It’s almost coming to two years of leaving Twitter. You might be wondering, how are things going? Yes, there are a lot of challenges in cutting myself from the connections I made on Twitter that are in the Aniblogosphere as the site has gotten worse.
After I decided to cut Twitter loose, I moved on to the Fediverse with things like Mastodon and Misskey. Now that we are in two years as Elon continues to destroy what remains of the site, now called X, I may as well reflect on that and, of course, the drama with WordPress. Yes, this one is important. This is also the 2ndanniversary since I started Sakurajima on October 28, 2022.
Reflecting on almost two years without being on Twitter
Sure, losing all those connections I made over the 10 years of being on that site was painful. My following was not mainly that big compared to what it is now on Mastodon. That means cutting myself from connections I made in the blogosphere. Only a handful of Anime bloggers I know are on the Fediverse. Of course, other platforms, such as Cohost, Pebble, and Hive Social, opened up when Elon first bought Twitter. As expected, most of these Twitter alternatives have died off since they are not profitable.
Since then, new microblogging social media has popped up as Meta created Threads, and eventually, BlueSky opened up early this year after Jack Dorsey got ousted. While some prefer BlueSky since it looks like Twitter but is decentralized, as you can host a server that contains your data, it’s still very much centralized. Only the data is decentralized, but all the messages go through a central source controlled by a corporate entity.
In other words, the same cycle will happen again when they need to make a profit. A red flag is that they are receiving 15 million dollars from blockchain venture capital. BlueSky says they won’t “hyperfinancialize” the social experience, but I’m unsure. Eventually, venture capitalists want their return on investment back so that it will follow the whole enshittification process again. This is why I don’t bother maintaining an actual account on BlueSky, as anything venture capital touches eventually turns to crap.
Lastly, managing two social networks to reconnect with those in the aniblogosphere is too much effort for me. That is why I ended up bridging my Mastodon and Misskey accounts with this blog on the Fediverse to make them available on BlueSky. For the most part, bridging works well. Still, I prefer the experience on Mastodon and Misskey since I find BlueSky too limiting as messages are restricted to 280 characters, and it doesn’t support many fun features. Also, there aren’t any good sharing plugins for BlueSky for WordPress. As a result, I do not have a native BlueSky account, but a bridge account using my Mastodon and Misskey accounts.
If you want to follow me on Bluesky, follow @ap.brid.gy first, or I won’t get any of your replies. Then you can follow the following:
- @chikorita157.chikorita157.com.ap.brid.gy (to follow this blog)
- @chikorita157.sakurajima.moe (My main account, bridged from the Fediverse/Mastodon)
Of course, if you want a better experience, you are probably better off joining our Mastodon or Misskey server at Sakurajima. You can learn more at JoinSakurajima. However, Sakurajima is not just about hosting a Mastodon server but also about creating an alternative Japanese media fandom community with our Forums and providing free Anime/Manga Blogs at Yoshino Garden. This will become important when I focus on the WordPress drama affecting the AniBlogosphere.
If you decide to join Sakurajima on our Mastodon or Misskey server, you can find me at:
- @chikorita157@sakurajima.moe – Main account
- @chikorita157@sakurajima.social – Alternative account
- @chikorita157@chikorita157.com – Blog account used to share new posts and allow users to comment on posts by replying using WordPress’s ActivityPub plugin.
If you are on Sakurajima, you can enable BlueSky bridging by following @bsky.brid.gy.
I know some are struggling with social media. Believe it or not, the ActivityPub plugin on WordPress has greatly benefited my blog. Since WordPress improved the plugin when it took over development, many users have left comments by replying to posts on Mastodon or Misskey. You can tell when you see the “Reply on the Fediverse” link that replaces the reply button. It can work with Bluesky through the BlueSky bridge, although you have the 280-character limit. As a result, my readers are more engaged with my blog. It’s also easy to set up using this gide, but you must do additional steps if you use caching. After enabling it, just follow your blog’s ActivityPub account and boost it with your Mastodon account.
With recent TOS changes, X (formerly Twitter) is changing how blocks work. On November 15, I plan to train on all user-generated content you can’t opt out of, and I will permanently delete my Twitter account on November 14. I don’t want my old tweets used as training data for AI.
I already have an archive in 2022, but if you still have connections with me and on alternative networks, consider following me on alternative networks (whether it’s on Mastodon Misskey or BlueSky) and leave Twitter.
