#twitter is done

[just-emerald-star]

2023: The Year of Social Media Burnout

Is it just me or has every single alternative to Twitter (including good ol Tumblr here, no shade) led to a severe case of burn out??? Cuz I personally can't take it anymore. In the time since Tumblr was taken over by that narcissistic man child, we've had A FUCK TON of social media alternatives or "twitter clones" pop up or take advantage of every single chance they get cuz Twitter falls apart at least every other week like clockwork.

-Hive (Tried it. Hated it. No Desktop version yet.)

-Spoutible (Giving off echo-chamber vibes. Shitty NSFW/sex worker policies despite being for all marginalized folks.)

-Spill (Whomst?)

-Mastodon (Exists)

-Bluesky (Run by the former twitter CEO. Fuck him as well.)

-Threads (Just launched. 6/10)

-Post (Whomst)

-Substack (An attempt was made)

And plenty more I don't know about yet. I'm sure they'll become relevant at some point. My point is this: Look at how many alternatives have come into prominence in the past 8 months.

This is all in response to Twitter malfunctioning and being run by a dumbass. And everyone's immediate response is "let's move somewhere else" but we often forget that not every site is gonna have that reach you're looking for to promote your shit (if you're a creative like me.) It's not gonna have every function like Twitter & if it does have said functions, that's a whole new system you gotta adapt to. I've tried so many alternatives in the past 8 months out of fear that Twitter may actually shut down. And yet, it's still the one place I often go to. The exception to the rule of course is ya boi Tumblr. And while I appreciate this site, it's taken a bit to adjust.

And me being a creator who just wants folks to see my work but also not be stressed by social media's ever-changing ways, I gotta tell ya folks: I am very much stressed out, burnt out & on the brink of wanting to just...delete everything.

I can't keep spreading myself thin and can't keep depending on new sites, cuz that means I have to build myself from the ground up. And that's not even counting the sites that lack certain functions & can't get their shit together cuz they launched prematurely just to get a leg up on Twitter's bag fumbling.

Not to mention (and I've been saying this shit since December 2022):

TWITTER'S TOOLS & FUNCTIONS ARE GOOD, ACTUALLY. EVERYONE WANTS TO REPLACE TWITTER BUT NO ONE WANTS TO BE TWITTER.

In conclusion: Aside from Tumblr, I think I'll be downsizing on social media presence. I can't nor REFUSE to let myself deal with being spread too thin. It's giving social media obsession and I've had enough. It's not enough to be NEW & BETTER than Twitter. You gotta show us that you understood what worked/didn't work on Twitter and put your own spin on things. Not expecting perfection, I just want better options.

TL;DR There will never be another Twitter, only Twitter Adjacent & that's sad. Cuz Twitter, despite ALL of it's bullshit, has done some actual good & given light to more issues in the last 10 years thx to it's very existence. and it's being fucked over by an old ass transphobic man child in the midst of mid-life crisis.

[tomorrowusa]

Are you still on Twitter X? WHY?!

Elon Musk wants to give far right trolls, conspiracy theorists, and sexual predators the power to harass you by removing the block feature; the exception is for DMs — Elon probably doesn't want hundreds of thousands of users DMing him to tell him what a lame ass dick he is.

Social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, will remove a protective feature that lets users block other accounts, Elon Musk has said in another controversial move for the company he bought last year. The block function allows a user to restrict specific accounts from contacting them, seeing their posts or following them. “Block is going to be deleted as a ‘feature’, except for DMs [direct messages],” Musk said in a post on the platform, saying later: “It makes no sense.”

I would interject that Elon himself makes no sense. I've lost track of how much the platform has declined in value since he bought it. 65% may be a conservative figure.

It must be hard work mismanaging a company the way Elon has wrecked former Twitter.

