Tom Walker

Web designer/developer. Socialist. I like code, words and mass movements.

Find me at @[email protected]

[Zoe Gardner @ZoeJardiniere]

🥁🥁🥁Decent people must stand up against plans for mass detention and rejection of refugees!

On Monday MPs will debate the new horrific Bill in parliament - tell them #StopTheBill

For #GaryGate, for all good people's right to raise their voice, for safety, for #RefugeesWelcome

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

I notice that it is *not* against the ridiculous new Twitter rules to link to your own personal website, which then contains links to all those other places to follow you. Another reason to set one up!

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

This is a low-key announcement but raises the possibility of Tumblr federating together with Mastodon (the biggest ActivityPub-based network). That would be great!

I've very little interest at this point in joining Hive or anything else centralised. Federation is the future.

[Matt Mullenweg @photomatt]

@seldo Come to @tumblr. We'll add activitypub for interconnect. Don't stress.

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

I had better luck with Fedifinder today, and it has two backup versions (linked from that page) to try too.

It is worth doing this again every few days (for as long as Twitter exists) as new people join.

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

Public service announcement:

If you want to import people you follow from Twitter to Mastodon, there are two main ways:

1. Debirdify
https://t.co/TUdRFJQFrn
(seems to be down/v slow a lot at the moment)

2. Fedifinder
https://t.co/xnNkMHaHGW
(still working OK)

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

OK, since Mastodon is trending at #1, here's mine again:

https://t.co/6VTe3f5eDw

[Alex Heath @alexeheath]

Story to be updated soon with more: Am hearing that several “critical” infra engineering teams at Twitter have completely resigned. “You cannot run Twitter without this team,” one current engineer tells me of one such group. Also, Twitter has shut off badge access to its offices.

[Guardian news @guardiannews]

Bailing out bust energy supplier Bulb will cost taxpayers £6.5bn, figures show https://t.co/kQjqu86zW3

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

It is so strange to come back to Twitter after being mostly on Mastodon for a few days.

The anger of it all sticks out so much more. The constant rage and pain of it. It radiates from almost every tweet.

[Matthew Garrett (@[email protected]) @mjg59]

I'm absolutely losing it

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

A timeline of crisis...

https://t.co/SyBDElwl0o

[Prof Nisreen Alwan 🌻 @Dr2NisreenAlwan]

Guys there’s another way to do this!
Since trying Mastodon I’ve noticed how I came to accept exposure to cruelty & hostility as part of the deal of being able to talk to you. The clicks algorithm is not necessarily our connection master. How refreshing to be reminded of that.

[Casey Newton @CaseyNewton]

Update: company sources tell me that yesterday Twitter eliminated ~4,400 of its ~5,500 contract employees, with cuts expected to have significant impact to content moderation and the core infrastructure services that keep the site up and running.

People inside are stunned.

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

7. You can imagine Twitter continuing as a site that is more news-focused. Maybe whoever buys it from Musk for a fraction of the price will do that.

8. Mastodon makes you reflect on *why* you are posting if not for the #numbers. Many people may ultimately choose Not Posting.

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

Thoughts on the #TwitterMigration to Mastodon:

1. It is firmly underway among two groups of users, heavy Twitter users (think dozens of posts per day) and more technical users (think person with a personal website/Raspberry Pi/etc). Some others follow their example.

[Tom Walker @tomwalkr]

6. People who post on Twitter to feel important won't mostly get that from Mastodon (apart from perhaps follower count). It does not encourage status symbols or virality. It does not react to, still less set, any news agenda – and I wouldn't expect it to start.