I did, in error, post a Tweet on Sunday. I thought I was sending it to BlueSky, but the two look remarkably similar on a browser, and I made a mistake. Once I realised the mistake I decided to see what would happen, having then posted the same material on BlueSky.
The results surprised me, not least because I had not used Twitter for so long.
The Tweet was this:
It has got 13,000 views, and 446 positive engagements, including 281 likes and 150 retweets.
In contrast, this was the BlueSky data:
BlueSky does not publish view data. It got 84 likes and 36 shares and 4 comments. That is 134 engagements, just 30 per cent of those on Twitter.
There is one, very simple, and very obvious conclusion to draw, which is that Twitter is still a very powerful platform for sharing data.
Whilst I have lost approximately 20,000 followers on Twitter since beginning of the year, when many people left that platform in protest at what Musk was doing, but the rate of decline over the last three months has been very small indeed. It has also become very apparent that the political commentariat has not left that site, or moved to other platforms, and that the vast majority of journalists and commentators, even commentators on the left, maintain their presence there. Owen Jones and Jeremy Corbyn and Dawn Butler are there, for example.
I am now torn. My position on Musk is, as it has always been, one of disgust. But, have I now made my point? And since Musk is not making money from Twitter, as far as I know, is there any point in maintaining a protest from which I am obtaining no advantage, but which is excluding me from a very large audience for the type of comment I like to produce?
I have not made up my mind as yet, but I am the only person in the team here who even vaguely thinks that I should now maintain the Twitter boycott. The others think that moment has passed, that Twitter has not gone away, and there is no point in continuing to deny it relevance, and the opportunity that it provides to share information.
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Looking at Twitter (with an ad blocker) my immediate comment is how does it make money?
I also think that rather like Rightmove it was and remains the ‘go to’ place
If you can’ see what the product is – you are the product. Any use of Xitter creates income for Musk, because any click on the site is used to demonstrate reach and sell advertising and whatever data it has been able to associate with you (even if you think you haven’t told it anything) – so you are directly contributing to a clearly fascist political movement.
I also look at the Daily Mail
And I put fuel in my car
Sorry – but shall we live in the real world?
Boycott’s work. They helped end apartheid in South Africa. Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian BDS movement clearly reveal that is working too. The latest ACEA sales figures show Tesla sales have more than halved in the EU – and they fell 49% in the wider “EU + EFTA + UK” area. Here in France, 6 out of 10 people support boycotting Xitter and other American big businesses, and 1 in 3 are already doing so. The European Commission is also actively promoting and funding European alternatives to the American technology mega-corporations, including itself directly providing services in Europe such as DNS resolution. It’s a myth that consumers are powerless, and just have to go along with unethical business however bad that might be for people or planet.
“And since Musk is not making money from Twitter, as far as I know, is there any point in maintaining a protest from which I am obtaining no advantage, but which is excluding me from a very large audience for the type of comment I like to produce?”
Richard, Do what you must do to keep fighting the good fight in the most efficient way possible to WIN!
Preaching to the choir will NOT win the fight. You must step outside the cathedral doors and enter the Right-Wing Nut House to reach the non-believing heathens and the great brainwashed!
Very good point…
Thank you
And I had a coffee 50 metres from the cathedral this morning
Left field idea: return to Twitter but create a “conspiracy theory” channel that presents your cogent reasoning as an evil plan by the rich to keep control over the rest. If you do it well the algorithm will spread your wisdom far and wide 🙂
That is not going to happen…
Leaving a platform like Twitter X has a moment in time protest value, but it is soon forgotten.
And, despite all his money, Musk is a little weaker now. He’s destroyed the brand name of Tesla, despised across Europe and elsewhere, and had his inevitable falling out with Trump.
He is still powerful, so I think taking advantage of his platform to fightback while you can is OK, as there is still a massive audience there that will otherwise be easily seduced by the fascist right and populists.
There is also something else to consider. I was reading a politico article yesterday on Trump having a “kill switch” on the internet across Europe. I assume that includes the UK.
Fighting the fascists could get difficult at some point, so make the most of it while you can.
Here it is.
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-eu-internet-europe-us-trade-war-data-cyber/
I started a move from Twitter/x to Bluesky, then aborted it. Like its ownership or not, Twitter/X has market power, Bluesky does not. Twitter/X has interesting users, Bluesky is dull.
I have managed to game the Twitter/X algorithm sufficiently to deliver useful new contacts, though it took a lot of work and time.
Bluesky is dull
That is its problem
Thank you, Richard.
I’m not surprised.
Blue Sky is also censoring independent voices, especially on Palestine.
