Twitter’s latest attack on their own users comes in the form of banning Substack embeds and disabling interactions with any tweet that even mentions a Substack page. The move could deal a huge blow to people who rely on their published work on Substack and Twitter for sharing that content… except Twitter already reversed course. It was a petty decision, likely authorized by a capricious, narcissistic, and authoritarian “Chief Twit,” Elon Musk. Just like how Musk temporarily (and erroneously) labeled NPR as “State-Affiliated Media.” What happened? Did he not like something they wrote, or was he just making large decisions without bothering to check the facts?
Twitter has an important role on the internet, it’s shouldn’t anymore. Twitter, as a platform, had become the way to get something out into the world. But under Musk, it has become a place that harbors hate and is a potential source for actual terrorism. Not just harassment on the platform, but actual bomb threats and violence.
Now it also goes after the very people who make the platform worth following. With that, I have to ignore my better journalistic notions for a moment, and throw any semblance of objectivity aside. Ditch Twitter, already, people.
There’s a better alternative for sharing your work, your thoughts, your news, photos, and stories. It’s open, as moderated as you choose it to be, safe, and distributed. Mastodon is right there, and it’s not as complicated to start as it might seem. In fact, just for this article, I created a Mastodon handle for Leaf and Core. It took under a minute. So, here’s how you can get started and finally take the power of Twitter away from a billionaire and stop worrying that one of his temper tantrums will find a new way to make Twitter worse.
Take the Power from Musk
Is Elon Musk the kind of person you want controlling a platform as important as Twitter? He took the verified checkmark from NY Times for questioning his decisions, and mislabeled NPR, leading to it withholding tweets. His immature and uninformed decisions have lead to the site losing key players, and, unsurprisingly, disenfranchise centrist or left-leaning sources of news. Musk has the power to influence what news you see, and hasn’t been reliable about that. Is Elon Musk the person you want curating your news?
Twitter has access to a lot of data from users and their interactions. Do you trust Musk with that information? The FTC certainly doesn’t. They’re investigating the company for potentially putting consumer data at risk. Others have criticized Twitter for not doing enough to protect users and children from abusive and exploitative material of children. Do you really want to support that?
Sure, you might still be able to get some industry news, share your views on sports, but do you really want to use a platform where someone can’t do the same because of their race, gender, sexuality, or religion? Do you want to give money or site traffic to a website where trans people aren’t safe? Where Black voices have to worry about harassment? Where antisemitism runs rampant? Is that what you want to associate yourself with?
I didn’t, so I left. You can too.
Signing Up for Mastodon
How to sign up for Mastodon:
- Find an instance that sounds interesting and features moderation you’re comfortable with.
(Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to explore any Mastodon instance!) - Sign up for that instance.
- Toot!
You know, “toot,” like a mastodon? An elephant? A pachyderm? Twitter’s bird tweets and mastodon’s toot! Hey, stop giggling!
So, you can squawk all you want on Twitter… for now. Maybe Musk will take your checkmark away. Maybe he’ll ban retweets on your account because you shared to a competitor. Or maybe you simply like contributing to a service that has invited Nazis and transphobes back with open arms, but pushed out the victims of their harassment. Whatever. But if you want something open, free, and helpful, there’s Mastodon, and I think you’re going to like it a lot more.
Just as soon as we can get more people tooting!
Okay, it is silly to say out loud.
Toot toot! 🐘
Sources and Further Reading:
- Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica
- Bill Chappell, NPR News
- Brian Fung, CNN
- Ben Goggin, Lora Kolodny, CNBC, and David Ingram, CNBC
- Taylor Lorenz, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Peter Jamison, The Washington Post
- Emma Roth, The Verge