Marcus Twichel 🦄💙
Steve TeixeiraI sincerely cannot understand why otherwise normal and thoughtful people/organizations continue to patronize X/Twitter. I literally quit my job as an exec at Twitter when it became clear Musk would take over the company, and the level of ineptitude and noxiousness today has dramatically exceeded what I thought would have been possible at the time.
jsj@stevetex Why do people watch train wrecks?
Sylvain
I AM BANKSY ☕ / 🗑🔥
Albert Sims@stevetex Cancelled my account there several months ago. Haven't missed it.
SamuelJohnson
imhensley@stevetex Yes, I quit Twitter the minute Musk took over. I knew that was it (although I am not famous and don't make money in it). Q
MamiyaMan 🇨🇦 🇺🇦@stevetex I deleted my account the day he took over. I sleep well at night.
Lesley Carhart 
@stevetex @DemocracyMattersALot leaving Twitter cost me about a quarter of my annual income. I still damn well did.
stochastic@stochastic @stevetex @DemocracyMattersALot it honestly took nothing but basic ethics, I wish I could claim more.
美少女战士@hacks4pancakes why your leaving will costs your money？
@neverxai77 because it was a key way for me to market my services. I had almost a quarter million followers.
@hacks4pancakes you really quit a lot,but I do believe that you gained much more important things which will nourish your life in the future
keith@stevetex i really scratch my head how some people who should know better stay there because it's where they get their soccer nuggets half-a-micro-second before the same news is blasted everywhere else. how does "i need to know what mal pugh (sorry, first name that came to mind) had for lunch today" override "i'm financially supporting someone who wants to harm me and/or people i love." 🤷
Sea Cow@keithpjolley @stevetex to be fair, i feel like most companies went to harm me and/or people i love
Dan Herbert@stevetex It's really hard to get people to switch platforms. Especially when it means leaving the people you enjoy following. The pitch to get everyone to bail and go somewhere else is a really hard sell. A lot of people's livelihoods depend on having an audience and switching means losing that.
disky@stevetex As a former Twitter exec, I'm sure you understand that it's about maintaining an audience for business purposes, but I agree. I really wish more people had the gumption to move on. The service under Musk's management is doing legitimate harm to the world and it needs to go.
Winter TrabexSome people aren't perceptive / insightful. Some people have difficulty adapting to change. Some people feel comfortable in patterns that no longer serve them.
Others see immediately what those some people do not; they are said to live in the future.
Garrett Wollman@stevetex People are far more likely to leave because the platform has turned to shit (which it has) than they are on account of which specific creepy sociopathic billionaire owns it.
@stevetex Last week I spoke to one of the communications team in our group about how toxic Twitter has become, and they are still on there because giving up that sweet, sweet engagement is hard. They'd never come here but are at least thinking about bsky. And a lot of the faculty and grad students don't have accounts on any other short-message platform, which makes it harder to plug their research. (Ideally they want to generate interaction, not just views.)
@stevetex It is also, in all honesty, asking a lot for a small social team to keep up with what is now eight different platforms (web, FB, IG/Threads, X, YT, TT, fedi/bsky/anything else), at least a couple of which are seriously PR unfriendly. (At least bsky has a usable global search.)
William Pietri@stevetex As a fellow former Twitter employee, I've been chewing on this too.
I think one important difference is that you and I have thought a lot more about Twitter's place in the world. But consider how you and I think about, like, grocery store chains. Or our city's water system. Or anything we use without much thought.
And then there are a lot of people who *can* think about this but don't because they're addicted. Mastodon for me is just not as compelling as Twitter. Overall that's great; my relationship with Mastodon is healthier. But it's less fun. So it's sort of like asking why smokers haven't quit.
I also think there are a bunch of people who either don't care about the harm Musk does or are enjoying it. As Adam Serwer says, the cruelty is the point.
I hope that helps!
Mark R. Stoneman
NCommander@stevetex because it's easier to keep your head down and fall in line: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
The migram experiment was originally convinced to study why people didn't take a stand in Nazi Germany, but what it found is most people (about 70%) will often times override their conscious and continue past the point to causing harm. Even in cases where the volunteers stopped delivering shocks, none said the experiment shoupd stop or checked on the victim
eanopolsky@stevetex I'm glad you were able to do what you knew to be right.
Separately, I'm going to leave this here:
Raindrops and Roses@stevetex @AnneTheWriter1 Because all the big companies, businesses, organizations are still there.
