How to 'Quiet Quit' Twitter

Don't blindly listen to voting advice from Musk.

You can take a walk on the centralized side.

Even though it's much smaller than other social media sites, it's still an important part of public discourse. It's centralized, where you log in and are thrown into an endless, messy timeline, where political and media elites are chewing over the agenda of the day. Chris Riley, senior fellow for internet governance at Tech Policy Press wrote last week, "While the future may indeed lie in a collection of more specialized, connected communities, the advantages of centralized discovery and sharing are still very present."

There are other social media services available. Mastodon is seeing a rise in users as people flock to it. It is not clear how many people are still using it. The project was launched as an open-sourced network of self-hosted server. Users can see posts both on their own local, server-specific timeline and on a broader "federated" timeline, as well as having the ability to like and amplify posts.

That is because it is. The sign-up process is slow and buggy because you have to choose a server. The just-showed-up-to-the-party energy of Mastodon is what makes it stand out from the crowd. Mastodon is an example of what Linux would be like if it were a social network. It is refreshing to use a service that has not been subjected to A/B testing. BlueSky Social is backed by Jack Dorsey.

Other attempts will be made to build social networks that serve as digital town squares. Mass adoption will require cultural buy-in. In the year 2022, maybe an exact replica of Twitter isn't what we really need. Chris Bides, a Mastodon user, said that most people shouldn't want a new social media platform. It's a good time to think about what we enjoy about internet interaction.

Don't pay for it yet.

I am a subscriber to the original version of the premium tier, Blue, which means I have to pay $5 a month for access to certain features. Under Musk, the service has become an $8-a-month moving target, with blue check verification for a fee. The roll out has been chaotic.

The blue check will be given to users who sign up, just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow. According to reports, the launch of Twitter Blue has been delayed until November 9th.