I just want to share this because I think it's cool.

As many of you may know, alternative Twitter-clones exploded in popularity after Elon took over Twitter and showed that he wasn't interested in allowing free speech, as he had been claiming, but only his version of free speech, which he made apparent by banning pretty much anyone who criticized him or tweeted something he didn't like.

Initially the most popular of the Twitter-clones was Mastodon. Mastodon is much more decentralized than Twitter ever was, allowing anyone to run their own server that then plugs into the "fediverse", connecting with the rest of Mastodon.

But another part of Elon's takeover of Twitter was unbanning all the hard rightwing personalities. This, along with Elon's subsequent banning of more liberal voices, led to a large percentage of the initial flight to Mastodon being made up of liberals. Now due to the decentralized nature of Mastodon, there are a lot of servers of other political ideologies (our own @neoxian ran one for awhile), some very very radical right, some off in crazy land. Even Facebook has plugged into the fediverse with their Threads app (note: this integration isn't finished yet). But the general feel of the place if you are just browsing around is more to the left than Twitter.

The general leftwing feeling of Mastodon may have influenced some of the other Twitter-clones. The next biggest one to come out of the Twitter mess was Bluesky. Bluesky is more centralized like Twitter is, but at least so far they are less controlling, as Twitter was at the beginning of the service all those years ago.

There are many many more at this point, including an interesting looking one called Nostr, supported by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, but I think it's safe to say that Mastodon and Bluesky are the two biggest of the Twitter-clones.

I joined Mastodon not long after Elon took over. Many reasons. I didn't like the increased ads, I didn't like the subscription service, I didn't like that he banned all 3rd party clients, I didn't like that his banning policy changed from being strictly defined to being basically whatever he didn't like. I can't prove it, but also it seemed like all my filters to mute political words (like "Trump" or "Biden") suddenly stopped working. I had already been increasingly turned off by Twitter because it seemed like people no longer talked there, but rather just used it to announce things and self-promote, so Elon's takeover was just the final straw.

If you are curious, I'm on a popular Japan server for expats and English speaking immigrants called @famichiki.jp, under the name @dbooster@famichiki.jp . I post mainly about Japan and haiku there, mostly avoiding US politics and US news. Come chat with me if you are on Mastodon.

Until now while I had been curious about Bluesky, I didn't want to create yet another account. Now it looks like I won't have to!

There is a cool new service called Bridgy Fed that connects the fediverse (Mastodon) to Bluesky. It does this by basically mirroring messages from one service to the other. While that may not be as smooth as how any Mastodon server can plug into the fediverse, it is pretty neat all things considered.

Using this service, I am now on Bluesky too! If you are there, add me: @dbooster.famichiki.jp.ap.brid.gy

Anyway, that is all. If you use either of these services and want to be on the other, give this Bridgy Fed service a try. And if you are on either and want to say hi to me, plug in one of those two usernames above.

【Also published on my website】

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.