Veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg announced on Tuesday he was deactivating his X (formerly known as Twitter) account, saying Elon Musk’s takeover of the site turned it into a “cesspool.”

Mr Mossberg is a well-respected name and expert in the US tech writing industry, who also co-founded media sites such as Recode and AllThingsD. He announced his boycotting of X on Meta’s new platform Threads, saying his reasons revolve around business tycoon Mr Musk’s threats to sue the Anti-Defemation League (ADL).

  • enkers
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    1791 year ago

    He continued on to say he will only be found on Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram

    Mastodon: “Am I a joke to you?“ >:(

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      Hey Mr. Tech journalist, why don’t you write about federated communities and get off the corpo-web? Help us all out with that big name of yours I’ve never heard.

      Edit: oops. That was meant to be a top level comment. Whatever.

        • @[email protected]
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          -41 year ago

          Building and maintaining his brand is a significant part of his job. Same with understanding what people may be interested in reading about to know how to steer stories and the like.

          If that’s your full time job then maybe dont outsource it to some random company that gets bought by some random dude…

          Yeah… Full time work is hard

    • @[email protected]
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      251 year ago

      It’s all about brands. Pretty sad when a “tech expert” thinks Facebook Instagram and threads is honkey dorrey.

    • geosocoOP
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      191 year ago

      Someone in another thread said he has a mastodon account. Dunno if he posts there or not.

      • BaroqueInMind
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        -601 year ago

        He looks over 60, so he likely saw all the trans people and rainbows thriving there and his innate Boomer deep fear of something novel and amazing and different took over.

        • @markr
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          461 year ago

          Boomer here. We are not all the same.

        • @csgraves
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          201 year ago

          Your comment supposes that transphobia and bigotry are not problems in younger generations, and, well, this is absolutely incorrect.

          Maybe measuring social metrics isn’t best done by using arbitrary and artificial labels for entire groups of people?

          Nah, it’s gotta be those older folks, right, because you’re young and free and wild and some shit.

        • geosocoOP
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          01 year ago

          Are they still thriving there? I’ve seen a few, but there seems to be way more on bluesky.

          • @Countess425
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            51 year ago

            I spend more time blocking furries on BlueSky than seeing any content of value.

            • geosocoOP
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              21 year ago

              That’s definitely fair. I’ve thankfully not seen that content.

              The only content I’ve found that I care about were some of the more active folks on Twitter that had insightful takes or were occasionally funny like Popehat, Mike Masnick, and Kashana.

            • @csgraves
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              21 year ago

              Just yesterday I had an interaction on Mastodon.social that gave me pause and made me question using even the Fediverse.

              Someone posted about KOSA legislation coming to “protect children” from trans people like myself.

              Somebody got in the conversation and had a link to an organization that actually uses the terminology “map” to refer to the people who are more properly called pedophiles.

              I shut that shit down, deleted my comment, and am seriously considering deleting all of my Fediverse accounts.

              Like, I’m not here to make friends, but I am not opposed to it either.

              I am here to be informed, entertained, maybe sometimes outraged a little.

              • @[email protected]
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                11 year ago

                I’m not sure why one comment is enough to provoke such a reaction from you? Especially since I see these pedophiles and their apologists on other social media too.

            • @csgraves
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              21 year ago

              To continue the previous comment, I want absolutely no association with people that like to play games with terminology like this.

              I don’t want any connection with a person that would be okay with sexualizing children, or changing names of the evil people who do it under the guise of being tolerant or pc or some shit.

              I don’t want any loli garbage, hentai, nazis, etc.

              And that the Fediverse seems to not have any content moderation ( am I wrong/missing something?) makes me want to give up on it.

              Maybe go outside, write music, read a book.

              • hypelightfly
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                1 year ago

                The fediverse isn’t a unified whole. Some instances don’t have moderation or have shitty inconsistent moderation. You should move to an instance like beehaw.org or lemmy.blahaj.zone if you want admins that don’t put up with that shit. Both will ban users and other instances that do that allow that kind of shit. While lemmy.world seems fine with it, but if you call out their use of discord they may ban you.

          • BaroqueInMind
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            -61 year ago

            How is that possible when it’s still invite-only and closed to the general public?

            • geosocoOP
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              21 year ago

              Why would that prevent them from moving and thriving? They just invite their friends.

              I’ve seen a few posts from folks complaining about the culture on mastodon and effectively getting harassed there.

            • @Countess425
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              11 year ago

              It’s not closed to the general public, any member of the general public can join as long as you get an invite. I’m not sure how to get invites as I don’t interact with BlueSky much, but I was invited by my brother and he’s nothing special on the Internet.

    • @RedditWanderer
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      81 year ago

      Yeah leaving a “cesspool” for meta, way to give yourself credence…

  • downpunxx
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    761 year ago

    Continuing to use Twitter doesn’t automatically make you a Nazi, it just means that Nazism isn’t a dealbreaker for you

  • @Scotty_Trees
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    61 year ago

    How much of an “expert” is this tech guy really? (sarcasm) But seriously, he’s left multiple corporate platforms before, like Facebook and now Twitter. If only there was some non-corporate controlled social media that he could use to talk to people. If only…

  • @Hazdaz
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    21 year ago

    Let’s see all the people who complain about Twitter and Musk and post it ON TWITTER.

    If even 1/2 these clowns that claim to hate him and what he’s done simply deleted their accounts, the entire site would collapse. Instead they literally prop-up that toxic site by continuing to use it. Fucken hypocrites.

  • @danielfgom
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    -71 year ago

    He was just offended because Musk called out the ADL for being hypocrites.

  • Tb0n3
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    -81 year ago

    Twitter has been a cesspool for many years before Elon. I don’t know what he’s on about.