Hey Internet.
It's been a long time coming, but I've finally made the decision to abandon Twitter. It's unfortunate, as it was at one time a useful communication tool for me, but I simply can't justify it any more. To be fair, I never really "got" Twitter. It was never a primary social outlet for me. Its only value was as a means of communication with certain people and organizations. A lot of this could've been achieved with RSS feeds and email, to be honest.
At this point, I'm sure everyone's familiar with the nonsense that's been going on there lately. At first, I stuck around because I had several contacts who were also sticking around, and I didn't want to lose that avenue of communication. The Fediverse has been my primary social media home for about two years now, but for most of that time it was rather devoid of people I actually knew in person. That is becoming less and less the case now, but that still wasn't enough to get me to abandon Twitter altogether.
So why am I leaving?
Well, a while ago Tumblr announced that they would be implementing the ActivityPub protocol, effectively connecting all their users to the Fediverse. While I have mixed feelings about this, it got me to thinking. What would I do if Twitter did this? I came to realize that because of their current moderation policies, and the amount of hate speech they enable, I'd basically immediately defederate from them. I'm on the Fediverse to get away from that nonsense after all. This all begs the question: why would I even engage in a service I'd refuse to federate with in the first place?
So where do we go from here?
Well, if you're already on the Fediverse (e.g.: Mastodon) you can follow me at me@social.jlamothe.net (see my home page for more contact details). If you're not on the Fediverse and you're someone that I would know, I have made my Friendica node available to family and friends. Assuming you trust me, this saves you the trouble of having to find a server and vet its policies. If you register for an account, just make sure to leave a note so I know who you are and can approve your registration. If I wouldn't know you, see the previous blog post I wrote where I give a basic rundown of what the Fediverse is and how to get on it. This of course is all assuming you want to get on the Fediverse in the first place. If not, you can always follow me by RSS as well.
So yeah, I know this is another short post, but I just wanted to get it out there, and make sure that the people who want to find me know how they can.
Have a good one.