Twitter is being rebranded as X. So, if one “tweets” on Twitter, will one then be “eX-iting” posts on X?
I think it’s a perfect time to eXit the entire platform.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/23/23804629/twitters-rebrand-to-x-may-actually-be-happening-soon

Read Tweet to Toot: Why I'm moving off Twitter by Leo LaporteLeo Laporte (leo.fm)
It’s just too toxic on Twitter. The continued trolling was hurting our team, our hosts, and our business, so we decided, as a team, to pack up and move out. I don’t know about you, but I always found Twitter mildly disturbing. I won’t miss it (any more than I miss Facebook).
Read Chuck Woolery says 'everyone is lying' about coronavirus, then reveals son's diagnosis (NBC News)
"To further clarify and add perspective, Covid-19 is real and it is here. My son tested positive for the virus," Woolery tweeted Monday.
Oh the irony of life. Interesting to note that he left the platform over it.
Read Why I Quit Twitter, a List by Derek Powazek (Medium)
After 12 years and over 41,700 tweets, I’ve deactivated my Twitter account. Here’s a few reasons why.
A solid list of reasons why to quit Twitter. Someone pointed out to me that he’s actually returned since. I find that my new use from a more IndieWeb perspective is a lot happier and healthier. I ought to document how I’ve been using it lately to diminish the harms.
Read Giving up tweeting for one week by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
I’m thinking about giving up tweeting for one week, and instead write out all my thoughts and reactions on my blog. So far this year, I’ve been having a lot of fun blogging more. In the past decade when I have an idea, I would head to Twitter and blurt it out. Now, writing out …
Read Giving up tweeting for one week by Matt MaldreMatt Maldre (Spudart)
I’m thinking about giving up tweeting for one week, and instead write out all my thoughts and reactions on my blog. So far this year, I’ve been having a lot of fun blogging more. In the past decade when I have an idea, I would head to Twitter and blurt it out. Now, writing out …
It’s not a complete silo quit, but it’s a start. Matt’s got some great ideas here about why it’s important and useful to write on your own website. I do think there are some building blocks he could add to his site to improve on some of the downsides or replace bits he thinks he’s missing out on though.

Since he doesn’t support Webmentions yet, I’m manually syndicating my reply to his website in support of his efforts.

Read The escape from Instagram by Jeremy Felt (jeremyfelt.com)
I’ve been thinking through how to leave Facebook’s Instagram service since June, when I finally deleted my central Facebook account. This should be easy, because I don’t post that much on Instagram, but it always seems hard because it’s the best user experience (IMO) on mobile for writing a ...
An interesting method of leaving Instagram. I still read content there, but I had used dsgnwrks-instagram-importer by Justin Sternberg to rescue all of my Instagram posts back into my WordPress site since it gave me a huge amount of control over porting over the metadata as well. I’m noticing that the repository lists it with a warning “This plugin has been closed as of August 10, 2019 and is not available for download. Reason: Licensing/Trademark Violation.” though I can’t imagine what that would have been for unless Instagram is trying to nudge Justin out. (There’s a copy of the plugin on Github for those who may still want it.) Other than a small issue I’d seen with some emoji in Instagram, the plugin always worked like a charm for me.

Prior to that I’d always been a big fan of Aaron Parecki’s OwnYourGram, though I understand that Instagram was limiting his crawler, so the service may not be taking new accounts.

While I know some of the people behind Pixelfed and generally trust them, I don’t think I would use it as a solution unless I was standing up my own instance of the service. Far too many Mastodon instances have gone down for me to trust a particular sites’ admins. Apparently Mastodon has made it easier to move from one instance to another, but I’m not sure how this may or may not apply to Pixelfed.

Presently, my money is on Matthias Pfefferle’s ActivityPub plugin which adds support to a WordPress site to act as a stand-alone member of the Fediverse. While it’s beta software, it works fairly well and is evolving impressively over the past year or so. I suspect that photo support will improve to put it on par with solutions like Pixelfed, particularly when combined with the ease of use of some of the Micropub photo posting applications that are out there.

I’d feel remiss if I didn’t mention that another option for exiting Instagram (or at least backing it up to your own site even if you don’t leave completely) is to try Beau Lebens’ Keyring Social Importers plugin. I know a few who have used and liked it for its Instagram and other social silo support.

