I made the decision recently to cancel BlogForArizona’s X account. I no longer wanted to associate a progressive blog with what Musk hath wrought. Not to even mention Musk’s disgusting flirtation with Trump and his MAGA minions.
The difficulty of such a decision for a publisher – especially a small one like us that has relied on traffic and exposure on X to some degree – is not trivial. We had over 3K followers and established mutual links with many, many journalists, publishers, and politicians in Arizona through our X feed and posts. That is one of the costs that Musk relies on to keep folks locked into the platform, no matter how much he enshitificates it.
First, Musk ripped out the API for small publishers like WordPress, on which we publish this site. That killed our ability to push notifications of our posts to X, destroying the notification function of the platform for us. He also jacked the cost for developers to use the remaining API services into the stratosphere (i.e. millions of $$$) which also prevented many of the API calls inside various apps that could be used to post content to X. Next, Musk destroyed any semblance of civility or accountability on the platform, making X a swamp of disinformation and hate. It was just all just too much to bear.
But the result of that decision is that thousands of potential eyeballs and hundreds of established mutual relationships through the platform are now just gone. I have also tried to break the habit of using the platform at all to follow those publishers and journalists on X by canceling my personal account, as well. That is proving harder to stick to… ::sigh::
You will therefore note, please, some new buttons on the header of this site, including buttons for Threads (Meta/Facebook) and Mastodon (Open Source), two of X’s platform competitors. We are posting to these services now instead.
But even that presents issues. So far, we have been able to configure a push notice of new posts to Mastodon, but not to Threads. So, if you would like to get notice of when we publish new posts, you should follow us on Mastodon, or subscribe to the site via email at the bottom of every page, as depicted.
And, thus far, I have found Threads to be better integrated into the Apple ecosystem of apps and OS services (still buggy as hell, though) to allow easy comment and posting regarding the news about Arizona’s politics that I come across daily, so you would see mainly my brief (and often spicy) comments on the news of the day about Arizona politics on Threads.
Neither service does everything I had come to rely on X to do for us, so – for now at least – I use Threads and Mastodon quite differently.
This is all a very lengthy and likely over-determined way to say, “Please follow BlogForArizona on both Threads and Mastodon if you use either, or both!” Of course, we are also on Facebook itself, where we would love to connect with you, too!
You might ask, “Was it worth it to destroy all that platform capital to cancel X, given that probably no one will care or notice?” Maybe not? But at some point one has to make a choice whether to continue using a service that has become deeply problematic for society, even if it still provides benefits for you. I reached that point with X, and I’m not going back until Musk crashes the company and is pushed out, or sells to a less irrational and malefic entrepreneur.
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A big reason “conservative” alternatives to Twitter/X do not thrive is the lack of liberals.
Turns out the MAGAs want someone to pwn, or it’s just no fun, and they complain about it all the time.
So this is just part of Elon the Con’s continuing enshitification of social media. Liberals and folks sick of MAGAts leave, declining engagement, leading to declining ad revenue, which Elon will blame on Disney and woke instead of his bad management. LOL.
Leaving is the way.
For fun, look up “Elon Lies” sometime. He fell assbackwards into a pile of money after being born on third base and thinks he’s the Genius of All Time.
Silicon Valley is filled with lesser Elon’s, he was just in the right place at the right time.
Or look up his thoughts on the future of the human race. There’s nothing human about it, he wants trillions of computer programs he calls humans spread throughout the universe.
Not actual people, video game people. NPC’s.
And he wants any actual humans in the future to have his DNA, Jefferey Epstein wanted the same thing.
Look it up.
Seriously weird dude when he’s not just being plain racist or stupid.
We’re not going to Mars anytime soon, it’s not possible for a lot of science-y reasons, Tesla will never have full self driving, for the same and logistical reasons, these are stock pumping lies to pump up his net worth, but the trashing of Twitter/X just shows what a clown the guy is.
Not being on X may be an example of “addition by subtraction. ”
Congrats.
Good decision. It doesn’t affect me, though — I haven’t been on X that much and I gave up on mastodon. I could go back to trying another alternative; I’m after all on Facebook enough, but I don’t follow this blog there either. The reason this decision has no affect on me is that I get email notifications of everything posted; unlike the social media sites, it isn’t hit-or-miss whether I’m on the site at the right time to see a BfA notice. I realize this doesn’t help with your publicity problem, but for me personally I’m pretty happy with the way things are.
Glad you were able to disconnect from X. I did that awhile back when Musk did one more thing that I could not stomach!
Bravo for allowing your ethics to drive your decision!
Please don’t be too bitter, angry or vicious in the future with voters who do the same thing re Biden and genocide. The key line here is:(slightly changed) “at some point one has to make a choice whether to vote for a president who has become deeply problematic for the rest of the world even if he provides benefits for you”. A beautifully stated reason that many many principled young voters, i believe, will sit out the next election and should NOT be blamed for Bidens loss, if it occurs( any more than you should be blamed for Xs downfall, were it to occur. X bears the responsibility for no longer providing the space it once did for open communication, not those who leave the whole damned game.) Just as X is supposed to listen to clients and not big monied interests ( like its owner Musk) presidents are supposed to listen to their electorate, not huge donors. That is, big money should not have a vote. My sense is that highly principled young voters are not accustomed to or accept the maxim” hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils” ( i.e. sell-out)When all avenues for dissent go unheard the only thing to do is leave the game.
Betts, if Biden loses the electoral vote and fails to win the presidency I will blame the Democratic Party. The Democrats will blame Green party voters and no shows.
The right strategy was one term for Biden with a highly visible and electable VP who could run in 24.
Instead we have a Trump v Biden match up that most of the voters abhor. This election is more about the mental health of the two geriatrics than it is about 21st century challenges that young voters are concerned about. It is insane.
Trump, arguably the worse of the two, is busy with his legal battles while squeezing in his klan rallies. Joe is trying to distance himself from the slaughter in Gaza by calling for humanitarian aid and a six week ceasefire and he can’t even get that. The Democrats think they are managing perceptions but that’s not even possible when 30K+ have already been slaughtered and Gaza is rubble.
Meanwhile, the Democrats staunchly defend their geriatric 20th century relic and point out all the great things he has done. It’s interesting that Congress has been so constipated for so long that a thing like passing a long overdue infrastructure bill is considered a miracle, totally extraordinary, downright “transformative.”
I guess it remains to be seen if people opt out of this mess. The uncommitted vote in the primaries is a message to Democrats and it’s significant in some states. They should be concerned.