The practical problem for me about leaving Twitter. [View all]

[Tommy Carcetti]

Don't get me wrong. I do want to leave Twitter. I really, really, really want to leave Twitter.

I didn't really even like Twitter that much before Musk bought it and turned it into the Big Dumb X. I always was frustrated by its character limits and pandering to bad syntax. But on the other hand, it was such an excellent resource to keep ahead of breaking events and people's basic takes on just about every subject imaginable. So I gave in, and once I gave in, my usage of it has been pretty much daily.

Then Musk bought Twitter and what was already bad became infinitely worse.

But here's the thing--my usage for Twitter is only partly political. I also like to chime in on movies, sports, and any other subject under the sun for Twitter.

So now you have a lot of politically minded folk wanting--for very good reason--to migrate from Twitter to another platform not owned by a reprehensible person. Right now it seems Blue Sky is the alternate forum of choice. Before that it was Threads and before that, Mastadon.

But these people basically range exclusively from moderate to left politically, and their content is almost always political.

So it's not like a lot of non-political feeds I follow on Twitter are migrating to Blue Sky.

And I'll be completely honest--part of the appeal of Twitter is to occasionally to stick it to the man. Curse out or mock--say--Don Jr. on something stupid he posted. Or maybe Stephen Miller. Or--you get the idea.

No, they aren't likely reading it, but it's incredibly cathartic. It feels really good--like a truth to power moment just to tell Donald Trump "Fuck you" on his own Twitter feed.

And none of these guys are moving to Blue Sky, either.

So I'd migrate to Blue Sky (or whatever the Twitter alternative of the month is) and I'll follow all my political feeds there...but it would feel empty. Like an echo chamber. I'd just be re-affirming the views I already hold. And face it--I already have that here at DU, and it's a hell of a lot more fun to do that here than on Twitter or some similar social media platform.

Essentially, what I need is for Twitter to collapse on its own...and then whatever alternative rises from its ashes that everyone--political, non-political, left, right, etc.--join that when it happens.