The billionaire owner has described himself as a free speech absolutist, but some critics have said his approach is irresponsible. Researchers have found an increase in hate speech and antisemitic content on the platform since he took over, and some governments have accused the company of not doing enough to moderate its content. Removing or limiting the block feature might bring X into conflict with guidelines incorporated by Apple’s App Store and Alphabet’s Google Play. Apple says apps with user-generated content must have the ability to block abusive users. Google Play Store says apps must provide an in-app system for blocking user-generated content and users. X, Google and Apple did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Google Play and Apple need to help put former Twitter out of its misery. Maybe then remaining users will belatedly get the message that the platform is done for good and never returning to its glory days.

[sarasa-cat]

Elon Musk sent a flurry of emails to Twitter employees on Friday morning with a plea.

“Anyone who actually writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 p.m. today,” he wrote in a two-paragraph message, which was viewed by The New York Times. “Thanks, Elon.”

About 30 minutes later, Mr. Musk sent another email saying he wanted to learn about Twitter’s “tech stack,” a term used to describe a company’s software and related systems. Then in another email, he asked some people to fly to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to meet in person.

[kiryuing]

[chromegnomes]

the most frustrating thing about AI Art from a Discourse perspective is that the actual violation involved is pretty nebulous

like, the guys "laundering" specific artists' styles through AI models to mimic them for profit know exactly what they're doing, and it's extremely gross

but we cannot establish "my work was scraped from the public internet and used as part of a dataset for teaching a program what a painting of a tree looks like, without anyone asking or paying me" as, legally, Theft with a capital T. not only is this DMCA Logic which would be a nightmare for 99% of artists if enforced to its conclusion, it's not the right word for what's happening

the actual Violation here is that previously, "I can post my artwork to share with others for free, with minimal risk" was a safe assumption, which created a pretty generous culture of sharing artwork online. most (noteworthy) potential abuses of this digital commons were straightforwardly plagiarism in a way anyone could understand

but the way that generative AI uses its training data is significantly more complicated - there is a clear violation of trust involved, and often malicious intent, but most of the common arguments used to describe this fall short and end up in worse territory

by which I mean, it's hard to put forward an actual moral/legal solution unless you're willing to argue:

Potential sales "lost" count as Theft (so you should in fact stop sharing your Netflix password)

No amount of alteration makes it acceptable to use someone else's art in the production of other art without permission and/or compensation (this would kill entire artistic mediums and benefit nobody but Disney)

Art Styles should be considered Intellectual Property in an enforceable way (impossibly bad, are you kidding me)

it's extremely annoying to talk about, because you'll see people straight up gloating about their Intent To Plagiarize, but it's hard to stick them with any specific crime beyond Generally Scummy Behavior unless you want to create some truly horrible precedents and usher in The Thousand Year Reign of Intellectual Property Law

[arczism]

Sketches

[blossomhime]

Hello tumblr once again Twitter isn’t working lmao 😭 cant tweet or reply to tweets this is insane !!

[toastyslayingbutter]

One good outcome of my return to posting via blogging is that I’m going to have to engage with the news through the subscriptions I have now; and should probably get some reading done - first up will hopefully be Black Against Empire: The History of the Black Panther Party by. Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin, Jr., followed by Revolution and Counterrevolution: China’s Continuing Class Struggle Since Liberation by. Pao-Yu Ching and then a full read of Scenes of Subjection by. Saidiya Hartman. 

That and my daily NYT, ProPublica, and Columbus Dispatch reading. 

[mrcjprice193]

Twitter is cooked I fear...

[cfeather]

light upon the sea

[twistedappletree]

[just-emerald-star]

Feel free to bookmark & utilize this whenever a new social media app decides to pop up.

And no, Tumblr is the exception to this. We love Tumblr being different in some of the best ways lol

[frejs-froggy-artblog]

Here's my take on the dragons zonai forms! As I've been playing Tears of the kingdom it has become more and more clear to me that the three dragons flying around were probably people at some point. So I tried to guess what they might have looked like based on the matching outfits you can find throughout the game!

[ganondoodle]

i am still scarred from botw

[osmanthusoolong]

[clouvu]

Daddy? sorry. Daddy? sorry. Daddy-