Reevaluating the Twitter / X API: manton.org
@manton Good decision. The vast majority of people are still on X. Hardly any know Bluesky (which has become a den of pedophiles sadly) and even fewer have heard of Mastodon.
For real reach you have to build up a following on X.
@manton I understand the desire to make Micro.blog as accessible as possible, and I get that many people are still on X-Twitter. But Elon Musk’s leadership and the general culture on X-Twitter make it a platform I don’t feel good supporting financially or technically. I believe in free speech under the Constitution, but I also believe private services, and individual users, have a responsibility to “vote with their dollars” and attention. Recommitting resources to X-Twitter, even indirectly, doesn’t align with my values, and I’m not convinced there are that many people who’ll only try Micro.blog if they can keep cross-posting to X-Twitter. For me, this decision just leaves a bad taste.
@manton Ditto what @megabyteGhost said. Not loving this choice and the idea of a single cent of my money going to Musk/X.
@laze Thanks for the feedback. As I said in the closing paragraph, I don’t love it either. But to be clear on the money part, if you keep X disabled, no money is used for it. It’s isolated only to accounts who enable it.
@manton I’m not sure I really buy the “micro.blog just wants to enable people to publish wherever they choose” argument. Are you planning to enable posting to Truth Social as well?
There’s a spectrum here. Reasonable people can differ on how far along the spectrum you should move. X is far enough along to start to make me uncomfortable. Even if my money isn’t going directly there, it helps in some small measure to enable the coding that sends other money there.
@manton But I know it’s eternally hard to try to be a neutral publisher and free-speech advocate. Overall I’m still quite happy with your vision & leadership.
@manton I’ve clearly got a dog in this fight (work for Bluesky) but I’m genuinely curious: what’s the value of posting links to a site that explicitly devalues/buries posts with links?
@ffmike Thank you. Good point about Truth Social: definitely not. I should’ve also said that I will reevaluate this again and see how it feels in a few months.
@jimray.net Hmm. I hadn’t considered that part of it. I guess that’s up to users to weigh the value of. We’ve done way more with Bluesky, of course, and the integration goes much deeper because it’s open.
@manton I’m fine with your cross-posting to X, even though I personally don’t see myself taking advantage of it.
I’m up to my neck in Facebook. I’d love if my connections there would move to more open platforms. I don’t see that happening. But I’m loath to get myself enmeshed in yet another silo, which is what X is.
For the same reason, I don’t cross-post from Micro.blog to Threads, even though I enjoy reading Threads and occasionally reply to a post there. I don’t want to get sucked into a place where it’s hard to get out of.
Like @ffmike said: I think you do a great job as a steward of Micro.blog.
@MitchWagner Thanks for the support. Yeah, ironically I’m not going to use the cross-posting to X either! I’m personally done with X for posting.
@manton My ideological and professional disdain aside, the idea that Twitter would ask you to develop a feature that devalues your writers’ posts — and then charge you to use it! — is rather outlandish.
And if I can help with anything atproto just let me know (@jimray.bsky.team is my work handle)
@manton Ya know, also… if you don’t love it, you don’t need to do it. (And despite my money not going directly there, I still wish you would reconsider.)
@manton I don’t care how big X is. It’s trash and most people know it. Elon ruined what Twitter was for his vanity and pulpit. The day Elon turned off the switch for 3rd party Twitter clients was the day I left and don’t miss it one bit.
I will gladly remain Mastodon only where most decent human beings are and you can have actual meaningful discourse and learn things from other people.
@manton I don’t care how big X is. It’s trash and most people know it. Elon ruined what Twitter was for his vanity and pulpit. The day Elon turned off the switch for 3rd party Twitter clients was the day I left and don’t miss it one bit.
I will gladly remain Mastodon only where most decent human beings are and you can have actual meaningful discourse and learn things from other people.