1/2 I have deactivated my account on Twitter (X), which began in 2007. Under Elon Musk, Twitter has not only decided to stop blocking bigots and liars and pro-insurrectionists, it has actively welcomed them, with apparent support from Mr. Musk.
2/2 I had already cut my participation there by 90%. But Musk’s latest move, to threaten to ban and sue the ADL - to the delight of antisemites and other haters - is the last straw for me.
@jake4480@Elapsed@cmsj@waltmossberg
Halted all participation on 4th of November 2022 apart from deleting posts. I am strongly allergic to narcissistic bosses who bully and mistreat their employees so that first week of layoffs and publicly demeaning staff who called out his factually incorrect tweets was enough for me.
it is ethically unacceptable, imho, to stay on Twitter.
Just like we can demonstrate coherence even just by shopping, I think everyone should seriously ask themselves whether to continue to contribute their value to an immature, egotic, cheater, racist, amoral, misogynist dictator's crony.
@Raccoon@quinta No, not in my book. Every post there, regardless of content, is contributing something to the Nazis, bigots, conspiracy theorists, anti-semites, pro-insurrections and so forth. But you have to decide for yourself what’s ethical or moral for you.
I don't see a major benefit to Elon from me slipping over occasionally to promote Fedi, especially since I don't pay or click ads, but growing Fedi is a benefit to society in general, so... I guess we'll agree on goals and disagree on methods?
a MASTODON coin spins on one end features a glowing eyed elephant and the words MASTODON 2023 on one side, and #FriendsOfJohn on the other Made in Blender.
@waltmossberg great decision! The last straw for me has been his recent statement on why he did not allow Ukraine to use Starlink. He is a dangerous guy who got way too much power thanks to subsidized businesses.
I'm dissapointed by the number of distinguished journalists that continue to use #Twitter
What do you think is the greatest barrier for a #journalist to leave Twitter? Abandoning a substantial following? Losing a breaking news platform and being slow to a new story? Something else?
@mnutty Both. But many journalists have now set up accounts on Threads. They’re not as active there as on Twitter, but they are increasingly branching out.
@waltmossberg@mnutty With Threads also being a private-owned platform, have you heard any concerns about locking themselves into such an environment again?
@waltmossberg@mnutty Is part of the problem that journalists now see corporations as their friend, partner and protector so seek that slickness and perceived safety in social media?
@waltmossberg I have no opinion about Threads, I only know, as a person living in Europe, I can't get on that network to read people who decided it would be their only place to go to. I know they probably don't care much unfortunately.
@waltmossberg
I think that journalists underestimate their power in driving people to one site or another. If journalists from major outlets move en masse to Mastodon, the public will follow.
IMO every major news org should have a Mastodon instance, just like they have a domain name. @mnutty
@waltmossberg This speaks volumes, Walt. X is indeed a cesspool and your leadership here will have a big impact.
This is an existential moment for the web and the concept of open standards like #ActivityPub
Thankfully @Gargron has labored for years to create a viable approach that could form the foundation for an open social web. And many here are working to make the user experience simpler and more approachable for mainstream users.
Your presence on @Mastodon is incredibly important now.
@mike@Gargron@Mastodon Thanks, Mike. I’ve been on Mastodon quite awhile, as you know. But I rarely used it, because (a) it can be confounding to use (yes, I can figure it all out, but you know I favor things average folks can grok quickly) and (b) content moderation matters hugely to me and I need to know what the policies are for multiple servers and who is responsible….
@mike@Gargron@Mastodon …here’s an example of the complexity here: I just tried to react to a post about my leaving Twitter, and was met with a big notice saying I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t logged into the server where it lived. I thought all the posts and replies were interchangeable among servers.
@waltmossberg@mike@Mastodon I appreciate the feedback. The notice doesn't say you can't, it tells you how to do it. That notice has been reworked in the latest beta, as visible on mastodon.social—curious to know if you'd consider that an improvement.
