Ask HN: Where did the tech people on Twitter go? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Where did the tech people on Twitter go?

12 pointsstevage23 comments

I'm not asking "why did they leave?"

My Twitter/X feed used to be mostly colleagues in tech or tech-adjacent (e-research, GIS, librarians, academics, etc), plus a few other randoms that I was following. Now it seems that the tech people either don't post anymore, or have closed their account.

Where did they go? I have found a few, but not many, on Mastodon and Bluesky. Are people just not using these kinds of platforms anymore? Is everyone in niche Discords?

Where do you go for casual interactions with a broader range of tech-ish folk across disciplines?

View on HN

I can't speak for others but I just stopped. I still hang out on IRC and in a couple Discords but I mostly scroll through RSS now -- or read books.

I briefly scan X maybe once a week, but its a firehose of brainrot and view farming. My Bluesky feeds seem very politically angry and they talk about Elon more than people do on X. I feel for the anger, given the situation in the US, but it's just not mentally healthy. Mastodon is that, but worst -- share any non-mainstream thought and your replies are full of haters. I follow "famous" tech people and engineers, if it matters.

In many ways, I like it better this way. I'm forced to be bored more, and when I get the urge to check X or something, the mess that it is, curbs that pretty quickly.

Social media is the online content equivalent of sugary breakfast cereal. It's engaging, but toxic for you in just about every possible way, no matter which end of the political spectrum you have chosen. People who are addicted to social media end up with a biased and extreme view of the world, fucked up hormones (dopamine, cortisol, adrenaline, etc), and most egregiously, waste enormous amounts of time that would be better spent curating a hobby or bonding with their friends and family in real life.

I would LOVE to join a social media network that very heavily discourages political content and negative news. Just cool people who like to bond over shared interests and maybe meet up to chat once in awhile. Unfortunately that isn't what sells ads.

talk to some cute art girls on there

you don’t talk to nice pretty girls on there?

> share any non-mainstream thought and your replies are full of haters

This may be a failure of the platform protocol. I wish the protocol was: [phrase-redacted]. Grok ranking people's posts based on truth will be interesting.

Grok ranking based on truth or what Elon wants you to believe? ;)

Considering much of the vile nonsense Musk spews is verifiably false, there's about a 0% chance that Grok will ever rank posts based on actual truth.

I am in the same boat, however I dont go on X at all. I deleted my account last year for good and dont miss it. BlueSky for me is a mix of people who are trying their hardest in my city to make improvements but also creating a very insular community and people who are perpetually upset (maybe rightfully so) at just about everything. I have a mastodon account but never go on it. I basically read books, play call of duty (or something else low stakes and easy to put down), and watch youtube videos of DIY stuff I need to learn so I can fix things around the house.

I deleted Reddit, Instagram, and Bluesky off my phone last weekend (coming up on day 9 I think) and its been nice trying to readjust myself to being bored and not grabbing my phone.

I don't know where they went. The devs I personally know who left the platform didn't go anywhere. They just stopped using services along those lines entirely. They're an older group, though. That might matter.

> Where do you go for casual interactions with a broader range of tech-ish folk across disciplines?

I go here.

My own blog, and then having conversations with people through e-mail (strangely enough). I feel that if I just am on my own platform, nobody is going to rug-pull me in a few years to come, contributing online to social media has left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't care for the other platforms either.

My bubble is on Mastodon mainly, but also people generally post a lot less than before. Still interesting discussions every now and then. Many moved to chat groups in messengers all together.

For more BuildInPublic/news/movies/music adjacent things it’s Threads.

A lot of my friends in tech have given up on Twitter, but I still find a lot of value there. People don’t want to waste time trying to improve their feeds. They’re tired of doomscrolling and just want signal without noise. Twitter can be incredible at times, but it often feels like trying to find a needle in a noisy, sloppy ass haystack. I’ve been experimenting with building a dedicated site for folks who just don’t want to bother. It’s a curated directory of the best tech-related posts of the day: https://www.techtwitter.com

I follow plenty of technical accounts on Mastodon, a lot more gamedev accounts on Bluesky (which is where most of the Twitter diaspora ended up I think.) Discovery can be a bit awkward on Mastodon (it seems easier on Bluesky.)

I killed all social media a year or two ago other than LinkedIn. Was super burned out and it is great outside of constantly getting sent links to platforms I can't see things.

w.r.t. to Twitter - I was early on Twitter in 2007, deleted the account and just restarted my Twitter last week. Thankfully, got my old handle @cyrusradfar.

Folks shared there's a lot of tech folk on there. I haven't engaged yet but am building up the energy to try. Wish me luck :)

Of all the social media platforms I use, X is the easiest to shape into what I want. Use muted words, unfollow and mute engagement farmers, and follow small high quality accounts. If you’re still seeing gas station fights, your feed needs further curating.

from my pov, tech people are still primarily on X. like 90-95%.

Meta's gemma team was on X recently looking for advice on MOE and reasoning for gemma.

Qwen announces on X: @Alibaba_Qwen or @JustinLin610

Basically all of linux and programming happens on X.

discord for sure has discussions. LM studio pretty much only exists there. Reddit is most just dead internet at this point.

Freenode's hostile takeover during covid pretty much ended irc. An official end to the IRC era.

>Where did they go? I have found a few, but not many, on Mastodon and Bluesky.

The USA dominates tech to be sure, so the USA political polarization would disproportionately impact this sure. But it was temporary as mastodon and bluesky declined and everyone seems to be back to X.

I went to threads. I'm not anti-twitter, I just stopped getting engagement from real people. I knew many hundreds of real people who follow me, and I know they're active on twitter, but I just stopped appearing in their feeds.

LinkedIn has quite a few tech people. People are less inclined to bully others on a resume site and so it's a bit less toxic.

I still use it. But frequent algorithm changes is making me lose the motivation to post. No engagement. It's become full of AI slop rage and engagement baiting.

A lot of noise only works if you have a huge audience.

Somewhere less loathesome.

when u think about, all platforms are just words and pics. no place is better or worse than another. it’s just what you make of it. even the whole idea of “somewhere” is silly on an e-reader/phone screen.

Hard disagree. That's like saying no books are better or worse than others because they're just made up of words.

The people, the moderators, the customizability, the owners, and the userbase play heavily into the quality of a "platform."

idk. to me the platform is the phone, and there’s just one single thing going on in there

Reply on news.ycombinator.com