After giving it some thought, and despite it going against my personal creed that all information should be accessible to all people at all times, I have bitten the bullet, downloaded my account data, and closed down my travel Twitter account. I’m still keeping my personal account open for now as there are lists of people I like to periodically check upon, but I’ve known for some time that while my travel account there has more followers than anywhere else on any social media platform, it’s also had pretty much zero engagement. People don’t use it to search for information. They click the like or retweet when they haven’t even checked if the link goes anywhere or contains something useful because they want to say “Hey, I’m here” not “Hey, I liked what you wrote”. Twitter’s not really a place for engagement any longer. The big accounts use it to link to something else they can get credit or click-throughs or advertising or ego boosts from. The small accounts spam, troll, or act like sycophants. But true engagement is fleeting, and the horrible algorithms there that promote the sort of things to keep you engaged do so at the expense of all the other things you’d likely love to see but it deems are less money-generating for its own purposes. I mean, I get it, it is a business. But it’s not really social media.
So, just a quick update this time around. No more travel Twitter. I’m having far more fun on Mastodon and other services within the Fediverse. I love the inclusiveness and push towards accessibility. I love the less doom-and-gloom in general but that the deeper chats about politics or tech are there if I want. I talk to people on many subjects. I share posts on many topics. I read articles about all manner of things. I join in with loads of the daily hashtags. I don’t expect the travel people I know to ever give up on Twitter and switch because for the majority, Twitter is a means to a financial or beneficial end, and the Fediverse will simply mute or block people spamming their own content and not engaging or sharing others; I hate to say it, but selfishness and egos are massive among the Twitter and Instagram crowd and Mastodon’s really not for most of them. Not everyone, though. Not you, not if you’re reading this. You’re lovely.
Normal blog posting with normal updates will resume soon.
In the meantime, a link to some Twitter-related reading and a prediction of when and why Musk will file for bankruptcy (here’s hoping it’s correct): https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/how-long-does-twitter-have-left