Mostly on Mastodon

I'm mostly on Mastodon now (I'm @hdv). What I mean by that I try and keep up with what people share on their Mastodon timeline and no longer do so on Twitter.

In the past weeks, I've gone to “mostly Mastodon” from “partially Mastodon and partially Twitter”. I did join a Twitter Space and still post every now and then, but it feels increasingly uncomfortable. I also monitor DMs, but will give out iMessage/LINE/Signal info to any mutual who wants a better way to contact me.

I wrote about reasons to leave Twitter earlier, new reasons pile up:

• a lot of the people I care about are now on Mastodon or stopped posting on Twitter (yay)
• quality matters more than quantity
• Mastodon has open ways to syndicate your content (it's been long since Twitter had open APIs)
• Twitter is mostly ChatGPT screenshots these days anyway (only partially kidding)
• the new owner tweets a lot about “woke” as if it is a bad thing
• the new owner doesn't seem to understand basic concepts like truth and free speech, but, and this is my main issue, continues to make bold claims about them, while running and making decisions about Twitter
• the new owner spreads misinformation including about public health, again, while running and making decisions about Twitter

So, I'm mostly not spending time on Twitter.

I'm mostly on Mastodon, instead. What does that mean? I post there primarily and only occassionally (and manually) cross-post to Twitter. I consciously choose Mastodon when engaging with cross-posted tweets, sometimes this means looking up a toot-version of a tweet, which is a bit of a nuisance, but fine. I've put my Mastodon presence on slide decks instead or in addition to Twitter, and added it to the footer of posts.

Maybe you wonder why I don't just go, why I share all this? Touché. Well, it's been a non trivial decision for me, after decades on Twitter and making lots of connections there, the start of many professional and not-so-professional relationships and friendships. I can imagine it's the same for you. If you're reading this and are still mostly on Twitter, may I ask you to consider spending more time on Mastodon? It isn't as hard to use as sceptics make it out to be. Together we impact which place is more worthwhile.