many working instances right now: https://codeberg.org/shitter/shitter/wiki/Instances
If only someone would "just" fucking build a viable replacement for Twitter. It's a weekend's work with the tools now available. C'mon. (pokes stick)
Those services are available, however, people would not stop using Twitter and will continue to do so until we stop consuming their content, then maybe they will finally get off Twitter...
Some of them would move to Instagram if it makes sense to do so, but Twitter apparently makes the best ad ROI figures among Twitter-like services.
Bluesky is founded by the same founders of Twitter and is not open and has ridiculous policies, Mastodon is the same, even less popular and even more tyrannical
So the choice for most users, including myself, is tightly moderated spaces run by awful people, or a website run by a literal Nazi, but that at least doesn't ban me on sight
The Musk twitter acquisition (and the sieg heil at the inauguration) were pivotal moments where a good alternative could've surfaced but instead we got twitter 2.0 (and moving from Twitter to Twitter 2 seems entirely pointless even if it wasn't badly moderated on top of that)
Otherwise it wouldn't have been forced upon who begrudgingly got funding secured. Any of then-GAFA could have bought it and none wanted to touch it.
The bad moderation on those platforms, I think, is a desperate attempt to align platform cultures to the moderating entities' standards that are no longer comprehensible to users, if known at all, like a kid on a push car moving away from the park trying to steer it back.
It seemed fine until 2015 or so, streaming hundreds of novel tweets per second per user, many with novel images. Then things went downhill. Musk can't be the sole villain in it.
It's like Microsoft saying they want a distinct culture among the users of their software. They can want it but it's not gonna happen. Within the mastodon community there's also a lot of servers that won't federate, for example the Germans always have very strict rules that they try to impose on everyone else. So most of the world does not federate with them anymore. *)
I mean there's even stuff like gab and truth social that run on fediverse tech. Not sure if it's mastodon itself or another implementation but that doesn't really matter. They certainly don't meet those culture and values.
And there is no 'mainstream fediverse'. Nothing about fediverse is mainstream to begin with. Unfortunately.
*) Don't get me wrong, I'm very progessive myself but the way the German fediverse community goes about it is wrong. "Follow exactly our rules otherwise you are defederated". That doesn't fly even if I agree with most of those rules.
Gargron also decided that laws in his home country considers even linking to certain images illegal and various forms of labelings and voluntary policing from abroad tangential to legality and useless.
They packaged those standards and decisions as something along necessary measures to curb terrorism or whatever, and took the measures to effectively cut off said 2/3 plus some off of the "main Mastodon network", so to speak. Those measures lasted for years, until I think less than a year ago(you'll know what I'm talking about from my immediate comment history).
You could have a kolektiva app but they obviously don't want to.
What's the ""main Mastodon network""?
This is in the google play store too: https://github.com/aeharding/voyager Though I get it from F-Droid obviously.
I don't know about Apple, its ecosystem is way too closed for me. But Google offers fediverse apps.
Gab/Truth was easy and not that controversial, but content moderation was a lot more problematic, so they introduced a published instance blocklist system and had operators join the condemnation while also throwing wrenches at instance chooser interfaces online and/or hardcoded, because otherwise the "main" part will become a permanent minority.
I think any modern LLMs would see/know what I mean. Ask your agent if you need more information along this lore.
And its biggest weakness because instance admins keep bitchfighting with each other, holding their users hostage.
And there are some groups like the German fediverse that stipulate a really long and very specific list of rules and block any instance that doesn't take these over 100% verbatim, no discussion allowed. Also a good reason most of them are blocked. We've had this issue before at the progressive instance I was on.
But besides that most of them get along well. Mastodon is strong on bubble forming anyway but I personally like that. I hate seeing a post from a trans friend on e.g. instagram and then see hundreds of Americans falling over themselves to spew trans hate. Even though the post had nothing to do with that. I think bubbles are necessary in today's online world because many people are just not worth talking to anymore.
Yeah guess what, I'm German LOL that's why I wrote this post
> Also a good reason most of them are blocked.
Well the problem is, it's still annoying from a user perspective - I don't care about the problems other instance admins have with the admins of my instance. And no, I don't want to maintain a dozen accounts just to make sure I can interact with everyone I want to.
