[conspire] Twitter successors

[Rick Moen]

Meet Malcolm Nance.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Nance
https://substack.com/@malcolmnance
https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance
https://www.facebook.com/MalcolmNance

I reached out to Mr. Nance for two reasons.  One, as I mention to him, 
he's the final person still on Twitter that I bother to pay any
attention to.  Two, as I didn't get into, Elmo (Elon Musk) finally
managed to kill all of the world's Nitter proxies:
https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/1155#issuecomment-1914003395

Until yesterday, I'd happily used one or another Nitter proxy 
to follow a couple of Twitter users without ads, without surveillance,
without Javascript, and without money to Elmo.  But Elmo cannot permit
_any_ third-party access to Twitter, even killing off the firm's own 
mobile client, so the guest-account API that Nitter relied upon got
garroted in late January.

For now, I'm putting up with Twitter's dismal WebUI just to keep a tab
open to Nance's tweets, but if I can help him move somewhere better,
I can fully kiss off Xitter with no regrets.  (Or, of course, Elmo may 
do corporate level flight into terrain, first.)

(PostNews?  Threads?  TikTok?  Facebook?  Instagram?  
Don't make me point to the sign.
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/11/mastoversary/ )


----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 18:23:59 -0800
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: Malcolm Nance <malcolm.w.nance at gmail.com>
Subject: Possible Twitter successors, if/when you are interested, sir

Dear Mr. Nance:

I've admired your contributions to our country, and to a proper
understanding of international affairs, for many years.  So, this is
partly fan-mail, and partly a desire to offer you useful information,
rather than just wasting your time.

I'm sure it hasn't eluded you that Twitter is being destroyed by that 
lunatic with the Mars fetish, which is one reason my entire infosec 
(information security) profession abandoned that platform,
spontaneously, within a month of Mr. Musk's leveraged purchase and
series of deranged management changes.  (As it happens, you are the
final person I follow on Twitter, after Peter Zeihan ceased posting
anything but weekday "I have a new YouTube clip" tweets.)  So:  Would
you be amenable to suggestions, about where to participate instead 
of Twitter?

You are, I'd guess, happy with your Substack, but social-media
microblogging successors to Twitter beckon.  Twitter itself may be
adequate to your needs for now, but as it gets worse, please do consider
these two in particular:



1.  BlueSky Social (Bsky.app).  This is the more-similar to old-Twitter
platform option, as to organizational structure and as to UI.  It is
only minimally tainted with sociopathic billionaire disease (no Musk, 
no Zuckerberg), and has many serious and worthwhile users.  (It claims
5 million registered users, as of a month ago.)

You would find it easy to move from Twitter to BlueSky Social, and there
are guides to doing so painlessly, e.g.:

https://www.wikihow.com/Import-Twitter-to-Bluesky
https://lifehacker.com/you-can-find-your-twitter-follows-on-other-social-media-1850675120
https://buffer.com/resources/schedule-to-bluesky/

For whatever it's worth, I have a (so far) minimal presence on BlueSky 
as user "@unixmercenary.bsky.social", but you would have no special
reason to follow yr. humble servant, a semi-retired senior system
administrator in California.  But my profile is here:
https://bsky.app/profile/unixmercenary.bsky.social

BlueSky Social is asserted to be "decentralized" in that its central 
"AT protocol" messaging can in theory be implemented by others outside the
servers owned and operated by the sponsoring public-benefit LLC
("BlueSky Social, PBC" of Delaware), and then cooperate as peers with
those, but FWIW this capability seems so far aspirational, to be
charitable, and in effect the system is a corporate fiefdom.  In 2024, 
peer instances running "AT Protocol" are so far not a thing.

How many people you wish to reach are on BlueSky (or anything else; see
below), as opposed to Twitter?  Good question.  Worth pondering.  But,
remember, increasingly those aren't on Twitter, either, and much of the 
claimed current traffic is ginned up using bots and other fakery -- as
I'm sure you're aware.


2.  Mastodon.  In (slight) contrast to BlueSky, Mastodon is by design 
_fully_ proofed against sociopathic billionaires, being fully decentralized
("federated").  This difference in design also makes it harder to
explain in Twitter terms.  Metaphorically, each Mastodon "instance"
is its own kingdom with its own customs and inter-instance diplomatic
norms and rejections.  Along with many other infosec people, I set up my
shingle on Jerry Bell's instance "infosec.exchange", such that I'm
"@unixmercenary at infosec.exchange" on Mastodon.  (Profile page here:
https://infosec.exchange/@unixmercenary )

I find there to be a high percentage of worthwhile people on Mastodon
and very few of the Inevitable Ones, there.  And, unlike BlueSky Social,
there is no corporation central/essential to the system, hence
Mastodon's _full_ MuskZuck-proofing.  (Naturally, comparisons are 
opinionated.  I'm omitting mine, largely.)

It's unclear how many registered Mastodon users there are in March 2024.
A year ago, there was a credible estimate of 10 million.  Likewise, it's
unclear how many servers ("instances") there are.  One recent estimate
claimed about 2,350 known instances.

Honestly, I don't know offhand which of very many extant Mastodon
instance would be a natural fit for a USN intelligence veteran, American
patriot, and bestselling author.  (Some people say it really doesn't
matter which instance, as you can easily move when you develop a
preference.)  But then, since you don't know me, and I have no idea 
if you're interested in this topic, I should stop and say "I can find
out more if you're interested."


As it happens, BlueSky Social now is also part of the "Fediverse" with
Mastodon via gatewaying to the Fediverse's signature ActivityPub message
protocol, with the result that, if you happened to have a presence on
BlueSky, then Mastodon users like me could follow your activity from our
Mastodon accounts.  And vice-versa, I believe.  (Apologies for the
jargon, but I'm aiming for relative brevity.)

Thank you for your time, and for your many good deeds.  If you are
interested in more details, I'd be glad to point you to online resources
about Mastodon or (albeit less in my wheelhouse) BlueSky Social.

-- 
Cheers,    
Rick Moen 
rick at linuxmafia.com
McQ!  (4x80)

----- End forwarded message -----