Summary

Stephen King announced his departure from X (formerly Twitter), calling the platform “too toxic” and urging followers to join him on Threads.

King has frequently clashed with X owner Elon Musk over verification charges and political disputes, including Musk’s support for Donald Trump.

Other entities, including The Guardian, German football club St Pauli, and actor Jamie Lee Curtis, have also left the platform, citing concerns over toxic content, misinformation, and hate speech.

Rival platforms like Threads and Bluesky are gaining traction, with Bluesky reporting nearly 15 million users globally.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    601 month ago

    It really boggles my mind the cognitive dissonance of everybody constantly complaining about corporations screwing them over, then refusing to use the obvious solution to their problems.

    • Flying Squid
      link
      fedilink
      671 month ago

      I can absolutely believe that an old guy like Stephen King has never even heard of Mastodon. It’s not like there’s a big Mastodon PR team being paid to advertise its existence.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          81 month ago

          Yeah like the average person has never heard of enshitification. It’s not even an established concept in their mind.

          They may have a vague sense that things are getting shittier on the big platforms, but probably don’t even consider smaller platforms or decentralization as solutions

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          -1
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          Do you think people on Lemmy talking about Linux are trying to court non-tech people? It’s a discussion board, and it has communities for discussion of Linux. What do you think you’ll find when you go there?

          That’s right, people discussing Linux. Wild.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        151 month ago

        I can totally believe that he didn’t know about mastodon, but even Bluesky is like a reasonable platform. Threads… I see literally no upside to using threads. It’s on a timer from the beginning to turn into another X. Just look at how long Facebook has been a cesspool of Nazi propaganda.

        • Flying Squid
          link
          fedilink
          5
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          I’ve been using Bluesky for a couple of days and I honestly think it’s okay. I’m not big on microblogging in general, but I can follow just my long-distance friends and no one else and only have to see other people’s crap if one of my friends shares it. So that’s nice. My only issue with Mastodon was one of the same ones I had with Twitter- if I followed people I was interested in but didn’t know, my feed just got too busy for me.

          But that seems to work for a lot of people?

      • Jeffool
        link
        fedilink
        31 month ago

        Good point. Does anyone know an animator? I’ll write some promotional material.

      • RubberDuck
        link
        fedilink
        11 month ago

        Or sometimes the PR team of niche and new tech are a bunch of insufferable twats.

    • anon6789
      link
      fedilink
      81 month ago

      We’re here for fun. Celebs are on social media as part of their brand. It’s them doing business, and they’re going to use what the feel will reach the largest audience with the least effort on their part, and something with corporate backing likely has customer support for moderation, hacking, and whatever else. They’re not here for a digital revolution, they’re here to keep their name and income stream out there.

      I imagine it’s the same reasoning why a business will pay for Red Hat when they could run Linux for free. It may or may not be the best option, but they feel it offers tangible benefits.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        6
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        This is absolutely correct. And these businesses are typically paying employees to manage these social accounts so there is financial risk with choosing one that’s not going to result in revenue. Why market on a platform with no audience or backing?

        I’m not saying I like it, but that is indeed how things work.

        • anon6789
          link
          fedilink
          41 month ago

          Yup, I just replied to another comment, what’s so bad about having a place that’s just regular people? I enjoy having my comments actually read here and getting to know some of you to some level. I’d lose interest in this place if it turned into new Twitter. I can’t compete with Taylor or Beyonce or whoever the flavor of the week is. We can have both platforms if we so choose, so why wreck one for the sake of another?

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          11 month ago

          Couldn’t one person just copy/paste each thing they post on one platform, to the others? At least until it’s clear which platform will be twitter’s successor? They’re all free, so why not hedge? Do you really need to hire another person if you want to have another social media account on a different platform?

      • Everett
        link
        fedilink
        English
        41 month ago

        Although federated social media has the “chicken or egg” problem with content and attracting users, I’m content with places like Lemmy and Mastodon staying the small size they are right now for a little longer.

        Sure, I definitely miss content from other platforms from time to time. But I think your comment about businesses and celebrities rings true. I’m happy to be clear of the grifters and influencers for as long as possible.

        • anon6789
          link
          fedilink
          31 month ago

          Exactly. For all the things that typically get complained about: one product trying to do everything, people coming in to monetize things, feeling like your voice gets lost in oceans of comments, it seems like people forget that when it comes to the Fediverse.

          The same guys that spent all that time being mad about potential federation with Threads are mad that this place isn’t going to be Twitter 2.0? It doesn’t make sense to me. If you want ads and celebs, go see them at their place. Keeping this just place us regular people doesn’t need to be a negative. There’s room for both.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            2
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            Well, if the corporatized platforms all went to federated instances, it’d be a lot easier to pack up and move to a different platform, or fix the existing platform by choosing different instances. It would make those platforms better and we would probably still have our own spaces either using different protocols, or different clusters of instances who only federate with each other.

            Threads being federated is not them actually trying to be federated, but trying to EEE the open competition, and I think that is more of a threat to us than people joining mastodon.

            Edit: I’m realizing that I’m kind of contradicting myself here lol

            • anon6789
              link
              fedilink
              11 month ago

              That was my initial gripe with the other commenters. Nobody ever likes the one-size-fits-all software platforms. It’s always got too much of what you dont want and not enough what you do. All these social platforms are free., why mix them when we can use the ones we want. Installing Lemmy and Bluesky apps is easy, but if you later decide you dont want Bluesky, you just uninstall. If all those people would come here, you’d have to get people to defederate or you have to pack up and leave for another instance. That seems a lot more hassle to me than just using a second app.

              Lemmy is great as-is. Let’s be proud of it. It gives me a day’s worth of content as it stands now…probably more than I actually should use it already!