> I hate seeing a post from a trans friend on e.g. instagram and then see hundreds of Americans falling over themselves to spew trans hate.
yeah the commercial social networks are just another level of shittiness, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of these "Americans" are just Russians in disguise.
So they constantly engage in those ostentatious acts as almost a cultish rituals of its own to distance themselves from whatever it is.
Which is, frankly understandable. Behaviors of some of European counterterrorist units and NGOs/NPOs are rather unhinged. I would do the same if I were them. I'd even put up some religious symbols or donation receipts in the login page just to avoid giving them wrong ideas.
Huh? It is remarkably open and the policies are not really an issue.
Weird thing is that my feed is largely fine other than those gotten banned went back to Twitter. Only politics topics I get are neutral, concerns in global economy, some US and more often Ukraine. No dick pics or furries or antisemetism, just cats, more cats, food pics, infosec stuffs, all as I were back on Twitter in 2009 or so.
But there are enough reports of negative experience, so moderatuon is likely still a bit problematic. Or that compounding with lack of passionate users.
I wish we wouldn't mince words about this because that's really the long and short of it.
(The third option, of course, is to not use social networks run by Nazis as a basic matter of principle.)
... so? Being linked to it is not an obligation to bother with it, neither is FOMO.
Closing your eyes and ears and going NAAH NAAH NAAH I'M GOING TO PRETEND IT DOESNT EXIST is a wildly stupid way to approach things like twitter when they are still so influential.
I appreciate experimenting with "boycotting," but when the dust settles and the thing is still very much there, you have to engage with that fact.
So no, you "have to" do nothing of the sort. If something happens there that's worth reporting on, reputable journalists will write about it.
I neither love nor hate the place; in fact -- yes -- today I dislike it more than I like it.
But again, my like or dislike doesn't matter. It exists and has influence. And for that reason, there are very moral reasons to engage with it even if you think it is evil.
And even if Twitter is influential, you, Joe Random, will have no effect on anything by engaging with people there. All you are is fuel for the (attention) fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_Elon_M...
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/17/opinion/elon-musk-republi...
https://ecfr.eu/article/musks-war-on-european-democracy-how-...
https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-x-influence-uk-us-polit...
Hope that helps.
There's some likely made up charts online[1] for country stats of Twitter right now, and Twitter is allegedly 2.5x more popular than it is in the US in the top two countries, which are incidentally known for strong-ish purchasing power and near-nonexistent English literacy.
Musk's ongoing massive self humiliation is largely contained to the US/English speaking space. Other parts of the world with no strong cultural understandings and pathways from the US and its politics, which is quite substantial still, are fine, ish. Things like LLM auto translation haven't made a change to that situation; it only strengthened the reverse of that pathway.
And that’s just my quick googling
What else do you need to agree that he is far right? Wear an SS outfit? Put some people in ovens?
Otherwise, yes, I think labeling any party which works within the legal bounds as “far” is dangerous. Because there are legit far groups which should not be permitted on both sides of the spectrum. And we better know what is legitimate and what not.
Iirc Weidel herself has made statements regarding how the society should always promote heteronormativity.
Pure comedy at this point, seriously, this is hilarious.
AfD wants to do mass deportations (because nothing bad ever happened when a party in Germany had the idea to mass deport people based on ethnicity). Their leader can be a lesbian and still have a platform that is pretty extremely to the right
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/07/europe/afd-first-place-sa...
> Otherwise, yes, I think labeling any party which works within the legal bounds as “far” is dangerous
Keep in mind that the NSDAP also operated within the legal boundaries.
Based on your asinine rationality, labeling the fucking nazis in early 1930s as far right would be "dangerous".
I am no expert but you might be correct - quick search shows they exploited legal loopholes, essentially hacked the system. I am afraid we haven’t learned much feom it as recent history shows.
That said, legal framework has thankfully changed since and in Europe there is the Europen Convention of Human Rights, plus the constitutional rights. That said, they are not failable, and are equally explotable by left and right, especially if the conditions are right, such as fear.
So ok, point taken, even those who operate within legal bounds today need to be watched closely - on all sides.
And yes I think being homosexual and far anything is pretty weird, as neither far left nor right would tolerate homosexuality IMO. Socialism proved that.
