Current Trending 'X'/twitter eXodus | Where to? Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon or alternative?

That's a bit misleading. When there is a huge spike in interest that is going to correlate with a spike in active users. I'm sure when Musk bought twitter the graph for Mastodon would have looked similar. Mastodon is still as irrelevant as it was before twitter takeover. The interest didn't last.

The question is if that increased level of engagement can be sustained for BS.

Which again speaks to the reasons why people are moving to BS. The presidential election is the catalyst for the move and in the broadest sense those that were on "Team Harris" no longer want to be on a platform owned by a political opponent. A valid reason, but be honest about it.

Arguments regarding enshittification or toxicity dont hold up to scrutiny, since the X platform is no more toxic or **** than it was several months ago. The only thing that's changed is Harris lost and Musk is on the Trump train.

That's a bit of rewriting history there. There was a big migration to mastodon when Musk bought twitter, topping out as 2.5m users within a couple of weeks.

The migration failed because the network effects didn't materialise. That and some servers being moderated by people that were wor than the worst of boards mods. People post for validation and engagement and without mass you don't get any of that. Twitter has a huge user base, though it's questionable about how many are active and real.

Maybe this migration will be more successful but if the site doesn't quickly become engaging for those that have opened accounts it will end up like Mastodon, a flash that burned out quickly.

As a person who tried mastodon, Bluesky is not remotely similar as an experience. Political parties weren't jumping on the platform, journalists pretty much abandoned it in a week, I don't think a single notable made the migration.

This time round, pretty much all the major news sites have started using it. I'm seeing names like Dara O'Briain, Naomi Klein, Mark Hamill etc up there. Similarly King was a big name on Twitter and he's jumped ship, not to Bluesky but I'd say it's likely he'll show up there. That's a very different momentum to Mastodon.

While you're right that the election made a lot of people jump from Twitter. There's been a pretty consistent growing discomfort with the platform so it's more this acting as a tipping point.

Personally for me, one of the big things I missed from Twitter was that it acted like an RSS feed in terms of news etc. This effectively replaces that and has the general vibe of Twitter a decade back.

Well there's confrontational and then there's, frankly, mentally disturbed folk that are only interested in filling space with lies and bullshit in an effort to wind people up. They're not the same thing.

That being said, I never had a twitter account, although I followed certain people on it. But it never struck me a platform that was conducive to a good discussion or argument. It's really just a glorified shout box that doesn't really lead anywhere and in recent times it's become impossible to follow someone without having an account because of Musk's interference, so I just stopped. Some of those accounts have now moved over to Bluesky, like scarred for life or Mark Kermode, so I tune into them over there.

Bluesky looks like twitter in it's early days, but it still doesn't look like it's a place for a good discussion either. But, by all accounts, it seems like a more pleasant place than what twitter has devolved into.

"Twitter is just a giant machine for churning out assh0les"

Nick Cave's quote from his book with Sean O'Hagan.

In time I wouldn't anticipate any new networks to be any better

Yeah, the "Short form" arena, as you call it, has never really been of any interest to me. There's just no meat on its bones as far as I'm concerned. But Twitter has always been a place that's akin to someone opening a door and shouting their nonsense into the room, then buggering off.

That's not discussion or debate. It's not even conversation.

A lot of people have said to me that they use it to find out certain things or to follow certain people. But I've never really been that interested in following people and anything I want to find out I can by a simple Google search most of the time.

They're compliant with the law on it which is all that really matters. More the BBC making a mountain out of a molehill.

I am gradually moving to Bluesky. As before, I will seek to follow folks / organisations on Bluesky whom I would not necessarily agree with or sit down and have a coffee with. It's important to listen to other views and for a dialogue to be conducted with respect - that has been near impossible on X recently.