It’s been a very busy day today so I just have time to test out the new “Bluesky embed” feature on WordPress. That means I can share a selection of my very best shitposts directly here. Try this one:
It seems to work on some browsers but not others. How is it for you?
I noticed this morning that the Guardian has decided no longer to post on X, the far-right propaganda outlet formerly known as Twitter. Since Elon Musk’s takeover the site has become increasingly toxic; see this post from months ago.
As I have explained before, I left Twitter/X at the end of August 2023 and haven’t looked back. The above image is appearing more and more frequently around the world of social media. Many of my friends and colleagues have quit too, most of them setting up accounts on Bluesky and/or Mastodon. I have noticed a particularly significant influx of new followers on Bluesky. I don’t have as many followers there as I did on Twitter, but the quantity and quality of engagement is higher.
It’s not just the systematic amplification of hateful tweets from a variety of antisocial bigots, nor the reinstatement of noxious individuals previously banned for such conduct, nor the deluge of porn bots and other automated gibberish nor the scrapping of virtually all forms of moderation. It’s also that Elon Musk himself has used his own site to endorse explicitly anti-semitic conspiracy theories. Everyone who puts anything on Twitter nowadays is providing revenue that feeds this maelstrom of hate. How a decent individual can in good conscience remain on that site is beyond me.
But that’s not the point of this post. Virtually every public institution I know – including universities – continues to maintain a presence on Twitter/X for self-promotion despite that platforms deliberate and sustained violation of what purport to be their institutional values. Only a small number of institutions have acted according to their own ethics by quitting Musk’s platform, including the University of Luxembourg. Those still on, including my employer, are, in my opinion, displaying gross hypocrisy.
Why are so many universities still supporting Twitter/X? I suppose it may be because many of them have specifically employed staff to broadcast news about themselves on this platform and without it they’d have nothing to do. That’s not a very good argument, in my opinion. I’m sure other bullshit jobs can be found. Another possibility, of course, is that they just don’t care. Given the prevalence of toxic management in higher education these days, this may well be the real reason. Whatever the reason I find it deeply shaming to be working for an institution that is still happy to tout for trade in a neo-Nazi chatroom.
Any institution worried that there is no viable alternative to Twitter/X should consider setting up on the Fediverse. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, for example, already has its own Mastodon instance. The advantage of the Fediverse is that the owners of each server can apply their own policies. I’d like to see a future in which all universities, national agencies, and other public research institutions, set up their own Mastodon instances instead. That would create a very exciting environment for the exchange of news and information which would be a more than adequate replacement for academic Twitter/X.
I posted last month about how I’ve been faring on social media since I left Twitter. That piece included this:
The first thing I noticed was that my BlueSky account was suddenly getting quite a lot of new followers. I now have about 850, still a long way short of the over 7000 I used to have on Twitter, but the level of engagement is far higher.
Well the exodus from Twitter seems to be accelerating and I now have 1.2K followers on BlueSky including more than a few old contacts I left behind on Twitter. The total number of users of BlueSky has now passed 10 million, which led to this message which I received last week.
I’m quite proud of being among the pioneering 1% of Bluesky users. The Open Journal of of Astrophysics is also there among the first 10%:
I hope this message prompts a few more to take the plunge. I’ll also take this opportunity to reiterate my opinion that it is indefensible for my employer, along with most other universities, to maintain a presence on Twitter.
I’ve seen quite a few articles (such as this one on LinkedIn) by academics lamenting the terminal decline of the website formerly known as Twitter, so I thought I’d add my thoughts. I come to bury Twitter, not to praise it.
I joined Twitter in 2009 or thereabouts. Over the years, I accumulated around 7300 followers. Not an enormous number by any standards, but a reasonable one. I used the platform only partly for academic matters. I found it in turns amusing and annoying. I dealt with the latter aspect largely through liberal use of the block facility. I admit I found the recreational aspect mildly addictive.
In recent times, however, Twitter (or X as we’re now supposed to call it) has turned to shit. Since Elon Musk took over, users are basically silenced unless they pay for a blue tick, the social media equivalent of buying a megaphone for use in a library. The API that allowed me to post there from WordPress was axed, which was an additional pain. Add the constant stream of promoted tweets and other ads to the deluge of unmoderated bigotry, and the result is unbearable.
I deleted my Twitter account completely at the end of August and haven’t looked back. Since I’d spent a lot of time there, a number of friends expressed scepticism that I’d manage to do it cold turkey like that, but it was no problem, and I have no withdrawal symptoms.
I now much prefer Mastodon, where I’ve had an account for about a year. I have just over a thousand followers there, just one seventh of the number I had on Twitter, but much higher levels of engagement. More importantly, it’s far more civilized. I’ve only had to block one person. WordPress has also introduced an autopost to Mastodon, so every blog post I write appears there automatically.
I have also joined BlueSky. This site is still in development and, for the time being, is by invitation only, so is rather quiet. In recent weeks, however, I’ve noticed quite a large number of astronomers arriving there, so it is an interesting place to be. I have some spare invites, actually…
Just say no to Twitter. It’s not worth it.
In the Dark 