New, Old and Social Media Struggles

I test drove six Xitter alternatives so you don’t have to.

I’ve wandered thru six social media wannabes: Tribel, Post, Mastodon, Spoutible, Threads and Bluesky looking for the Twitter I once obsessed over. My conclusion? Just like daily newspapers and magazines, I’m ready to say time has passed for their genre. I’ll have just one more look… and then…maybe I’ll wait for another day.

I’m done with San Diego’s daily. I was motivated to cancel my online-only Union-Tribune subscription (November 28), a decision process initiated when Alden Global’s ghouls at MediaNews raised the price to $27.72 from the $19.96 I was already paying. Then this week’s digital Sunday paper showed up sans comics. 

Monday morning the black and white comics are back. But there’s no oops, we made a boo-boo note. They dropped Sunday funnies and don’t care.

Of all the things from yesteryear that I’ve given up, reading some or all of the comics has remained part of my daily routine. I endured years of reactionary banality (Manchester), studied ignorance (Copley), and sterilization (Platinum Equity) to have my daily fix of drawn characters saying stuff in the local paper.

I’ll be not-happy about not-reading Jeff McDonald and other UT reporters’ stories on wrongdoing. There are enough aggregators and originators of local news that I already support (Voice of San Diego, Axios San Diego, KPBS) and couple that I will get around to sooner or later (Times of San Diego, LaPrensaSD), along with the local NBC and CBS affiliates that I will stay informed.

The deity of market economics, with its soulless gutting and monopolizing of American existence, quietly sets the morals and influences morale of the people. The high polling numbers for people who say they are unhappy with this country’s direction are bipartisan, no matter who’s asking the questions. (It’s not the Republicrats, it’s the economy, stupid!)

“Unsafe” publications like Jezebel aren’t going out of business because nobody wants their content; machine generated analysis tells the two primary ad entities that reality-based reporting or commentary is to be avoided. People might have feelings when they read that stuff. Instead, revenue flows to low information/misinformation disseminators dedicated to serving nothingness over citizenship.

Cory Doctorow explains in an essay on “brand safety” (reposted here yesterday):

• This boycott makes use of scammy "AI" technology like "sentiment and emotional analysis" to determine whether an article is suitable for monetization. These parameters are then fed to the ad-tech duopoly's ad auction system, so Google and Meta (who control the vast majority of online advertising) can ensure that real news is starved of cash.

• But reality is not brand-safe, and high quality, reputable journalistic outlets are concerned with reality, which means that the "brand safe" outlets that attract the most revenue are garbage websites that haven't yet been blacklisted by the ad-safety cartel, leading to major brands' ads showing up alongside notorious internet gross-out images like "goatse".

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It’s hard to believe it has been just a year+ since Elon Musk bought Twitter. He’s taken a $44 billion dollar purchase and defiled it to the point where it’s valued at roughly $19 billion (in equity shares to employees) or as little as $8 billion. 

X, as it is now known, has largely lost its value as a sort of ticker tape on events of the world. And it’s about as trustworthy as Republican talking points on Sunday News shows.

The race to replace… Xitter’s loss of credibility and its blind eye toward the worst elements of online discourse has led to at least a half dozen sites vying for its rapidly diminishing audience. I’ve been trying them as I’ve had time and the tech expertise to create accounts.

Now I’m spending seven times as much time and energy to keep up with current events and viewpoints, and getting not enough reward. Back in the day, the feeds at Xitter allowed an overview of a vast number of sources for news on just about any topic of interest. No longer did you have to visit online or buy physical copies of dozens of publications just to keep up.

This had its downside, of course, in that too much of the online facing world became echo chambers once a story outside the normal flow became known. When publication XXTYZZZ wrote about witchcraft in Texas, variations on sorcery of that sort were soon to appear in weekly shoppers and local tv news.

This still happens. As I’m writing this, the reality of Dear Leader’s authoritarian schemes for a future presidency is today’s BIG thing. Mainstream reporters started asking about that thing plain as day in Trumpworld and were shocked at the answers. This news is being echoed everywhere, and faces we recognize on visual media are shocked, I tell you, shocked at what has been “discovered”.

Our local daily has joined the ranks of media framing holding that Biden’s polling a year from the elections is somehow more newsworthy that the former president’s Veterans Day rhetoric echoing Hilter. 

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And now, ladies and gents, (mostly) new (to me) kids on the block in a nutshell, presented in random order. I didn’t sign up simultaneously to these six platforms, and two of them posed technical challenges because I view things on multiple devices. There are others, including CounterSocial, that I haven’t got around to checking out. None of these sites require payment.