So is ChatGPT, I have discovered
It will not make all mmy posters, so it is off to Canva…
Adobe Express is a Canva alternative, if you feel like exploring that. Also a freemium model.
Thomas uses Canva so I do….
As I was on Bluesky before this I thought I would do a search for Palestine.
Zarah Sultana is on there, as is Jeremy Corbyn, with their statements about the government proscribing Palestine Action.
Never been on X and never will. But I’m not important enough. Quite happy to stay away from it. The value of X has now returned to what Musk paid for Twitter. Everyone on it helps to pay for that $44 billion.
Noted
Imagine that you are actor on the stage.
Do you want 13,000 people to see your performance or 84?
I would say The answer could be both.
13,000 are in the city
84 are in the provinces
you can inspire people in the provinces as much as those in a city.
But
Do you prefer the city to the provinces?
that would be a personal choice,
But the important thing I think, is the message and who it reaches.
yours
Sir ralph
Posted
But that is not Sir Ralph…
I have the same concerns about doing anything that supports Elon Musk given his impact on politics of late, and every time I look at Twitter I find my feed includes a lot of right-wing bias regardless of following more left-leaning people.
However, it also remains undeniable that Twitter is still more widely used.
It then becomes a question of both principles and impact. It may still be necessary to engage on Twitter to maximise impact, and the question is whether the good that might achieve outweighs the support it gives to Musk. If it directs more people to the blog and the blog makes it quite clear that Bluesky is preferable, then arguably the overall impact should be positive
Thanks
I like that and other comments
They’re helping
As many readers of this blog will know, I was one of those who left my 12,500 followers on Twitter as soon as Musk took over, a decision I have never regretted. I switched exclusively to Mastodon, a platform that takes more work, because you are curating your own feed, but after that work it is mostly angst- and bot-free. I have seen figures from those who maintain both Mastodon and Bsky profiles who report that interactions on Mastodon are significantly larger than the other platform.
I personally will never go back to the platform formerly known as Twitter unless it returns to more neutral ownership. Whilst Musk may not be making money, he is generating influence for his disgusting politics; every subscriber adds weight to X’s importance. And anyway, the level of bots and trolls makes it a very unpleasant experience. I have no wish to hasten a heart attack!
Having said that, Murphy’s messages are important, and the wider they are disseminated the better, so maybe nose-holding is justified. Perhaps post on X, but don’t engage, and put more effort into building a community with interaction on Mastodon?
I am afraid I also found Mastodon uninspiring. I tried, but sorry….
Yes, Mastodon is completely different from all other social media: the system makes no effort to welcome you or ram ”popular” stuff down your timeline. This is both Mastodon’s biggest advantage and its biggest disadvantage. Getting the best out of it takes work, especially in the early days. If you don’t engage with other accounts, follow and use relevant hashtags, follow interesting people, etc, you’ll perceive it to be very boring. And if you just post and ignore replies, you won’t get very far. People tend to despise accounts like that; they are seen as arrogant.
Not everyone has the time or inclination to learn the skillset, but I’d be happy to help you build your Mastodon presence if and when you want to give it another try.
Thanks
That won’t be yet. But it may happen.
I went on Bluesky, but stayed on Twitter – for the same reasons I stayed in the Labour Party – not to leave the field clear for the nutters.
Twitter does seem to be far more alive than Bluesky so far. Also no bookmarking on BS – so continuing to stay with both.
I think Richard you will get more reach if you also post on Twitter.
Richard the real issue on Twitter is how many of the likes are real people and not “Bots” – my account I deleted got likes from oodles of faceless and friendless bots so once you remove that 90% you are likely left with the real figures
They are everywhere…
I completely understand the desire to demonstrate disgust at the way twitter has changed but it is the same problem as no-platforming. The voices who need to be challenged are given free rein to make their arguments without any counter. Fighting the views of the Right means acting where the Right are active!
(Tbh I have been posting your videos on twitter because I thought that they needed to be seen by Twitter’s larger audience…..)
Ha!
I am amused by that
I’m not sure Richard. I came off Twitter because I didn’t like the content anymore and there was stuff on it I really didn’t want to see or read. Only you can go with what you think is the right thing to do. It also isn’t wrong to change your mind on where you stand with this.
I dislike content on every platform
Interesting conundrum isn’t it, Richard. I follow about seven different OSINT people, some related to the war in Ukraine, some related to conflict more generally (e.g. Critical Threats, War Monitor) and couple that focus on the technical side of war (e.g. War Zone and OSINT Technical), and finally Anton Geraschenko – who was an adviser to the Zelenskyy’s government at one time, and Prune 60, who specialises in analysing the economic situation in Russia.