And btw, despite what historians tell, the NSDAP sold itself to the voters on the _left_ ideas. Fascism likewise. In fact, when blinded, some left thinkers have enforsed fascist ideas. Again, hilarious. But true.
Here are some points from fascist manifesto if you don’t believe me:
- Universal suffrage by regional list voting, with proportional representation, voting and eligibility for women.
- Minimum age for voters lowered to 18; minimum age for deputies lowered to 25.
- The prompt enactment of a state law enshrining the legal eight-hour workday for all jobs.
- Minimum wages.
- The participation of workers' representatives in the technical operation of industry.
- The entrusting to the proletarian organizations themselves (who are morally and technically worthy) of the management of public industries or services.
- The speedy and complete settlement of the railroad workers and all transportation industries.
- A necessary amendment of the Disability and Old Age Insurance Bill by lowering the age limit, currently proposed at 65, to 55.
It’s comical that an organisation endorsing and expanding these same ideas is called “antifa”. In fact, people today have no clue what fascism was, they just use it as label for whatever they disagree with, same as “far right”.
Those who don’t know history are indeed condemned to repeat it.
The "left" spans such a huge range right now that to be "not left" is basically far right. A Republican opposing Trump is _extremely_ rare (and usually excommunicates them from the party) while on the left, you have AOC, Omar, etc actively sharing a party with Fetterman and Manchin. Right/far-right was a thing in the 2010's but not any more.
What is “far right”, btw? What are objective measurable criteria?
> The "left" spans such a huge range right now that to be "not left" is basically far right
Jesus Christ, you can’t be serious. But then again, I am not surprised that you are.
So maybe it is in the eye of the beholder? I certainly see far more labelling coming from the "left" side of the spectrum than from the "right" side although they're certainly catching up lately now that the communist zombie has risen from its grave again. On the "right" the general idea of the "left" seems to be that they're 'stupid', 'naive' and 'uninformed' while on the "left" the general idea of the "right" seems to be that they're 'evil', 'narrow-minded', 'racist' and '*-phobe'. Neither of these general ideas are true but that doesn't seem to bother anyone.
Name one
He is against mass immigration, especially from Islamic countries. That is a very mainstream view though. There is nothing 'far' about it.
It is controversial when you start pointing to individual immigrants already in country Y and saying "hey you, get the fuck out".
Which is of course why people like Musk always try to frame things as the first one. They always say things like "the president is importing one million illegals" and never say things like "one million different people decided to come here, all for different reasons"
Example: https://shitter.thepixora.com/search?f=tweets&q=elon+musk
Wont show any pictures in Firefox for me. Works in Chrome. Can this be fixed? Thank you!
what you're saying, if I understand correctly, is that self-hosting this is trivial then
so does that mean I could run my own local instance and never get it taken down since traffic would be negligible? why do people opt to host these for others over teaching how to run your own for example?
Yes. It comes encouraged.
> so does that mean I could run my own local instance and never get it taken down since traffic would be negligible?
Yes, unless the other end forbids it and really cares about controlling clients. If they do and manage to detect that you are using alternative client they could block based on that. In times where that happens and there are client devs who care, it becomes a cat-and-mouse.
Every individual running their own instance would be the equivalent of every individual having their own Twitter account, which defeats the purpose.
Maybe your cultural values aren't my cultural values. Maybe you need to consider who you are excluding by suggesting that using a curse word is unacceptable?
Cursing has a long tradition in lower economic class culture, in some minority cultures, in queer culture, heck in mainstream cultures worldwide we say "shit", etc. You want them all to conform to your one view of how professionals should be? The curse word isn't directed at you, it isn't directed at anyone you know, or even at a person.
No, I think maybe I'd rather live in a world where people are colorful, use language that's authentic to them, and include more people in the dialog.
I am. Thus the complaint. I would think the general audience here is of a higher caliber than low-class cultures whose values and education can't rise above profanity.
My person in deity "enshittification" is a technical term of art around here, and "Gimp" is both a popular graphics software and a sexual fetish term.
No one besides children and people with low emotional IQ care about such things.
By and large the hacker news moderators and commentariat have demonstrated that they do not welcome those cultures here.
At least I'm living now and not in the past. I do believe in gradual progress.
Uh, shitfuck.