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   Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:37:15 JST Chris Trottier

   It's my birthday today! I'm now 41-years-old ? ? ?

   And I gave myself a gift: freedom.

   My Twitter account is deleted. I'm done with it forever. There is no going back.

   Sayonara, Elon!

   • ThatOneCalculator :calcdumpy: :calckey: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     ThatOneCalculator :calcdumpy: :calckey: (thatonecalculator@stop.voring.me)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:05 JST ThatOneCalculator :calcdumpy: :calckey:

     in reply to

     • COD

     @atomicpoet@mastodon.social @chrisod@fosstodon.org hbd!!!

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:06 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     • COD

     @chrisod It's indeed happy!

   • Embed this notice
     COD (chrisod@fosstodon.org)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:11 JST COD

     in reply to

     @atomicpoet Happy Birthday!

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:12 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     Yeah, happy birthday to me!

     My wife is buying me a cake right now. We're going to have Korean hot pot for dinner. I'm going to enjoy an evening with friends.

     And my last connection to Big Social is finished.

     Today, is a very good birthday ? ? ?

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:13 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     Since March, I've:

     1. Started three active Fediverse instances
     2. Donated money to Mastodon and Pixelfed
     3. Helped test Calkey
     4. Developed a unique streaming video app for the Fediverse.
     5. Talked every damn day about social media, and the value of the Fediverse

     I'm not going to stop banging this drum until Big Social is run off the Internet!

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:14 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     The stampede at the Cancun International Airport demonstrated to me that the game on Twitter is rigged.

     If I'm being called a conspiracy theorist and crank for being an eye witness to a traumatizing event -- and those bots making those accusations are getting privileged in the algorithm -- then Twitter doesn't deserve to exist.

     In 2009, I helped grow Twitter. In 2022, I'm going to do everything I can to destroy Twitter.

     Obviously Elon Musk is doing more than I am -- but still!

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:15 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     The event that made me go completely all in on the Fediverse was a shitty event that happened last March.

     I was at the Cancun International airport. Gun shots were heard. This caused a massive panic and stampede within the airport. It was frightening.

     I live-tweeted the whole thing as it happened.

     And then I got harrassed on Twitter.

     Bots came out of the woodwork. They tried gaslighting me, calling me a liar.

     Twitter amplified the harassers, minimized my live tweets.

     So... f*ck Twitter!

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:16 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     How did I end up hating Twitter?

     It's for a variety of reasons:
     1. They killed organic interactions in favour of algorithmic "relevancy
     2. They profited from the rise of Fascism, especially from hosting Donald Trump -- and they only banned him when his presidency was good and over
     3. They've helped destroy destroyed the "social" in social media in favour of broadcast media in everything but name
     4. They've banned various accounts of mine -- most devoted to hobbies -- for opaque reasons

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:18 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     In 2009, I (along with a team of developers) built a Twitter client. Ultimately, it was -- and it's still used -- by millions of people.

     When Twitter closed it's API to 3rd parties, we were the one excepted from this.

     So yeah, I've monetarily benefitted from Twitter's existence. I must absolutely admit that.

     And so for very personal reasons, I didn't want to give up my Twitter account -- even as I know they're partially responsible for the rise of Fascism.

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:19 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     Three years ago, I deleted Facebook and Instagram. It was a huge relief.

     No high school bullies trying to friend me on Facebook. No relatives starting arguments over politics. No ex-girlfriends suddenly private messaging me.

     My life utterly improved.

     Twitter was my last connection with Big Social, and that connection has been severed.

     This one was harder to sever than the others. And that's because Twitter changed my life.

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 05-Nov-2022 09:38:20 JST Chris Trottier

     in reply to

     Previously, I had kept my Twitter account to cross-post from Mastodon.

     I reasoned that cross-posting to Twitter would encourage others to migrate to the Fediverse.

     That probably didn't happen because no one saw my tweets anyway.

     But the clincher -- the thing that made me realize that Twitter was just a big waste of time, energy, and bandwidth -- was the realization that my posts are already being cross-posted to Twitter anyway by other people.

     Now that I see this, I'm done.