that it is same for all other social platforms.
Show threadPēteris KrišjānisFeb 19, 2023
@andricheli @Williamfonseca @cautionwip @augieray that's why more personal or professional arguments about importance of specific platform resonates more. Number of people in general is guesswork and prone to be speculative/fake/overblown due of goals of companies. Reach might be better argument.
Show threadDreaFeb 19, 2023
@peteriskrisjanis @Williamfonseca @cautionwip @augieray I agree; that overestimation has been much more extreme with Twitter given the presence of journalists and politicians on the platform. But if a platform is going to be consequential and important in media and politics, it is imperative that it’s not owned and controlled by a narcissistic billionaire who makes decisions based on whims.
Show threadPēteris KrišjānisFeb 19, 2023
@andricheli @Williamfonseca @cautionwip @augieray I agree on that. That's why I am 90% of the time on Mastodon - for all it's faults, federation is a way to go.