@Gargron@mike@Mastodon I’ll let you know what I think when I see it. I don’t use betas. But, just by your description, it sounds like a chore. Please understand I’m not denigrating all your hard work here, but after 27 years of reviewing tech products for average people, I react poorly to requiring instructions for simple tasks. Are conversations and reactions here between people on different servers interchangeable or not?
@waltmossberg@Gargron@mike@Mastodon The reason that you get that message is that the server you clicked on can't open the server that you can reply on. Only you, the user, can do that.
It is as if you tried to block an email from an email server by telling the server to block that user from sending you emails, only to be told that actually, you'll have to do that on your own server.
The user experience of the text could be much improved - I was deeply confused the first dozen times.
@waltmossberg@mike@Mastodon Yes. Your account is on mastodon.world. You are conversing with me, whose account is on mastodon.social, and Mike, whose is on flipboard.social. Totally separate infrastructure, but your post just pops up in my notifications.
@Gargron@mike@Mastodon So then why did I get that big ugly notice before? I can’t recall to whom I was trying to respond or what server they were on. As you can imagine, I’m getting a lot of traffic from people I don’t know or follow because of my decision to ditch Twitter. I assume I can easily respond to any of them.
@waltmossberg@Gargron
Having used Mastodon for several months, my experience: It lacks the Twitter rush of virality & feel of all being in one "place." By far the biggest bump was what Eugen said: I'd follow someone from my "federated" timeline to their account on another instance, reply to a post & get bonked. After a few times, the steps to follow them on my instance & reply there became second nature. It does have a bit of a 1992-Usenet feel to it. People will respond differently to that.
@nnscott@waltmossberg How does it happen for you? You have to deliberately click on "Open original page" in the dropdown of a post to land on another website from any part of the app. I would have imagined that most people land on the wrong website through links shared on other channels like Telegram or Discord, not their Mastodon interface.
@Gargron@nnscott@waltmossberg I encounter this regularly when I try to follow someone new whose post has been boosters into my timeline. Using the web interface, I click on the user name and am taken to the foreign web site. As far as I know I'm not clicking on "open on original page".
If this isn't what is supposed to happen, I'll pay closer attention next time to record the details
@Gargron@nnscott@waltmossberg It happened to me multiple times when someone add a link to another post on another instance inside his own post (as a workaround to quote someone else toot). when you click the link (or the preview) you are sent to the original poster website that can be another instance. There you get the banner if you want to interact with him. I have to admit I was a bit surprised by that at the begining.
@Gargron@nnscott I appreciate all the advice about third-party apps for Mastodon that smooth over its complexities. But why should they be necessary? I’m on an iPad, using the app named “Mastodon for iPhone and iPad”, just like I use the app named, say, “LinkedIn”. I am sure that most mainstream folks would do the same. Is this not the official, default app? If so, it should support all features seamlessly. Alternate apps should be an option, not a necessity.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott I think the official Mastodon app is adequate for what it does. But I found that 3rd party apps provided better feature sets so that's the direction I and many others headed. It's kind of like how people preferred to use Tweetdeck (and similar apps) to access Twitter in the pre-Musk era.
@StanWonn@Gargron@nnscott I get the comparison to Tweetdeck. But the official (pre-Musk) Twitter app handled everything you’d want to do, just not at the speed or scale of Tweetdeck. The helpful folks here who are recommending third party apps seem to be saying they overcome basic problems with using the default app, if I understand correctly.
I struggled to grasp everything at the beginning too, but the 3rd party apps reminded me SO MUCH of the early days of Twitter where I was using Tweetbot on my iPhone 5.
I'm using a third party app exactly because it makes the experience more like old Twitter.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott Curiosity is a rare commodity the further some journalists have to venture away from the monetizable aspects of access brokerage that arise from learning and reporting about commercial "silicon valley" ventures.
@waltmossberg@Gargron Yes, the goal should always be a smoother experience and consistency on all platforms, but let’s remember that Twitter’s official app is horrific compared to its now defunct third party clients. Instagram doesn’t even have an iPad or Mac app. To say that Mastodon’s official app should work seamlessly everywhere is a great goal, but has any other social media service truly achieved that? Let alone one with such a small team?
