Cognition Dissemination: Beyond the Twitterverse

There’s been an unsurprising rise in Twitter alternatives following Elon Musk’s completed purchase of the platform in November 2022, whose tenure as its head has been just as inane and dangerous as expected. Musk’s decisions have been dumber than any of those from preceding Twitter executives, the worst among them being the pushing of Twitter Blue as a need to take full advantage of the platform, including it soon being mandatory to use TweetDeck. His appointment of Linda Yaccarino as CEO has made and will make no difference, who will remain a useful figurehead to try and woo back advertisers driven away.

This is only getting worse at a rapid pace, and last weekend’s rate limits were the tipping point for several users like me to finally get off their virtual asses to start looking and signing up for alternatives.

The top candidate for me was Mastodon, which came highly recommended by our own Angela Moseley for several months. I followed her guide to sign up for the service, which was easy enough. It was only until I stepped into the main, starting Mastodon server that I placed my hands on the side of my head with confusion like Psyduck. Mastodon, you see, has multiple instances for which users can join, with the main server merely being one of them. Angela recommended that I join the Fandom.Ink and Mastodon Games instances, which sounded easy enough until I saw the requirement that I had to request permission to join, and that both required signing up and logging in again. It was only a minor hurdle, and an extremely Reddit one (another platform bosses are trying to collapse). I should actually post something on both soon.

All that said, there are more positives than negatives to Mastodon from what I’ve seen thus far. The main design is as basic and slick as it needs to be, reminiscent of the old Twitter before the UI designers overcomplicated it (though it’s still better than Facebook). The atmosphere is also very chill. Granted, that’s partly because I’ve only followed a handful of accounts thus far, but most of the posts I’ve seen have been great. It’s considerably harder to run into bad and moronic posts on it compared to Twitter these days.

I need to get more use out of it, but my time on Mastodon is off to a positive start. I’m sure I’ll fully adjust to venturing through the Fediverse in another week or so, because as others previously said, it truly is the Linux of social media networks.

I couldn’t go through this post without discussing the launch of Threads from Meta, with larger connections to Instagram than Facebook, which seems to be off to a good start. People disillusioned with Twitter were quick to make accounts, and companies like Sega and Sony didn’t hesitate to create official brand accounts. The service also has much better moderation than the current Twitter, though that’s not a high bar. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is, I’m sorry to say, in a much better position to create a social media competitor to Twitter than any other company. It’s why Elon was quick to make lawsuit threats, and why Yaccarino made a damage-controlling tweet about how clearly not-mad and not-nervous the company is. It’s not too late for that cage match, fellas.

But does anyone really want to trust Meta with anything? The company claimed that over 30 million users have already made accounts, but considering Facebook’s predilection for inflating numbers, I don’t know why anyone would trust that. It also appears to — surprise, surprise — be an anti-privacy nightmare. Threads itself has usability problems, like the lack of an option to search through posts, no easy way to simply view posts only from people you follow, and how deleting an account requires also nuking the entire Instagram account attached to it. There’s also no web version, a BIG deal for some of us. Since we’re talking about Facebook and Instagram here, no nudity is allowed. How much fun could there possibly be without sex workers and ecchi artists on the service?

Still, Threads seems good… for now. There’s time for them to improve the minor flaws on the platform, a clear result of them rushing the launch to take advantage of Twitter’s myriad problems. I might make an account eventually.

Meanwhile, Cohost is still out there, the blogging platform which has more in common with Tumblr than Twitter, which slightly took off after Elon purchased the latter in 2022. It’s somewhat similar to Mastodon through how it’s not the most popular platform, but has a largely good and chill community. I plan to make an account soon, though how I’ll use it is another question I don’t have an answer for. BlueSky was, at one point, considered the Twitter alternative, even though the platform’s future sounds closer to the Fediverse than Twitter. But Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is only slightly smarter than Elon, and hasn’t hesitated to demonstrate that recently.

There is a point at which all these alternatives could become overwhelming, if they aren’t already, but one point is clear: We won’t see another platform as influential as Twitter at its height again. Posters on the platform could once influence those in power with pressure campaigns, and movements like Black Lives Matter and protests for issues like abortion rights and climate awareness have been organized on it. This was a significant reason why Elon purchased it, because tolerance among the billionaire class for listening to those below them reached its zenith. This is why it will be tough for platforms like Mastodon and Cohost to take off in a similar way, while others like BlueSky and Threads will be prevented from doing so. The best we’ll get are communities in which we can talk to friends, and potentially met new ones.