Yesterday a friend of mine, a defense reporter in the Pacific, asked a simple question.
Do I have to actually start using Bluesky now?
I told him that I thought it was time.
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk arrives on stage at an America PAC town hall on October 26, 2024.© Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images
A lot of people seem to feel that way.
There was once a site called Twitter and its users loved it and hated it in equal measure.
As X, its worth a quarter of its original value but making money was never the point.
A short time later, the billionaire helped Donald Trump win a second term in the White House.
He hasnt left Trumps side since.
And X, the site he bought, is hemorrhaging real people and filling up with bots and 4chaners.
A lot of people stuck around on X long after it stopped being fun.
I was one of them.
I dont doubt that many will continue to use it.
But there are several reasons, beyond just the election, to finally pack it in.
Andifyou leave, what should you do with your account?
Is it enough to simply delete it?
The case for leaving
The biggest reason is that its not fun anymore.
There is an evil and anarchic energy on the internet that flows through sites like 4chan and Gab.
Its a mix of overt racism, disgusting imagery, and grotesque conspiracy theory.
Every day it feels like I see more of that on X.
Im not the only one whos noticed.
There are a couple of other more pragmatic reasons to flee.
In October X changed its terms of service and those new terms take effect on November 15.
Theres no way to opt out of it.
It may also allow third-party apps to use your posts for training data.
Again, theres no way to opt-out.
November 15 is also the day Texas takes over legal disputes around the social media site.
Which court, specifically, will hear out the X disputes?
Home of Fort Worth, Tarrant County is pretty far away from Musks adopted Austin.
Its also overseen by Judge Reed OConnor, whohappens to ownaround $50,000 in Tesla stock.
How to leave
The simplest thing to do is deactivate or delete your account.
Regardless of what you do, the first step is getting rid of the X app on your phone.
Even if you stick around, for whatever reason, you should do that.
From the desktop site, smack the three dots in the bottom left-hand corner.
Click prefs and privacy.
From here you’re free to download an archive of your data.
Do that first to preserve anything youd like to keep.
After that, select your account and then deactivate your account.
Youll be prompted to give X your password and then the account will go dormant.
Once thats done the account has 30 days.
This is the nuclear option.
Its also not what Im doing.
Instead, Im locking down my account and throwing away the key.
Thanks to work, I need to keep one foot in Xs door, unfortunately.
I cover national security issues and a lot of that stuff still plays out on X.
Diplomacy between foreign countries, annoyingly, still plays out on X.
Politicians, especially Trump-aligned ones, love pumping outweird messageson the platform.
I also dont want anyone to take over my old handle or username.
As I write this Im watching a service calledTweet Deleterscrub all my old posts and likes from the site.
It isnt free, but I only need to run it one time.
I wont be sticking around to make any more content here.
After that, Ill follow the steps above but stop short of deactivating my account.
Instead, Ill just lock it down.
Theres a box there that says Protect your posts.
After the deletions are done, Ill click protect your posts.
Thatll lock down my account.
Ill lurk, but never post and no one who isnt already a follower can interact with me.
Where to go
Threads sucks.
Mastodon is an elephant graveyard.
Will it thrive or get terrible like every other social media site?
But right now Im having a lot of wonderful conversations over there.
Nuclear Twitter moved to Bluesky early.
More defense and tech reporters appear every day.
Engagement on posts feels organic in a way that X hasnt felt in years.
People like and repost things Im posting there.
I feel like Im interacting with a community again.
It may not last.
And the reality is that we shouldnt put our faith in any social media site ever.
Cory Doctorow articulated this well in an essay from November about why he hasnt joined Bluesky.
That power has never not been abused.
Blueskys CEO Jay Graber, invoking Doctor, has promised not to enshittify the site.
How long those promises will be kept remains to be seen.
Also, if you join Bluesky, dont worry too much about the Alf hog.
It will come to you in time.
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