Tribel calls themselves “an innovative pro-democracy Twitter alternative that’s free of hatred and fake news.” There’s definitely an anti-Trump slant in the feed, which is more “opinion” pieces than news.

One metric I used in evaluating these alternatives was sorting the topics raised in the first ten posts Sunday afternoon.

Six of the ten at Tribel focused on the former president; one was about MAGA Mike’s speakership, one was a cutsie doggie pic, one was disparaging the anti-abortion movement, and one was a platitude of the kind often found on “motivational” posters.

Tribel was developed by Likeopedia and is owned by Democratic activists Omar and Rafael Rivero, who also own the Occupy Democrats news site. The majority of users are 45+.

To join Tribel, all you have to do is download the Tribel app on your app store or visit their website: tribel.com and signup. It’s free and doesn’t have any ideological restrictions for joining.

Post describes itself as "a place for people to discover, read, watch, discuss and share premium news content ... discover, follow, share, and support diverse voices on topics you care about and join smart conversations without the toxicity." 

My “first ten” survey was from my “followers” tab (there is also a “news” tab). They were all over the place (one each): dirty cops, joke meme, anti hate, Trump, Netanyahu, COVID, dog pic, Gaza, DeSantis, and platitude. 

Post is oriented toward presenting deadtree or static web news media. There is a points/micropayments system for getting past paywalls. Post Points bundles range from 300 points for $4.20 to 10,000 for $126.70. I get points when users “tip” me for my Words & Deeds posts.

CNN, the Independent, Fortune, USA Today, Politico, Propublica, and Reuters are the backbone of its content.  Many of the biggies in print aren’t posting there and breaking news is often well-aged by the time it appears..

Noam Bardin, who was CEO of Waze from 2009-2021, founded Post and raised money from venture capital outfits. Its corporate aura is as centrist as it thinks it can be. It is easy to use, but often milquetoast. 

Sign up for Post for free by going directly to Post's site. 

Mastodon (Social) is everything for everybody; a free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. Embedded or attached or using therein are other vehicles including right wing Gab, Trump’s Truth Social, and (serving India) Tooter.  It’s the OG (2016) of alternatives to social media in general. It’s crowd funded. 

Compare it to being able to hear the thoughts of everybody around you in a crowded space. You join a feed by belonging to a “node/server”, many of which are organized around topics. The good news is that you can pack up your followers and move to another server. The bad news is that I have no idea of how that works or what other options might be.

Different servers have different rules of the road, including moderation. My perch is mastodon.social, which is not link friendly. When I share a Words & Deeds post, I have to type the headline, paste the link, and download a graphic.

Mastodon is where techies tell people to go when one of the existing social media sites breaks bad. The problem there is a sense of disconnectedness, and asking users what neighborhood in a strange city they’d like to park in.

The first ten survey of my view of Mastodon.social was all over the place; Trump’s trial, Gaza war news, Lady Gaga, a complaint about Disney, a donation ask, NFL, Netflix, SciFi, a cat pic, and an organizational pitch. 

Join Mastodon ( and pick your home) at this website.

Spoutible was founded this year by Christopher Bouzy, who back in the pre-Musk days, ran a twitter analytics site that was booted out by its new overlord in 2022. It describes itself as a "safe, inclusive, and enjoyable online space" with a "zero-tolerance policy for targeted harassment, hate speech, disinformation, and platform manipulation". Itb is also the only Black-owned social network.

The feed for Sproutible looks like the old Twitter, sans much of the wacko bs. Advocates for causes can post content without fear of being overwhelmed by hateful responses and –often– harassment outside the platform. Opinions of the anti-Trump persuasion are the primary currency in “Spouts.” There’s links to news stories, but they are depressingly repetitive.

Start up capital came from Bouzy’s and COO Phil Schnyder’s personal savings. They are attempting to crowdfund future operations. I get the impression that cash flow is tight. There has been some controversy over rigidity in Bouzy’s rules of the road.

My first ten surveys: Comments about Sprout-3x, Ukraine, Disabled rights,  the Lincoln Project, Diwali, Lawrence Fishburn video, and Trump. 

You can hook up with Spoutble by getting the free app through Google Play or Apple or by going to Spoutible.com

Threads is a new (summer 2023) app, “built by the Instagram team, for sharing text updates and joining public conversations.” FYI– Instagram is part of Mark Zuckerberg's kingdom. 

It’s become very popular among the news and public affairs types and (at 30 million users on day one/100 million after five days) was the fastest-growing platform in history. I have only recently signed up.

It has been a ‘build it while running’ experience, with functionality additions appearing regularly. Engagement with the app took a steep dive as it went through those changes; it appears to be stable now.

