As people were
moving away from X and joining Bluesky after the US elections in
November, I was thinking how I ended up having accounts across five social
media platforms that I regularly, almost daily, check. Why did I need all these
accounts? Why did I feel the need to check them relatively frequently? Did I
need to add one more account to that list now? …
In my ideal
world, I would keep at most two social media accounts: one for private stuff
and one for work. But we don’t live in that world. My consolation prize is I
don’t have any of the corresponding social media apps on my phone.
My entry to
social media was with Facebook. It was the second half of the 2000s. I was a
BSc student at Koç University and a
member of the university’s cinema club. I wanted a way to announce our events
more effectively, beyond putting tiny A4 posters around the university. [1]
Facebook seemed to be the platform people used for such things. So, I created
an account but wasn’t a frequent user back then.
Then came the
LinkedIn account in 2009 shortly after I became a PhD student at EPFL. I don’t
remember why I joined exactly, but I assume it was probably because other PhD
students were joining. I used to log into LinkedIn only when someone sent a
connection request or when I changed jobs.
I got into
Twitter, now known as X, in 2012, while still a PhD student. My goal was to use
it for work and that hasn’t changed. How frequently I used the platform has
changed, though. In the beginning, I checked it and posted there very
infrequently.
I created an
Instagram account in December 2020 to follow one person, Judith Liberman, whom I
mentioned in a previous blog post about fairy tales. She has been a healing influence in my life, and
Instagram is unfortunately the only platform to follow her properly.
Finally, I got a
Mastodon account in late 2022, after Elon Musk bought Twitter. That was the
first trigger causing many to flee Twitter. However, it didn’t stick, so I got
stuck with both Mastodon and Twitter.
Which brings us
to the state of affairs today.
I started using
Facebook more frequently after moving abroad. It was a way to keep connected to
people as I moved from place to place. Facebook is also the most effective
platform for keeping up with the events at your favorite local small independent
cinemas, theaters, concert venues, etc. While these days Facebook shows too
many ads, if you use the free version, most ads I see are about cultural stuff
as well (Ursula K. Le Guin quotes – somewhat ironic to see on Facebook, The
Atlantic / New Yorker articles, Taylor Swift news ...) and at times helpful (I
discovered Say Nothing
through Facebook).
Last few
years, it has become more common to use LinkedIn for work announcements in academic
circles. Staying connected to my research community and having an effective
platform to do work announcements is important to me. As a result, I became a
more frequent user of LinkedIn as well.
I became a more
active Twitter/X user after I moved to Denmark. Combination of being away from
Bay Area, Mecca of our profession, and my increasing responsibilities as a
professor made the platform more appealing to post work news and follow posts
of others. Up until the latest US election, X was the best platform for staying
connected to my work community. Since my main goal has always been to use X for
work, I (almost) only follow the people I know through work on X. Therefore, I
see non-work-related posts only if the people I follow post them. After Elon
bought the platform, I started seeing posts of him in my feed, even though I
have never followed him. Before I figured out the “For You” vs “Following” tabs
at the top, my solution was to block him. Then, I decided to keep him blocked. After
many people fled to Bluesky, I stopped using X actively.
My
3-following-and-2-followers existence on Instagram didn’t last long, as people
discovered I am on Instagram as well.
And I kept Mastodon
active, if not as active as X, with the hope that one day it may become as
effective as X for work posts.
Today, I also
use all these platforms, except for LinkedIn, to announce my blog posts. On X,
I have a separate account for this, though.
As people were
migrating to Bluesky as a boycott to X’s owner, my first reaction was “I don’t
want a 6th social media account.”
If the
motivation is to move away from the political manipulation of too-powerful tech
bros, Mastodon makes more sense as a platform because of its mode of operation;
it is open source and self-service. Our Mastodon server at ITU is run by Sebastian Büttrich,
who is in our research group. The computer systems community has discuss.systems. In Mastodon, we have
more control!
One the other
hand, Mastodon hasn’t gathered enough attraction among the work circles I would
like to be connected to. I have less than 1/10th of my Twitter/X
followers on Mastodon. 1/3rd of the folk that follow me are
colleagues at ITU. I don’t know how/if I can boost it better. I already share a
physical workspace with my ITU colleagues, so my social media presence isn’t
really for them. Most of the time, I feel like I am posting for myself there,
which I don’t mind on a platform like Instagram, since it creates a
blog-picture diary for me, but this isn’t why I use Mastodon. If I want to post
an announcement about an open PhD position or travel grant for a conference, I
would rather be on a platform that can deliver that announcement to the right
set of people. Unfortunately, Mastodon is far from doing that at the moment,
and I don’t hear relevant work news on Mastodon either.
So, eventually, I
will choose the easy way out. I will get a Bluesky account at some point in
2025, even if I don’t want to.
My conflict with creating a Bluesky account reminded me of my conflicting relationship with boycotts, since what triggered all this was people boycotting X. Boycotts are also an important topic these days due to ongoing wars.
I come from
Turkey, which is a country that is an easy target for boycotts. I wrote a
relatively frustrated blog post back in 2017 on this matter. There have been famous cultural figures
(e.g., Bono, Paul Auster) who stated that they won’t visit Turkey due to its
human right violations, issues with freedom of press, etc. I know some people
who told me that they won’t visit Turkey as long as Erdoğan is in power. I respect
and support these causes (even though I don't like Bono). However, at times, such statements feel strange to
hear about a place where my primary connection is love. I don’t mean
nationalism, which I am a grinch for. I mean feelings of tenderness for some
place and the people who live there even if you don’t like everything about it /
them. I love visiting Turkey and hope that I will always be able to visit it.
This doesn’t mean that I support the human rights violations, lack of freedom
of press, or Erdoğan. [2]
I know
boycotting a social media app, a person of power, and a country are all different.
However, whether it is an app, a person, or a country, it is easier to boycott
something when you don’t strongly depend on it or don’t have a strong relation
to it. In other words, being able to boycott may be a privilege that we don’t
realize. This is why someone like Bono will never boycott the USA no matter what
it does or whoever its president is.
I am very open
to discussing different views on this and being educated if anyone has good
recommendations for reading or listening on the impact of boycotts. I listened
the “BDS and
the history of the boycott” podcast episode earlier this year but didn’t
hear anything new. For example, do economic boycotts usually benefit or cause
more harm in the end? Don’t people’s isolation and deteriorating economic
conditions, due to boycotts, help the authoritarian leaders in a country? Isn’t
this a double-punishment of people in that country who do not support such
leaders? … Overall, I have a lot of questions and dilemmas when I think about
boycotts, and, as I said, I am open to discussing and learning.
[1] Orthogonal
but related anecdote: I was once confronted by some guys from the university’s
American football team for putting up A4-size cinema club event posters on top
of their giant posters advertising an upcoming party. Needless to say, they
were each multiple times my size. In my defense, there was no space left on the
announcement boards due to their giant posters. I managed to defend our
posters.
[2] I remember
the days when Erdoğan was being presented as the face of modernizing Turkey by
the western media and having to explain myself to some Europeans, since they
were asking me why I don’t like him. I also remember the days when the EU gave him
a lot of money, hence supporting him, so that he keeps the refugees away from the
Europeans.
