The people leaving Twitter right now want Twitter minus Elon. That’s Bluesky. They’ve heard a couple of their Twitter follows mention it and they’ve gone to their app store where they find an app called Bluesky, install it and easily join and start using it. Once they do they are finding it pretty straightforward to find people they used to follow on Twitter.

That’s all people want.

And it’ll stay that way until people use, and keep using, this space. So, to use an overused phrase, be the change you want to see :)

It’s almost as if he’s annoyed by the total decimation of local services that used to be able to handle such things his party has brought about since 2009.

Spoiler: he is.

I pay Bitwarden the tenner a year as I have no reason to distrust them and they’re definitely providing a more reliable, securer service than I can self-host.

I also do an encrypted export once per week and store that export to an encrypted cloud based service and an encrypted USB stick. Takes 2 minutes.

Bandcamp is still OK for me and I listen to some fairly obscure stuff.

Just to offer a heads up - there’s a new solution/site which is currently in Beta but is backed by good people (musicians). It needs an influx of music diversity (lots of metal at the moment) but if it gets that when it comes out of beta then it could very well be a good Bandcamp replacament - Ampwall

We do tell people. For example, when you get off the train at Reading station it clearly says “Welcome to Reading”.

It’s not an ‘either/or’ situation - both sets of people are culpable.

Want to see the direct consequences of unfettered hate masquerading as free speech? That would be Elon Musk, Nigel Farage et al spreading utterly incorrect rumours about migrants in the UK and goading right-wingers to set fire to hotels where migrant families are staying. Luckily no one was killed but do you think tutting and calling them idiots before you move on is going to change a thing?

Mate, I was simply extending an analogy you introduced. I neither know (nor care) what the presence of a McDonalds does or doesn’t do so don’t Sagan me. Nor am I claiming mainstream social media is all arseholes. What I’m saying is that mainstream social media most certainly has the ability and propensity to make people into arseholes due to constant enshittification - part of which is the influencer phenomenon in my opinion and the need for growth at all costs.

I most definitely have reached out to lots of good people on the fediverse and had lots of great exchanges that follow both professional and ‘hobby’ based interests I have.

But here’s the thing - you want growth? OK. I also have no issue with growth. But the best sort of growth in my experience comes organically. It happens at its own pace. The minute you start prodding it along with managed algorithms and all the other stuff mainstream social media now has you end up with an extended hate room. I don’t miss Reddit or Xitter at all. I genuinely mean that. No more ‘suggestions’ of people to follow, no more manufactured outrage getting pushed to my feed, no more clickbait. Instead what I have now is a curated feed across multiple different types of experiences that I spent some time getting how I want them and dipping in and out of when I want to.

You’re using words like ‘ambition’ and ‘irrelevant’ like the Fediverse is some sort of corporate entity. It’s not - that’s a point very much in its favour in the opinion of quite a lot of people on it. Contrary to your opinion that no one cares, lots do. What some of us don’t care about is catering to a set of people who are paid to express opinions and who, it seems to me, over a period of time end up becoming Andrew Tate or Russel Brand.

There’s no McDonalds in the town I currently live in, which is 20 minutes away from one of the largest cities in the country. It might come as a massive shock to you but I - and I think the majority of people - can survive just fine without a Mickey D’s. Not having one doesn’t make a place desolate, it makes it healthier. And if someone really wants a Big Mac, they can go and get one from elsewhere.

Do you see what I’m saying? This isn’t the same place as that - it’s quite nice to have a place online that still isn’t. And for those that do want that, they can still spend time there if they chose to.

Strangely comforting for something I’m sure you thought was a snappy comeback,

I genuinely don’t care about influencers. Like, at all.

Maybe they should stop caring about visibility and engagement and concentrate on participating in, building and y’know enjoying a community?

The idea that Sunak has any sort of political weight is fucking hilarious.

As it absolutely should be. Everyone knows its nothing to do with talking to their god and everything to do with intimidating people.

And if the christians object ask them why they’re suddenly concerned that prayers only work within 150m of the person they’re praying ‘for’.

Not yet, but they’re certainly in our thinking for next year :)

This is great news :) but without wanting to be spammy the org I am a member of [email protected] have been running a very similar campaign but for non-mainstream music e.g. metal/punk/indie/alt/industrial/goth that we call “Satan Not Hatin’”

It currently has over 140 opt-in participants of bands, individual artists, venues, festivals, record labels and other orgs from all over the world, including the UK and has been so successful that a well known (within metal circles) documentarian and music video director is currently making a Documentary about the campaign. You can visit the campaign website where we list all the participants and provide more detail - there’s also a link to a YouTube playlist of all the participating bands which also works fine in Invidious!

I have contacted the Graun about Satan Not Hatin’ but mainstream news has little love for alternative music so we’ll carry on with our DIY approach!

Whereas the true insanity is to let people get away with openly inciting race hate which leads to life threatening real-world consequences for the people on the receiving end of the lies.

Absolute free speech is the refuge of those without the common sense and maturity to realise it has led to deaths. It is entirely appropriate to legislate for those who want, or encourage, life threatening harm to come to others.

It’s entirely plausible. I’m positive they have the ego and lack of perception for it but I think it’s simpler than that - they’re just stupid.