Paul Johanson writes: I joined Twitter in 2007 when it was a novel micro-blogging site, and the appearance of the fail whale was all too common (“Elon Musk’s Twitter is in terminal decline and there’s nowhere left to go“).
I’ve been following Elon Musk’s companies for years. SpaceX has radically altered the space launch market, and Tesla has almost single-handedly sparked the current electric vehicle revolution. Oh, and Starlink has proved better than the NBN in many parts of Australia. So I had always assumed the driving force behind these ventures was a genuinely skilled entrepreneur, having built on the first fortune he made with PayPal.
But the more I learnt, the less I liked. Musk didn’t start from nothing, as he likes to present himself. His parents are wealthy and were able to back him. He didn’t found Tesla; rather he bought it at an early stage in its development and then went to great lengths to conceal the original founders. Then there was the hissy-fit he threw when the folks rescuing the trapped kids in that Thai cave didn’t accept his offer of a fancy submarine.
And then he bought Twitter and showed the world his arse. I work in IT and was gobsmacked by the dumb decisions he was making and then acting like a petulant teenager when it all went wrong. I can only hope Twitter survives this self-inflicted storm.
Jeanette Anderson writes: I despair at what Elon Musk has done to Twitter. After the limits he applied on Sunday, I announced on my account that I would take a break until Twitter is restored to its pre-Musk glory days. I joined Twitter in 2009, under a pseudonym. I have almost 6000 followers. Since Musk took over, I have struggled to maintain my followers because so many have abandoned it. I tried to stick it out, but the formula now fills my feed with trolls and irrelevant garbage. Gone are the heydays of a town square filled with discussion of Australian politics that I so enjoyed.
I have been truly addicted to Twitter as a place to air my political opinions with a community of like-minded people, and to hear breaking news — before the media in some cases. There is nothing to replace what Musk has taken from us.
Mark Arthurson writes: Tribel seems pretty well organised. It’ll take time to settle and needs more diverse content away from mainly the US. But I no longer want to be a part of Musk’s idiot games.
Jackobi Forsyth writes: I’m part of the moving out crowd. I’d say I used to spend between one and three hours a day on Twitter intermittently. Musk’s takeover was the cancer diagnosis I wasn’t expecting, and although it was supposed to be slow, it was terminal. Since The Day Of The Rate Limit, I’ve heard the bells and knew it was time to cut myself out. Any value I was getting by being on the cutting edge of world news and public opinion was a double-edged sword and I won’t be worse for wear by being a few minutes behind. Better still, I won’t find myself compelled to fight with bigots.
I’m not sure I will use any competitors or return if Musk’s changes are undone; I’ll decide on that later. I knew this day was coming and although I still compulsively open the Chrome app to check the site I’m glad the shortcut isn’t there. In the meantime, I hope to take more advantage of actual journalistic enterprises such as Crikey for a higher standard of reporting than some passionate yet misguided strangers.
Sandra Bradley writes: Thank goodness Twitter is failing, and I hope the copycat services also fail. If you want facts, get them the old-fashioned way and actually go to the source and record it — digitally or with pen and ink. Tweeting “embedded” information is not fact. Most of the inane information we are having to scroll through these days, online or offline, is due to these nonsensical tweets. Twenty years ago tweeting didn’t exist. We can certainly live without it.
Karen Johnson writes: I’ve just left Twitter. That is all.
Jenny Campbell writes: I’m finally leaving Twitter. I set up a Mastodon account a while ago, and although I’m not completely satisfied that this is an adequate alternative as many I follow don’t post there, I am unsure where to go to get a “pre-Elon” Twitter equivalent. Those I follow are scattering to Post, Spoutable and Tribel. I don’t want multiple sites. One is enough. So I’ll just hang around on Mastodon and see where everyone ends up.
In the past two weeks Twitter has become a junk shop. Just when I’d blocked hundreds of right-wing MAGA and conspiracy-inclined trolls and was starting to see just the people I wanted to see, the ads started. Hundreds of ads. Every third or fourth post was an ad. Ads for the most bizarre, cheap, nonsensical crap. If data is being scraped, well good luck to the recipients of that bin fire.
James Scott writes: Despite enjoying being a “fly on the wall” of Twitter for many, I recently decided that I must quit. I had to leave Twitter because I couldn’t see how it can be free of the many vested interests of its new owner. If it has been evolving as the world’s town square, I have to ask myself: why should any individual be allowed to own our town square?
Some weeks after jumping ship I find I do miss Twitter. But I have gained at least an hour a day to do other productive things without lending my tacit support to an unelected rich person who is clearly using the platform to further his own interests.
