First Time Tooter, Long Time Tweeter

Joe Steel, Writing on his self-titled blog:

In conversations I’ve had over the past week, it’s become clear that there’s nothing very self-explanatory about Mastodon as a social network, and that in many ways Twitter users are both prepared and unprepared for the experience.

With the state of things at Twitter the company and with Twitter the service, I'd be remiss if I didn't think about moving to a new social network. The idea of going completely dark doesn't seem like the right choice for me, but I'm not enjoying Twitter as much as I used to anymore. This was true before they #BrokeMyTwitter, but it's even more so now that some of the features I enjoyed – like activity and certain notifications – are no longer part of the apps that I use. I loathe the Twitter app, so it's just a horrible experience for me now.

Even though I have no idea what the hell Mastadon is all about, I did end up signing up for an account. I was able to get one on mastadon.social, under the same handle as my Twitter. I haven't "tooted" a single thing yet,^[1] and I'm not sure when I'll start. But I'm glad that Joe has taken the time to write an explainer. I have a much better understanding of what is going on with all of it than I did before, all parsed down to a single post.

The idea of leaving Twitter – one of the largest social networks on the planet – isn't really the answer I'm looking for with all of this. I'm looking for Twitter to take a stand against wrong-doing. I'm looking for them to curtail abuse and the spread of misinformation. I'm looking for them to improve their app experience, while simultaneously not being a dick to the developer community that made them who they are today. They need to be better, and everyone who uses (not abuses) the service deserves that too. But unless there are some major changes ahead, it doesn't hurt to have one foot in another door.