Nowadays, the feed is a mixture of opinion, news, and palate cleansing photography. I personally like it the most of the apps I tried. However, Threads being a Zuckerberg enterprise, it comes with all the privacy concerns people have with Facebook and the possibility of its master limiting the scope of content in quest of clickbait. 

My “first ten” experience with Threads was: Trump x3, Iran, Cancer fundraiser, books (fiction), a comedian, Taylor Swift, a meme, and a dog pic.

Getting into Threads requires you sign up for Instagram (Google Play or Apple), then you can download the Threads app for iOS or Android to set up your account. You’ll use the same name for your Threads account as you do on Instagram. It’s best to start the signup process on your phone, rather than a desktop or tablet.

Bluesky – Started as a developmental project by the old owner of Twitter, it’s currently an invite only experience, though invites are not hard to obtain. The thought was to develop a decentralized social network protocol, in which multiple social networks, each with its own systems of curation and moderation, interact with other social networks through an open standard. In other words, like Mastodon, but easier to grok.

Once you’re in the door, they’ll show you others who you might be interested in following or being friends with. Choices made here play a strong role in determining what appears on your feed; the more people you choose, the better content you’ll see. And you can always unfollow a creep.

Bluesky feels more like a conversation, or a series of conversations. Some of them are enlightening, and some of them are pointless crap. I see lots of people I’m familiar with from the early ‘resist Trump’ days along with random contrarians. I’m interested in seeing more, as I just figured out that I had to use my invite code on my phone to get started.  (I wasn’t trying very hard, to be honest)

The first ten posts I encountered were: Ramaswamy’s insanity 2x, comment about Bluesky, dog pic, reactionary idiot “Catturd” announcing his presence, daylight savings complaint, Reddit, the 2024 elections, NoH8 campaign, Trump.

My conclusion after all these visits is that none of these sites are what I want, Yet. I’m not even sure microblogging has a future. I see amazing content in Substack newsletters and wish there was a way to browse it all.

That’s all for today. 

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Monday News Clips

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Army Ammunition Plant Is Tied to Mass Shootings Across the U.S. via the New York Times

• The vast majority of Lake City rounds sold by retailers have gone to law-abiding citizens, from hunters and farmers to target shooters. Some are drawn to them because they are made with the same materials and often to the same specifications as the military’s, while others see them as an authentic accessory for their tactical weapons and gear.

• But more than one million pages of search warrants, police evidence logs, ballistic reports, forfeiture records and court proceedings compiled by The Times provide a sweeping accounting of how Lake City ammunition, once intended for war, has also cut a criminal path across towns and cities in nearly all 50 states.

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Hey, Let's Not Elect a Guy Who Sounds Like Hitler by Jill Filipovic (Trump’s weekend utterances were openly fascist)

• Key to this strategy is encouraging followers to adopt an identity of both superiority and victimization: You are the true heir to this nation, but your birthright has been stolen from you by inferior groups that nevertheless have managed to gain control over the media, over the government, over the schools, over the culture. This was Hitler’s strategy in Germany and Mussolini’s in Italy and Franco’s in Spain, and it works because a great many people love to both think of themselves as inherently worthy and superior to others, and also believe that any hardship they experience is someone else’s fault. This is why conservatives can mock liberals as sensitive victimized snowflakes in one breath and then in the next voice a set of political views devoid of policy on material wellbeing but chock full of grievance and revenge for perceived wrongs.

• This strategy works when societies are growing fairer and more pluralistic; it’s working in the US now precisely because liberals have made real gains. Those gains haven’t actually victimized conservatives in any tangible way, but they have resulted in big cultural shifts that mean the public square is louder and more diverse, and the minority of single white straight Christian men no longer dominate nearly every aspect of power and public life. Liberals aren’t actually enemies of the state who control the media and entertainment and the government and schools, but it is true that some of these industries and institutions tilt left, and it’s certainly true that none of them are run by and made up of white male conservatives alone. That’s enough to feed the victim narrative.

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The New Leaders of the Left - Palestine has ended the Bernie Era. By Hamilton Nolan

• Bernie has effectively been the leader of the Left for the past eight years. That is not a judgment of who the purest purist in America is. It’s just a basic reading of the facts of the world. But now, I think, that time is over. 

• What is happening in Palestine has killed it. History is a long procession of moral tests, and not everyone passed this one. And this one is too important to overlook. After the immediate intensity of this issue recedes, the Left is going to be different. The leaders who could not bring themselves to call for a ceasefire when justice demanded it are not going to be the leaders any more. 

• This is one of those times when a dividing line rushes up from the ground, and the Left gets to clarify who really understood what the point of all this was.