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott I get your point but the beauty of mastodon that it alows you to use 3 party apps if you don’t like the main one where if you don’t like LinkedIn app to bad that’s the only one . You are not the mainstream user you are tech reporter so try ivory mammoth ice cube and have fun :)
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott First, Walt, congrats on ditching Xitter. I post my Chronicle column there, don't engage, but I'm also thinking of kill the account.
Re: 3rd party apps. On principle, you shouldn't have to use them. But practically, they are much better than the official app, and make it a better experience - just as 3rd party apps improved the Twitter experience.
Did you use a 3rd party app when Xitter was Twitter and allowed them?
@dsilverman@Gargron@nnscott Yes, Tweetdeck when I was at the height of my career handling high volumes of Tweets. But that was a matter of scale and speed, not hiding confusing interconnection issues.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott I’d make the case that Twitter rarely had the best in class app and a lot of what we take for granted with Twitter started with the 3rd party apps. While the official Mastodon apps are doing their best, they’re not the “one true definition” of what the Mastodon experience can and should be and it just so happens several 3rd party apps are just being more adventurous at finding solutions. Eventually the best ideas will stick, it’s all evolving quickly.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott You just found the difference between a community driven open source project and a multi billion dollar company backed app
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott You don’t have to. The default app works fine, IMO. But, much like how in the early days of Twitter a lot of folks preferred the feature-rich TweetDeck to the official Twitter app, many Mastodon users like to use alternative apps that offer things like post quoting. (I use @IceCubesApp .)
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott@Developmentdoc I am glad that the most respected tech journalist in the world is addressing the UX aspects of Mastodon. I am an MD, just looking to exchange scientific information with colleagues. I do not see why I should become an IT expert just to do that. But when a normal person like me points this out, one is treated like an ignoramus. I hope that Walt‘s voice will be more respected.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott The first party app for Mastodon is pretty good but to be fair, Mona and Ivory are still much better and personally I hadn’t used the Twitter app since TweetBot initially came out. And I wouldn’t let the FB or LinkedIn apps touch my devices with a 10ft pole, lol.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott valuable insight from Mr. Mossberg. At the end of the day if Mastodon wants to expand more mainstream, then concessions need to be made to simplify use and onboarding (work has happened already, thanks!). If only there were a layered approach to onboarding and features, so that a non tech savvy family member who is familiar with Twitter could be comfortable and not overwhelmed, while power users could still flex.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott Your point is fair, but you might be thinking you “need to” use a third-party app, where others are see it as “get to.” The appeal for many of us is in the choices.
The official app is an example of how Mastodon can be, but it’s not the experience everyone wants, and that’s ok.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott Great point! That said, my account got so much easier to use when I logged in via Mammoth instead of Mastadon (App not website) ... I’m amazed it’s not the default. I recommend it now to all my friends coming over from twitterverse. #mastodon
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott If you wound up in a web sheet (embedded browser) inside the app, it would have the same issue that @Gargron is discussing with using a browser directly. I've only hit the issue you're discussing when I am on a web page (including one embedded in an app). The trick is for the app not to use the embedded browser when it can display a post in the app itself; it's possible there's a case where the official app doesn't do that and wound up in a web sheet.
@waltmossberg
Gargron is doing all this on a tiny budget. If he had the resources I'm sure that official Mastodon would be way more feature rich. We are still in the early days of Mastodon in many ways and that's pretty cool because we keep getting new stuff that improves the user experience and that's fun. You are right, that's probably not what Mainstream folks want but it is a Work In Progress.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@nnscott I think you miss the point. Apps provide things not in the basic app provided by mastodon and may never be. Mastodon, to me, is a server product that has a basic Web and phone app. Not sure those apps were ever meant to be all encompassing. And how is mastodon so complex for super smart folks like you? ;-)
@waltmossberg@mike@Mastodon Presumably you opened a post on its original website, which was not the same website where your account is. That website has no idea who you are. The notice gives you a pointer how to open the same post in your own website where you are logged in. You can navigate to mastodon.social and try interacting with any post to see what the new notice looks like.