When Musk went all Trump and fascist quite a few came off Twitter (e.g. Anton – now 109.5K followers on Bluesky – and Prune, with 11.5K followers), as did you and many others. Some now use both Bluesky and Twitter. But quite a few stayed on Twitter/X for one reason or another – reach being one. That said, I know from their analysis of their traffic that lots of their ‘followers’ are bots (for example, after the Trump election one of my top pro Ukraine OSINT people saw his ‘followers’ fall by 90%. He currently has 30.1K followers on Twitter/X and 4.8K on Bluesky).
One thing I do notice with people still on Twitter/X is that if they post anything that’s anti Trump the MAGA nuts pile into the comments, whereas that doesn’t happen on Bluesky. But I suppose if you want to put a positive spin on that you could say that at least that gives you an insight into the nastiness (actually, often it comes across as nothing less than pure hatred) that the far right exhibit toward anything they regard as ‘left’ or ‘progressive’, or simply different.
Anyway, hope that’s helpful.
Thanks
And a footnote. Long ago I learned not to read the comments on Twitter.
I refer to X for information ( you can ignore the downright nutters) but never post my own material.
I occasionally post on Bluesky.
And I repost on both.
Thanks
In terms of outcome it’s undeniable that being on Twitter you will reach more people, the user base is much larger and even if we halved the figures you posted, and assumed they’re bots, you’re still reaching more people. You don’t change hearts and minds if someone doesn’t get exposed to your message in the first place, and those that really need the seed of doubt planting in their minds are not on BlueSky.
From a moral perspective, you have an obligation to your team, and they have signalled acceptance of the Twitter platform. There are many places where you could boycott a company that is very clearly causing harm but as you say, we live in reality which does mean still buying oil based products, engaging with tech giants and in my opinion using Twitter to spread your message.
Thank you for the knowledge that you make freely available.
Thanks, Alex.
Use it, get the message out there. We are engaged in an information war to control the narrative for the future (dramatic, I know), and if there are platforms that can reach the most people, then you should use them.
This seems to be the prevailing sentiment.
I can’t see the point of limiting reach because of ownership although of course one wouldn’t post on a purely far-right site. In practice X is still the primary medium for immediate news and analysis and most of us who use it only follow decent people/organisations and the trolls/far-right (and in my case, Zionists) tend to block you anyway.
Thanks, Jon
I mean the stats don’t lie but I don’t want to hang out at a Nazi bar, no matter how cool some of the other patrons are. If they are happy to hang out at the Nazi bar then they can’t be that cool.
You can argue that it’s not important, but it helped sway the last US election. Being there legitimises messages that you will not like get boosted by the algorithm.
This is easy for me, as I’m not trying to reach an audience. And tbh what I say isn’t important, I can see a real conflict if you are.
Being there counters their messages.
Leaving has left the field to them. That’s the problem.
I abhor X. I left ages ago.
But I am a private individual with no significant following.
Your situation is entirely different to mine. So I won’t tell you what to do, nor will I judge you once you’ve done it. It’s your content, your audience, your mission.
One final point, the X algorithms may notice your return, and your politics, and the stats could shift, with shadow banning or even outright expulsion. If you stay, watch the data!
That would be interesting…
If so, what will be, will be.
Despite Musk, millions still use Twitter. Currently, far more people use Twitter than those who use Bluesky. I use both. The important point is that your articles will reach more people on Twitter and be shared more often on Twitter, thus reaching even more people. So, I hope that you allow me and others to share your comments on Bluesky, Twitter and other social media platforms
I was disappointed when you stopped using Twitter. That prevented me from sharing your comments on that social media platform. The only other social media platform that I use is Bluesky, so I currently just share them on that platform. I believe that Twitter currently has many more users than Bluesky, so I hope to be able to share your comments on that platform again soon
I n beginning again…
I run accounts on Twitter & BlueSky for a small campaigning group. We got to 1,700 followers on Twitter & now have 270ish on BlueSky. At peak Twitter, we did really well with a couple of specific campaigns, but post-Musk, X has been pointless for us. The algorithms seem to work against us, trending items are irrelevant and there’s no sense of consistently useful news coming through. Then there are the snide & bot comments – on everything you post. I now only check X for anything I’ve missed, but don’t post or like.
Bluesky is far nicer, but the big problem is that British accounts are so few in number. All the trends are American. I’m keeping up with Trump’s latest, but we just don’t get the high quality relevant UK news we used to get on Twitter. Our feeds are thin, because there aren’t enough people to follow.
It sounds as if Twitter still offers you some reach – so I hope you will post on both. For accounts like ours, there’s nothing to be gained by returning to X, and, for the moment we can’t get what we want from BlueSky either. We’d like more people to migrate or post on both.
That sounds very familiar.
I will see what happens, thanks.