I no longer use X/Twitter

I am not proud it took me so long, but I finally closed my account on X/Twitter earlier this week.

I had virtually not used it since late 2022. I started using it in 2009 for random chitchat, but in recent years I had mostly adjusted my use of this social network for professional purposes (discussing with other scientists). Checking back recently, I noticed that several of the accounts that started following mine in the last two years were bots promoting content that, well, let’s say does not exactly look professional…

Some people chose to delete their messages but keep the account, to prevent the handle from being re-used. I considered doing the same, but figured that I am not famous enough to worry about my handle being re-used. More importantly, I decided that I no longer want any connection whatsoever with this social network and its owner.

I currently have an account on Bluesky, because unfortunately most of the people I follow out of professional interest moved to this platform. But I am not planning to invest any effort into a platform that recently took funding from investors. We now know too well what happens when the return on investment comes due: ads, paid subscriptions, sell-out to a richer guy, or a combination thereof. There is even a new word for this.

The bottom line is: if you ever see a @Guillawme on X, this is not me, and don’t bother following me on Bluesky.

Choose a future-proof platform instead: choose the fediverse. It has been decentralized and federated from day one, which makes it immune to corporate interests and takeovers. A variety of entities run fediverse servers: individuals, non-profits, government agencies, news outlets, etc. All can interoperate. This is a much saner ecosystem than a single platform owned by a corporation whose customers are advertisers. If you are in a position to do so, encourage your organization to run their own fediverse instance: ownership of their data, control of their digital infrastructure and of their branding are all reasons that a sensible organization should recognize are important. Visibility will temporarily decrease, but we’re in this for the long haul. In a few years, some billionaire might well decide to buy and ruin Bluesky. How many such cycles of platform decay will you tolerate? I personally already have too much platform churn fatigue. When Bluesky “does a Twitter”, I am confident that the fediverse will still be around and will have become a stable piece of internet infrastructure here to stay.

You will find me on the fediverse as @Guillawme@fediscience.org (I chose an instance run by a non-profit and funded by donations). It’s super nice over there. :-)