#writefreely

Oh wow! I am surprised that @eltonjohn has left Twitter. Maybe he will return to @Tumblr‽

Not surprisingly Elon Musk replied:

I do not think that Elon Musk realizes that he is the problem here.

In recent days, the platform’s new CEO has reactivated the accounts of known neo-Nazis; shared a picture of a white supremacist who said he’d like Trump to be more like Hitler; failed to prevent users from posting videos of the Christchurch massacre; tweeted a popular alt-right meme; used a known antisemitic trope; and, inadvertently or not, shared a dogwhistle that white supremacists interpreted as praise for Hitler. […]

“As soon as he took over Twitter, we saw extremists trying to exploit the platform, we’ve seen hate of all kinds increase, so these messages that he’s sending have to be understood in the context of what is happening to that platform,” Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told VICE News. “As it’s becoming a hellscape for antisemitism and racism and bigotry, it just so happens that he is putting out the type of language that is appreciated by those who are doing that.”

This is a major problem. I have noticed a massive increase of hate upon the platform of all kinds (not just white supremacy). Right now companies are fighting for the right to replace Twitter, but Tumblr & Mastodon are leading that fight.

For what it’s worth this whole Twitter debacle has reignited the geek passion within me which inspired me to:

Double down on Tumblr by investing resources here & Darnell.co

Upgrade my Vimeo account (which was expensive) to integrate with current & future sites

Upgrade my WordPress account: Darnell.tv

Launch a solo hosted Mastodon account: one.Darnell.one/@Darnell

Launch a solo hosted Pixelfed account: darnell.app/darnell (as I am having unrelated issues with Instagram)

Launch a solo hosted Matrix account: Darnell.ooo

Start a solo hosted WriteFreely account: Darnell.day (it’s a blog platform that is fully integrated with ActivityPub)

Restart my medium account: Darnell.Africa

Okay, so I officially have four (4!) fediverse accounts that I will be actively be using. I will definitely try out other Fediverse platforms (including their forks & variants), but for now I will simply use these four fediverse platforms:

Mastodon: Darnell.one or @[email protected]

Pixelfed: Darnell.app or @[email protected]

WriteFreely: Darnell.day or @[email protected]

Misskey: Darnell.moe or @[email protected]

Once Tumblr embraces ActivityPub (probably by the end of this year), I will have two more blogs on the Fediverse, although I really think the @staff at @tumblr should make Fediverse a premium feature (say an extra $5 to $10 per month) as those @mentions can eat up a lot of server resources.

Oh! I do have a fifth Fediverse instance on Micro Blog (which is similar to Tumblr), but the creators made the design decision to not reveal followers publicly as well as privately to the user. While I have no problem with the former (Tumblr does this as well), the latter is important as you can see who is engaging with your platform (as well as follow them back).

So I was scrolling through the Fediverse Party software list & here were some that caught my attention. These I liked due to 3 things:

Boasted an official or useful third party app on iOS (yes, many have Android apps but I am focused on iOS here)

A user friendly hosting service (normie friendly)

Are under active development

Here is what I found.

Mastodon has official apps on iOS/Android, but the official app also supports Pleroma, PixelFed (official iOS app on the way!). I use Masto Host for my personal Mastodon site, but there are numerous others online.

Funkwhale (which is an open source version to SoundCloud) does not have an official iOS app, but it is accessible via the Substreamer app. You can host Funkwhale on Cloud68’s servers.

NextCloud lets you host your content on your own personal cloud, & is an alternative to Google Drive. They also boast official apps for iOS/Android. Nextcloud offers to host your cloud but you can also use Cloud68 instead.

WriteFreely comes across as a super simplified blogging platform. They boast official iOS/iPadOS apps, as well as a hosting service via Write.as (I am tempted to sign up with them).

Att välja rätt bloggverktyg. För 15 år sen var bloggande mycket stort. Sen ersattes det till stor del av aktivitet på sociala medier som Facebook. Men det har börjat bli lite populärare igen. Detta för att det inte råder någon tvekan om vem som äger materialet som publiceras på en blogg och det får inte användas utan att innehavran av upphovsrätten godkänner det. Med material på sociala medier…

I am going to let my @wordpress subscription expire next month. I have been struggling with typing out posts & I could not figure out why until now: WordPress is engineered for content, but @Tumblr & WriteFreely are designed for creating content (the latter two differ). Update: I decided to keep WordPress but let my Vimeo subscription lapse.

Tumblr’s interface is very informal, which is less intimidating when creating content. I can just be informal & keep typing. WriteFreely on the other hand offers distraction free typing as you do not have to worry about performance metrics (comments, likes, reposts, etcetera).

I will just maintain 4 blogs instead of 5 which has reignited my passion for posting again.

I will move political posts as well as personal ramblings to this site. @darnell will be for inspirational items while @darnellafrica will be my thoughts on all things about the Continent (I previously posted on @medium but I was not a fan of my content being behind a paywall.

Other sites I will not be active on:

I will also leave Twitter in the future after Threads by Instagram launches.

I am debating about continuing to use @vimeo (which I have used for years) due to the price. I currently pay for @youtube & @google recently granted me the @ Darnell handle. We shall see.

As much as I enjoy Mix, it seems like a leftover from it’s StumbleUpon days.