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I'm staying on Twitter but am aggressively curating my feed. I'm there for publishing and horse talk these days, and some politics. Mastodon is not appealing to me because it has too much of the old Usenet vibe, and I'm not interested in reliving those days. I'm on Substack with three separate things, am running a newsletter through Tiny Letter, participate in several writer Discords, and have a Dreamwidth account. This isn't my first go-round with a platform going away (Usenet, LiveJournal) so I'm somewhat jaded about it. Counter.Social is interesting but it's completely different from Twitter in a lot of respects. I have a Post invite, and now that Dan Rather is there, seriously considering going ahead and setting it up.

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What an amazing conversation this is. Even as a primer for us non-journo types wrestling with where to go/what to do with our own posting activities. Post, Ghost, Mastadon...most of us oldsters are still on FB since that’s where our lifelong friends are and it’s how we stay in touch but Meta has let the interface slide into a MySpace type experience. And most friends only on FB or Instagram aren’t interested in what I’ll call ‘current civic’ conversations anymore (those who are, are or were on Twitter). FB is memes, birthdays and milestones now. And Instagram is useless to people who treasure words.

I know you guys have different motives for decisions as to where to go, or stay, but we follow you-where you go we do too. Yet from a layman’s perspective there is nothing (yet) remotely like Twitter just for it’s sheer breadth of access. So we’ll wait..keep us posted. I’m THIS CLOSE to getting back on Twitter for the time being (and I don’t need a checkmark) until Musk nauseates me further I guess. But thank you for this little peek into the minds who help shape the better angels of the world.

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Thanks, Bonnie, for those kind words. As you can tell, LOLGOP is more in tune with the new alternatives... I'm reluctantly looking at Mastodon while trying to do a bit more on Facebook and Instagram... Amy Siskind is one person who has abandoned Twitter and is doing more on Facebook... I think Twitter will wither and die on Musk's watch, but Amy Siskind thinks a bankruptcy and restructuring could mean the company ends up with new ownership, possibly soon. That could be a good thing for Twitter long term, but I do think things will still get worse before they get better (if that ever happens).

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I’ve wondered the same as Amy has. How long can he keep losing money and/or bear the embarrassment ? In the end you guys (colloquially speaking) are right-we should stay and fight until more respectable voices signal the end. Or we win/he loses. I’m gonna hop on the Mastodon server you’re on too, in the meantime, for practice. 😬

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