Stephen King leaves X, describing atmosphere as ‘too toxic’
Stephen King leaves X, describing atmosphere as ‘too toxic’
Author denies Elon Musk kicked him off platform and says he is joining rival Threads
Summary
Stephen King announced his departure from X (formerly Twitter), calling the platform “too toxic” and urging followers to join him on Threads.
King has frequently clashed with X owner Elon Musk over verification charges and political disputes, including Musk’s support for Donald Trump.
Other entities, including The Guardian, German football club St Pauli, and actor Jamie Lee Curtis, have also left the platform, citing concerns over toxic content, misinformation, and hate speech.
Rival platforms like Threads and Bluesky are gaining traction, with Bluesky reporting nearly 15 million users globally.
Better late than never for all of these people, I guess.
Sunk cost fallacy hits people hard.
I wish people would have left earlier as well, but it's not just sunk cost fallacy. Network effects are a rational reason to stay, and that's the issue. If he has a community, he loses the community. I get it.
That's why I wish celebrities would coordinate and all leave at once - it's far more likely their network will follow them in that case, both hurting X more and helping themselves more, and accelerating people leaving as the network effects disappear on X.
The physics metaphor applies pretty directly here: They need to create momentum to counteract inertia.
Big celebrities won't really be hurt by moving. It's the small and medium names.
Yes, I think "network externality" more than "sunk cost"
Sunk cost fallacy hits people hard.
It's true. I never deleted my reddit posts and comments because I spent like 13 years with that account. A part of my brain says "don't delete those, you might need them later." It's like a natural hording instinct.
A year ago that might have meant something. Now it's too late.
Anything but Mastodon/Activitypub, eh? These fellas rlly love sucking on corporate dicks, don't they
It really boggles my mind the cognitive dissonance of everybody constantly complaining about corporations screwing them over, then refusing to use the obvious solution to their problems.
We're here for fun. Celebs are on social media as part of their brand. It's them doing business, and they're going to use what the feel will reach the largest audience with the least effort on their part, and something with corporate backing likely has customer support for moderation, hacking, and whatever else. They're not here for a digital revolution, they're here to keep their name and income stream out there.
I imagine it's the same reasoning why a business will pay for Red Hat when they could run Linux for free. It may or may not be the best option, but they feel it offers tangible benefits.
Look, this time Leopards Multiglobal, Inc will not eat our faces!
Why wouldn't they want to join this place and be called bootlickers for moderate policy take by some screaming communist from a .ml? Sounds like a great time to me! Getting yelled at by flying squid twice a day is a joy!
This place is primarily made up of a ton anarchist and communists screaming and spreading their own bullshit. Centrist and and less progressive folks are commonly shouted at, called bootlickers, or Nazis for relatively centrrist views.
Mods and admins are far less balanced than reddit or pre x Twitter as well. LWis about to as close to center as you can get and it's quite obvious.
Mastodon is a far worse experience than Twitter and Bluesky, it's not a 1:1 transition.
Attitudes like yours certainly isn't attracting any new users...
Sure, but he's not wrong. I'll never get why people love to rail again corporations and enshittification while using those sites.
There is a slight learning curve to Mastodon. Is there a method for verifying accounts? Honest question there. I signed up for Mastodon years ago but I used it as often as I used Twitter which is to say never.
Twitter to Threads is like leaving Derry for Jerusalem's Lot.
Hey, I get these references!
So it's like moving from Salem's Lot to a house near the town of Ludlow, along a busy highway with a pet cemetery nearby?
Glad I wasn't the only one who noticed. Good for him, though, he's trying.
He has a Bluesky account already, and has posted...some.
Everyone I've seen (mostly in the tech space) seems to say that Threads feels soulless. I follow a few people there from my Masto account (yay, federation), and that's all fine and dandy. But I don't know if I'd trust Zuck in the long run since he already seems to be kissing the ring.
Yes, kissing the ring for sure. I knew Zuck was gone as soon as he called Trump "badass" and that he "couldn't vote for a democrat" after the first assassination attempt.
Dude stood there and by his luck the bullet missed. This wasn't some courageous action, this was "standing there until the secret service tackled me." What exactly was "badass" about it?
But you see raising his fist for applause was totally not narcissistic and was actually retroactive courage!!
I've been calling it the Roman numeral for ten site formerly known as twitter. Are people just abbreviating this to 'X' now?
I've just been calling it twitter
I'll never deadname a person, but I'll deadname the shit out of a bigoted transphobic crybaby billionaire's shitty website.
Should I not be calling it "trans"?
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/37394/why-do-some-words-have-x-as-a-substitute
Formerly known as? It's still twitter.
Bro should’ve went to Mastodon.
Also, good guy St. Pauli. They are also currently transforming into a co-op which is unique in German soccer. TRAILBLAZERS!
If you're on Bluesky, maybe bombarding him with followers there would shift him in that direction https://bsky.app/profile/stephenking.bsky.social
Edit: For the record...
https://www.threads.net/@stephenking 268K followers
https://bsky.app/profile/stephenking.bsky.social 223.9K followers
https://x.com/StephenKing 7M FollowersSai King has left Twitter, so he has.
I have many different accounts for some time. People like King thought they definitely wait for Musk to end. BlueSky had not reached the number of users, and types, to make it interesting and useful. In the end, for apps like Mastedon, this is the driver for popularity. Bluesky is much better now, though still missing some types of feeds
Drat, this Tower's level
I did get a warning to not engage in level hopping, which is why I must emphasize not to do so again
It was 10 years ago.
People just want to be smug now cause it's the cool thing to do.
It's tailored for your feed based on what you interact with. It's a mirror my friend, you are toxic.
Nop its not a mirror twitter algorithm favor post with the most interactions and where there is the more debate . so twitter IS by default toxic.
A mirror of society maybe
I never interact with political shit. Why was my feed all political shit? So naturally I deleted my account.
Is saying "Oh boy, he's really not the looker, is he?" toxic enough for you guys to send me off to X?
King? He makes his money from knowing how to use words not how to use plastic surgeons.