Another Angry Voice is on Bluesky

Check out the new Another Angry Voice page on Bluesky

I’ve recently created a new AAV profile on Bluesky and the main reason I’ve done it is that Elon Musk has turned Twitter into a crumbling sewer, but there are a few other reasons too.

Aside from manipulating the Twitter algorithm to pump people’s feeds full of extreme-right content, and deliberately amplifying extreme-right liars himself, Musk has also made the Twitter platform far worse.

Cory Doctrow coined the term "enshittification" to describe the kind of process that Musk is implementing on Twitter.

The idea is to make the experience of using a service worse and worse for non-paying users to try and pressurise them into paying for subscriptions.

The most obvious way that Musk has done this is by giving paid subscribers priority in the algorithm, and in replies to other people’s posts. If you want to be heard on there now, you need to pay Musk £9.60 per month. In effect this means that everyone has to wade through reams of comments from bots, trolls and dickheads with Twitter subscriptions in order to get to the real replies far below.

Another way in which Musk has enshittified Twitter is by hiding user analytics behind a paywall, so if you want to get any idea of how well you’re doing, or what kind of content is getting the most engagement, you’ll need to pay Musk £9.60 per month for the information that Twitter used to provide for free.

If you want to get even the most basic information on how your posts are doing on there now, you’ll come up against a total paywall like this.

Bluesky is pretty much a stripped-down Twitter clone, and the first week or so has been a refreshing change from the ugly, extreme-right infested, enshittified sewer that Twitter has become since Musk took over.

It’s actually pleasant to spend time in an online space that’s not a continually deteriorating user experience that represses the engagement of your posts, tries to bully you into paying subscription fees, and actively tries to serve you extreme-right hate and lies all the time.

Aside from disillusionment with Twitter, another main reason for creating a Bluesky account is to diversify where I post my content so that it can reach as many different people as possible.

Then there’s the fact that a lot of quality left-leaning and socially liberal posters have already moved over there.

For now I’m going to continue posting on Twitter, but I’m no longer going to engage in debate on there, or spend time constructing detailed Twitter threads that the algorithm doesn’t even bother showing to the majority of my Twitter followers.

Here are the main places you’ll find me posting content:

AAV on Substack: This blog is where I’ll continue posting my long-form articles and detailed analyses. Subscribers receive email notifications for new articles.

AAV Substack Notes: Substack’s direct messaging and microblogging platform. Get in touch with me there if you like.

AAV on Facebook: The platform where AAV has by far the most followers. It’s being enshittified too, but I’m stuck with it.

AAV on Bluesky: Over a thousand followers already. Join me over there if you like, and if you’re new to it, have a look through the accounts I’m following for some good people to follow.

AAV on Twitter: I’m scaling back my efforts on there, but not giving up entirely yet because I’ve got 43,000 followers (not that the algorithm allows most of them to see what I post).

AAV on WhatsApp: I’m going to start sending out WhatsApp notifications for new articles again after a period of inactivity on there.

AAV on Telegram: Same story as WhatsApp.

Thanks to everyone who follows my content on whichever platform(s) they do. There’s absolutely no way I could still be doing this without all the amazing people who support my work.

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