Defiance!@raindrops_and_roses @stevetex @AnneTheWriter1 Indeed. Twitter handles are still the default social account for most reporters, sportscasters, etc. when appearing on TV
Jons Mostovojs@stevetex one of my companies is still there because that's what marketing department wants, the other is no longer there and won't be tbecause
My marketing department & board may contain some fascists though. 😃
@stevetex I never even joined Twitter because at the time, I felt (no offense) that it was kind of a dumpster fire.
Now it's an entire landfill on fire, bleeding advertisers, revenue, and market value, but rather than do a course-correction to stop the burning, Musk has invested in a million gallons of lighter fluid and threw it on the fire.
I sincerely cannot understand why otherwise normal and thoughtful people think he's still a good businessman.
Rob Shimer@stevetex I have used twitter in months. I like the reverse timeline on twitter. Have not found a suitable replacement.
Erik MoellerPeople and organizations tend to look for signals that others like them are leaving. If those signals get loud enough, you get network effects. But few want to be "first" in their group, so groups stick around.
I've seen the most sustained migration off X in Germany, which is probably no surprise. (See https://bit.ly/eXit where I'm tracking major departures.)
The diversion of attention towards Threads and BlueSky doesn't help, of course. Fedi has quickly acquired a reputation as "too difficult", BlueSky is Diet Twitter, and Threads is just Mark Zuckerberg opening his arms and saying "welcome home".
The best we can do is keep building fedi and onboarding folks.
Jordi Rosell@eloquence @stevetex I think "too difficult to find people" it's a thing it could be improved and it's critical for a successful onboarding.
Tanuj Gupta@stevetex Apart from hateful content, there are some interesting content as well.
Peggy Stuart@stevetex I hate Twitter X now. I left after Spoutible opened up in April 2023, but I went back this past June to help amplify DemCast's election material. When I’m not needed there anymore, I’m out of there again.
David Nice@stevetex Hear, hear. Only yesterday I read that a nice PR I know (and like) was promoting her (sincerely held) Christian beliefs on there.
Tony Novak@stevetex Completely agree, yet am baffled that the large majority of my peer group in small business law and tax rely on the platform for primary real time community communications. Note that there is almost none of this on fediverse.
kiwiben@stevetex If you "sincerely cannot understand," the success of X/Twitter since you left, it's fortunate that you did not stay.
coldclimate@stevetex because they can't, or don't think they can, find the community they need to be successful, else where.
Because every news agency is there.
Because every government agency is there.
I don't need any of those things, but the FOMO is real for me too.
Because every news agency is there.
Because every government agency is there.
I don't need any of those things, but the FOMO is real for me too.
Art - US Expat in Spain@stevetex We're seeing the effects of spoiled and entitled people who think the world revolves around their little circle. If they have followers on Twitter, some of whom they know nothing about, it gives them a sense of power and worth which is as phony as it gets. I hope it's not too late when reality slaps these people in the head and their world collapses around them.
@stevetex could you be more specific ? I don't think it's enough to say "he's bad". It really sounds like resentment from being made redundant.
fbievan (Powered by Polymaths)@stevetex I never understood Twitter... It always seemed like being in a never ending hell.
Icono Clast@stevetex
My more than 19,000 Tweets and many memes have been obliterated. I had more than 500 followers. I believe all the content I created belongs to me.
My more than 19,000 Tweets and many memes have been obliterated. I had more than 500 followers. I believe all the content I created belongs to me.
Jennifer Moore 😷Because their friends and networks are there. And depending on what they rely on that for, and what resources & abilities they have available to replicate similar networks elsewhere, that can be a small problem to solve or a big big problem.
bowsamic@stevetex blows my mind that public services such as the Hamburg S Bahn are happy to have a face on there, and indeed, are only really accessible on there
Ylönën@stevetex For organizations it seems to be about the amount of "followers" on that (or any other) platform. Which at this point is stupid, because for all I know they might be bots or Xitter could be just making up numbers.
BronMason
Andreas Scherbaum@stevetex It doesn't affect those people ...
Aiono@stevetex
It's network gravity. Most people join to a platform only if there are people they already know in there Especially for non-English communities it's basically not possible to leave Twitter in my experience. If you choose it then you are simply alone.
It's network gravity. Most people join to a platform only if there are people they already know in there Especially for non-English communities it's basically not possible to leave Twitter in my experience. If you choose it then you are simply alone.
Mirishuli@stevetex Now you know how people were herded into the showers to gassed.