WordPress Drama – Matt Mullenweg is destroying WordPress
Now, there is the WordPress drama, which most anime bloggers are not paying attention to, but it’s important since it affects WordPress. The short story is that Matt Mullenweg, who created WordPress, got into a splat with WP Engine, a web host and plugin developer. If you want to read the full story, I suggest reading my post on the drama. In short, Matt tried extorting and even resorted to ruining their reputation as a ploy to get money out of them.
The drama is about money since Automattic is in financial trouble, and investors demand the company make money. It’s apparent when Venture Capitalist BlackRock bought it and now cut the value in half as Automattic is losing money. It’s not made any better as Matt decides to try to burn down the WordPress community and hurt users. This, of course, includes hi-jacking a popular plugin called Advanced Custom Fields and releasing his hacked-up version called Secure Custom Fields. He has been banning people left and right who disagree with him from destroying WordPress unless he gets his way.
This is bad given that most of the Aniblogosphere uses WordPress or even the managed version of WordPress on WordPress.com. I recommend that people who use WordPress.com move to a self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) so that your work is safe. If you don’t have the technical knowledge, you can pay a little more for managed WordPress hosting (e.g., Siteground, WP Engine, Flywheel, etc.), which will manage the environment for you or request a free blog at Yoshino Garden. While we would like you to join Sakurajima to use these services, I will also accept blog requests if you have an existing blog but need to link back. Yes, I’m providing free Japanese media blog hosting for those who can’t afford hosting or want to get started.
That said, the WordPress drama is an evolving situation, and we don’t know if Matt Mullenweg will resign from WordPress or the project hard forks into a different version of WordPress. Hosting your blog outside WordPress.com and/or Automattic’s control is important so your work remains safe.
The too long, didn’t read: If you use WordPress.com to host your blog, move your stuff off WordPress.com now. Who knows if Automattic will exist if they eventually lose the case. if you are using WordPress.com and self host or used shared hosting it instead. It will be easier to switch to a hard fork of WordPress when one becomes available.
Also, if you want to read up more on the WordPress drama, the whole timeline of it can be read here.
Conclusion
Just recently, Crow shared his thoughts about Social Media and whether or not it’s worth it. I do agree with the sentiment, at least for commercial social networks. Unless you have a huge following, your content will end up in a black hole. This is expected since these social networks want to push content from big influencers and companies. However, in the Fediverse, there is more of a chance for people to see your content as timelines are not being manipulated. If you are on a Japanese media or fandom-focused server, there are more chances for people interested in seeing that content to see your posts.
As the internet is in a precarious place as old social networks like Twitter, Reddit, and others die, I think having your own space is important. It’s always a good time to start your blog and share your reviews, artwork, and creations in your own space. Centralizing the internet is a mistake, as we know what happens when it becomes too big. Social media, in general, is an unprofitable business as nobody is willing to pay for social media. They start abusing their users, especially those supported by venture capital, to make money. At least with blogs and forums, it’s hard to make that worse or take it away. The Fediverse, in a way, also brings social media back under the control of users.
In short, I hope more people in the Aniblogosphere leave Twitter, use something else, and follow me on the Fediverse or BlueSky. Even so, with the internet getting worse and rampant enshittification, it’s essential to build independent communities to support each other’s works and have a community that can’t be split apart because of some profit motive decision.
Also feel free to share your thoughts and if you had any experience using alternate social networks.
As much of waste of time that most social media platforms have become (I’m excluding the Fediverse from that — for reasons you’ve talked about!), the WordPress situation is a lot worse.
I’d always thought WordPress.org was a foundation — a separate entity that was focused on preserving WordPress as an ongoing concern. Then I found out that the guy you identified as instigating all this trouble was, for all intents and purposes, the only owner of even WordPress.org.
The situation is dire. It’s not a technology problem — anyone can fork WordPress at will. It’s worse than that. But I think your advise to host your own instance is about the best we can do right now. Thanks for bringing that up!
@chikorita157@chikorita157.com @chikorita157 @chikorita157@sakurajima.social @bsky.brid.gy
It feels like the Internet is falling apart. I’ve been trying to develop my own place on the Internet and do some casual blogging myself on dreamwidth, but it’s shocking to see the views drop so much even on existing blogs.
I really wish there was an easier alternative to WordPress. I tried using it a long time ago, but the reasons I gravitated towards Tumblr and dreamwidth in the end is that I just wanted somewhere to post stuff that looked nice. And static site generators are too finicky.