Twitter Alternatives and Social Media Changes

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Bluesky gives good early Twitter vibes, even with the recent influx of people (I've been on it about two years, I think).

I also tried Mastodon, but too many hosts view difficulty of use as a feature, not a bug, and I'm tired of all the hoop-jumping required to use it. The fact that my host may be refusing to connect to federated feeds from Threads and Bluesky, but refuses to say so, really underscores that Mastodon is really not a good choice for those of us who want to interact with lots of people via social media, rather than talk to friends of the server owner.

The Meta sites are increasingly algorithm-driven nonsense. Instagram is OK if you're diligent about what you follow and pruning that list to just the essentials. Facebook and Threads are hot garbage and it's about to get a lot worse.

 

[MoonSong]

I voted "I never used Twitter in the first place", but it isn't entirely accurate. I've had two accounts in total, but I never truly used it in a meaningful way. The first time the most I did was try to tweet at a d&d designer. The other account served as some kind of private public announcement board for my work and it stopped serving a purpose once my employer gave us google accounts. I'm not even sure if these accounts are still active.

 

[Scribe]

Left years ago when Twitter lost its collective mind, have only had the opinion that Social Media is an absolute disaster for our society reinforced for the last 5 years.

Its a mistake, and outside of 3 specific forums, I dont engage with anything online.

The Emperor has no clothes.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I love mastodon and bluesky is a lot of fun. I spend a ton of time on Discord though. I don’t think I’m going to invest a lot of intellectual capital in big centralized platforms here on out — or I hope not to.

Mastodons decentralized ecosystem is really cool and I’m hoping Bluesky can get there. They seem to want to but right now it’s just not practical.

I post a lot on YouTube and I connect with folks on Discord. Those are centralized and ripe for enshittification but I’m pretty buried in them.

And, of course, I love EN World!

 

[Eyes of Nine]

ENWorld, Discord, and a Slack. I'm on Bluesky and Masto, and other platforms listed above, but not really "on" them.

Bring back Google+!!!

 

[briggart]

I mostly hang out on Instagram, but don't interact a lot with folks there. With few exceptions, I follow either close friends with whom I am already in touch through other channels, or public artists with whom there is no two-way communication.

I have a FB account that I haven't used for a couple of years, but I'm now planning to sell some old camera stuff and was thinking of using its marketplace feature.

I think I have commented ~5 YT videos, and occasionally read Reddit, but don't have an account.

 

[pukunui]

I have a FB account that I haven't used for a couple of years, but I'm now planning to sell some old camera stuff and was thinking of using its marketplace feature.

I tried FB Marketplace once. Only got responses from obvious scammers.

 

[schneeland]

It's a little tricky to answer (so I went for the last option): my account on Twitter/X still exists and every once in a while I go there (mostly when I follow a link), but even though my personal experience was not so bad (I had a curated feed and liberally used mute), the main reason to be there was other people and since a lot of them are gone, there's basically no reason to be active there anymore.
However, while I used BlueSky a bit in the early days, it doesn't really work for me in the same way that Twitter did before change in ownership. Similarly I'm technically on many platforms, but the only ones I actively use are forums (mostly Tanelorn and ENWorld) and a number of small to medium size Discord servers. I do still use Reddit (mostly /r/osr) and Facebook, and I think my use of both has gone up when I stopped using Twitter actively, but it's mostly in a read-only fashion (especially Facebook is mostly a source of gaming news and memes).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I never used Twitter, so I voted "never used Twitter in the first place." I can't really "switch" from something that I never engaged with in the first place...

I don't have much of a social media presence these days. I have a FaceBook page that I check maybe a few times a week, and I can't remember the last time I checked my LinkedIn account. But for the most part, I'm not very "social" when it comes to social media...I hang out on EN World and Reddit mostly.

I have here, a handful of Discords, a Facebook account I check for exactly one group, and that's it.

 

[trappedslider]

I have a twitter and due to putting the effort in I don't have any issues with stuff I don't want to see showing up. I mainly use to follow and interact with authors, I also use facebook to keep in touch with family and friends. Discord is used to keep up with games since companies have moved to that platform. Once, I figured out it's basically a chat room, it got 100% to deal for me.