I’m sure there are other methods out there as well and many might be found on the IndiwWeb wiki pages for “Instagram” or “photo”.

Replied to Boycotting the attention economy in December by Ben WerdmüllerBen Werdmüller (Ben Werdmüller)
Last year, on a whim, I left social media on Thanksgiving, and didn't return until January 1st. It led to massive improvements in my mental and physical health, overall happiness, attention span, and engagement with the world. This year I've been with my mother while she spent months in the hospital...
Thanks for the nudge Ben.

I’ve been thinking about this since last night and am half-tempted just to give it up all together and go full indie, but I would be cutting out far too many people that I really like and get a lot out of. However, I’ve been slowly moving further and further away from the toxicity of corporate platforms in any case, so, like Ben, I’ll declare myself all-in on boycotting the attention economy in December.

In my case, this primarily means giving up Twitter since I’ve long since jettisoned Facebook (and really don’t miss it) and it’s been ages since I’ve scrolled through my heavily pared down Instagram account which I now only access through a feed reader to cut out ads. So as to not cut myself off completely, I’ll still interact with others online with my own IndieWeb website and through a small handful of excellent feed readers where I have complete control over what I see and when.

I’ll start to prep for the cleanse today by removing the Twitter app from my phone.

👓 How I Twitter | Leo Laporte

Read How I Twitter by Leo Laporte (Leo Laporte)
As you may know I deactivated my half-million follower/bot twitter account last August. I don’t miss it at all except as a newsfeed. Twitter practically killed RSS readers by providing a firehose of instantaneously “curated” news. With all its flaws, that firehose is useful for a variety of re...

👓 Should the Media Quit Facebook? — The Disinformation War | Columbia Journalism Review

Read Should the Media Quit Facebook? — The Disinformation War by Mathew Ingram (The Disinformation War)
With all that has transpired between Facebook and the media industry over the past couple of years—the repeated algorithm changes, the head fakes about switching to video, the siphoning off of a significant chunk of the industry’s advertising revenue—most publishers approach the giant social network with skepticism, if not outright hostility. And yet, the vast majority of them continue to partner with Facebook, to distribute their content on its platform, and even accept funding and resources from it.
A very solid question to be asking and to be working on answers for. 

Personally I feel like newspapers, magazines, and media should help to be providing IndieWeb-based open platforms of their own for not only publishing their own work, but for creating the local commons for their readers and constituents to be able to freely and openly interact with them.

They’re letting Facebook and other social media to own too much of their content and even their audience. Building tools to take it back could help them, their readers, and even democracy out all at the same time.

Sadly, based on what I’m seeing here, however, even CJR has outsourced their platform for this series to SquareSpace. At least they’re publishing it on a URL they own and control.

👓 In which I finally stop using Patreon | fluffy

Read In which I finally stop using Patreon by fluffyfluffy (beesbuzz.biz)
So, hey, Patreon is a pretty popular site for funding the creative people you follow. A lot of people rely on Patreon as their primary source of income. More power to them if they do; it's where everyone goes to do that sort of thing and it's really enabled a lot of people to do what they love for a living.
Quoted from email about "Policy change in regards to Social Media use for social learning from Centre for Innovation, Leiden University" by Tanja de Bie, Community Manager (Centre for Innovation, Leiden University via Coursera)

The Centre for Innovation of Leiden University has always strongly supported social or collaborative learning in online learning:  the interaction between learners facilitating learners, whether that is in discussion forums, peer review assignments or in our Facebook groups, contributes to a deeper understanding of subjects, and prepares learners to apply their knowledge.

However, the Centre for Innovation has a responsibility to our teachers, learners and volunteers, under GDPR and our own Privacy Policy. Based on this we conducted a review of different platforms that we made use of for collaborative, social learning and have decided to move away from those that do not allow us to meet our obligations and promises to those in our care.

Therefore we have decided to close all Facebook groups, Whatsapp groups and Instagram accounts currently under control of the Centre for Innovation, per the 29th of March 2019, and have adjusted our courses accordingly.

You can direct any questions or remarks in regards to this policy to MOOC@sea.leidenuniv.nl.

Kind Regards,

On behalf of Centre for Innovation, Leiden University,

Tanja de Bie, Community Manager

At least part of Leiden University is apparently making the moral and ethical call to close all their Facebook related properties. Kudos! They’ve already got a great website, perhaps they’ll move a bit more toward the IndieWeb?