That message instructs you to copy the URL into the search field on the server you are logged into (copy button provided). That brings up the post on your server. Now you can interact with that post to your heart's content (reply, boost, favorite).
Follow that account if you wish to interact with that user in the future without taking those steps.
A few extra steps, but once you are comfortable with how the distributed service works, it's easy-peasy.
@digginjazz@waltmossberg@Gargron even after you get used to it, it is not as easy-peasy as simply interacting with the content on the site where you are viewing the content.
Of course, you are correct. I could site several oddities about Masto that require workarounds. But IMO, life is full of trade-offs and the respectful dialogue, no advertising or sponsored posts, no data collection, no algorithm dictating what or who you see make my Mastodon experience a joy.
I too have dropped my X account and no longer post to FB or IG.
@Gargron@waltmossberg@mike@Mastodon there really needs to be a better solution here than ‘type your URL’. I don’t know what that is - some sort of identity cookie that does a redirect?
It’s much better in ‘apps’, like ivory, when you have it bounce into the app using universal links / extension.
@waltmossberg@Gargron@mike@Mastodon I use a third-party client on android and it smooths out a number of mastodon wierdnesses. And I get QTs! Fyi: it's called megalodon
@Gargron@waltmossberg@mike@Mastodon I’m a bit mystified by this - I react to toots from users on other instances all the time and have never seen anything like this. What triggers it?
It's made worse by the fact that Mastodon doesn't seem to let instance admins change the appearance very much. It's very easy to get confused and think you're on your own instance because they are all grey and purple.
@waltmossberg@mike@Gargron@Mastodon
If something pops up in my feed, i seem to have no problem reacting to it regardless of the server. But occasionally, if I try and react to a reply in someone to elses post, who is on a different server, i get the notification that I have to be signed into that server.
Am I imagining this or is the denial more random than that?
@waltmossberg@Gargron I just love this thread! Seeing Walt and Eugen conversing about a major friction point on Mastodon reminds me of all the times Walt gave Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and numerous other product leaders direct and unflinching feedback about their products. Walt is the ultimate test of whether a product is ready for mainstream audiences or not. The points he raises here are critical to address. Fair or not, it only takes one bad experience to earn a reputation as "too hard to use".
@mike@waltmossberg@Gargron totally right - his bad experience does seem a bit unfortunate, as communication on Mastodon between servers is pretty seamless. Yes you can click to others' home server pages where you're not logged in, but actually quite hard to do unless there was a link to it.
Your point well made though. The easiest thing to say to a new thing = no thanks, too hard, and then leave. Hope doesn't happen here.
@gpollara@waltmossberg@Gargron Totally. I love when Eugen pointed out that this was a conversation happening on three (and now four!) completely different servers. That is a remarkable technical achievement even though there are still some cracks in the UI which I know we will collectively address in the coming months.
@mike@waltmossberg@Gargron yes that's a v good point - it's actually pretty amazing how well it does all work.
The other limitation this conversation addresses, personally, is threading. If read on the main Mastodon website, it is v hard to follow who's replied to who, etc... Thankfully there are multiple apps and websites that handle this better, but Walt is correct these should be options to use, not essential to accomplish a core social network conversation function.
@waltmossberg@mike@Gargron@Mastodon I've never had that happen, ever.. I'm going to be slightly uncharitable, but the official mobile app can be less than good. I'd pick one of the great third party apps and go from there. I hear Ivory is good for IOS and I use Tusky for Android. I literally interact with hundreds of people a, day across disperate servers. Not that you're a rookie but I send this to my new users.
@waltmossberg don't you fear someone might open an accoutn with your name there and impersonate you? Personally (but I'm a no-one really) I'm keeping mine active and not used. I hope one day Elmo will get tired and sell twitter.
@waltmossberg Twitter has always been the home of hateful groups. The entire format incentivizes it. You still have to fear holding a different viewpoint than the moderators. The thing that did change is the political leaning of the moderators, but even that hasn't changed all that much.
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