I first heard about Twitter at the Science Blogging Conference hosted by Nature in 2008 at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Piccadilly. It was an exciting event, filled with young people—among whom I didn’t count myself, even then—who saw the internet as the future, and a bright one at that. Blogging had more or less become established; everyone had a blog, and these were proving extremely useful for exchanging information and ideas. A talk on Twitter heralded it as the next step, where data could be shared in real time. The speaker even mentioned that his lab’s pH meter had its own account, allowing sample readings to be followed by anyone, anywhere.
What bliss it was to be alive in that very dawn, and to be online was very heaven. I signed up straight away, and the rest is @historyscientis.
Twitter quickly became a significant part of my online activity and, after a while, my main news source. It was also a fantastic place to make friends. While I’ve never met anyone in person that I first encountered on Twitter, I still feel I’ve gotten to know people there and enjoyed interacting with them, much like I do with my more three-dimensional relationships.
The promise identified back in 2008 wasn’t far from reality. Twitter has been used to share scientific data and aid progress, and it continues to do so. It played a role in helping cope with the pandemic, for example.
However, over time, it became less fun and less informative. Politicians were slower to grasp its potential than scientists, but once they did, they quickly became one of the largest communities on the site. I’m not opposed to arguing with strangers online; it certainly helps pass the time. But I felt betrayed during the Brexit debate when I realised that many participants weren’t idealistic, if misguided, partisans but were paid to argue and push agendas. One account, in particular, got under my skin for several weeks before I realised it was regurgitating the same responses.
This wasn’t intially enough to put me off, but the Musk takeover has now turned the site into a swamp. I’m off to Bluesky. Bluesky has an interface that is very much like that of Twitter. It does all the basic stuff, but misses out on some of the fun features. So you can’t do polls, you can’t schedule and a few other things like that. The screen is so similar to Twitter that I sometimes forget I am not on Twitter and try and do Twitter stuff.
But there is one missing feature that I am glad to miss. There isn’t the pre-populated list of what is happening. There was a time when I treated this as the alternative to the headlines, which it used to be a pretty good substitute for. Nowadays it is inevitably filled with the most controversial topics. I assume that the algorithm selects them somehow. For example today one of the topics trending is Notting Hill. This leads to in depth coverage of all the crime that is supposed to have taken place there. In fact, there is no more crime than you’d expect from such a huge crowd. But that’s not what you’d learn from following the thread.
This is what is wrong with current Twitter under its current leadership. Whether it is driven by commercial or political considerations, it seems that hate and conflict are the goal.
Bluesky by contrast allows you to create your own feeds or follow ones created by other people. I’ve signed up for ones like Science and Astronomy, and created ones for Stoicism, UK politics and WordPress. The user can tailor their feeds to their interests. It’s a better experience and it is less likely to lead to riots.
