Anyone on Twitter or Mastodon?

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Do people make friends on sites like Twitter?

It seems like you have to know people who are already on there when you sign up, otherwise you'll just be posting tweets that almost no one will read. And you have to read through this huge list of random tweets from strangers because you'd have no one to follow.

I'm on a Twitter-like site. A bunch of random people respond to my posts. It's kind of overwhelming and unpleasant.

I've never been on Twitter. And I've never heard of Mastodon. Is that a new type of social media?

Anyone on Twitter or Mastodon?

Do I look like an idiot?

Mastodon is like Twitter (the whole thing is a bunch of tweets), but it's not one single website controlled by a corporation. Mastodon is split up into "instances," which are like mini-Twitters run by individual people on their own computers.

You could start a private instance for just you and your friends, make up your own rules, and run it however you want. Or you can join a public instance that has thousands of people on it. Some of them have themes (like LGBTQ), some of them are just general instances for anyone to join and post about anything. Here is one for students and teachers for example:

https://mastodon.oeru.org/@sumaiyasaqib ... 4451853344

Each Mastodon instance can "federate" with other instances. That just means you can follow people from other instances and they can follow you. So you could be networked with other people even if they signed up on another instance.

The whole point is that Mastodon is not centralized. Twitter could shut down its website, kick everybody off, and destroy everyone's tweet history. Twitter is also more likely to sell your data. But if one Mastodon instance shuts down, there will still be plenty of other instances, and Mastodon is not a business so you probably won't get your data sold.

I'm on twitter and have about 500 followers.

To be fair I had about 100 followers then my follower started recommending me to a bunch of people.

It built up through the years.

It's great for aspies cos you can talk about your specialist interests a whole bunch & people don't think it's socially inappropriate. In fact, if you follow based on hobbies then they're doing it too.

I don't recommend talking politics unless you padlock your account and happen to only follow people with very similar views. It can be a hivemind.

In fact padlocking your account is just common sense. Be careful which accounts you let follow you.

I'm on Mastodon. There are actually quite a lot of Autistic people there. The hashtag #ActuallyAutistic is quite active.

There's also an ActuallyAutistic Mastodon "Group" there as well.
https://a.gup.pe/u/actuallyautistic

Note: I don't run that group, nor am I affiliated with them other than to receive the posts

I just downloaded Hiki because Grok recommended it. And I also registered here

Can't say anything about it, because I'm very new to it.

The hiki App is made for people with autism .. so maybe you want to try it too

I took a quick look, and I'm kind of turned off because it has in-App purchases where one can "boost" oneself. I don't like it when platforms can't resist playing mind-games with the users.

I took a closer look at Hiki in the Google Play store. There were several unfavorable reviews over the priciness. I get that autistic people want a good smartphone experience. I don't like how Hiki is mobile-app *only* - no website access via a desktop (my preferred way). I like having both options.

Surely mobile can't be ignored, longer term, as a way for Autistic people to connect. So I see where Hiki has an opportunity to serve this community (Autistic people), where a forum like this one isn't really suitable for mobile access.

I wrote them in the beginning that it would be better to use it on the web. I see it the same way as you. I like to type on my keyboard and see everything on the big screen. I used the app anyway because I don't know any autistic people and the self-help groups I know, mostly consist of self-diagnosed people with attention deficits.

I already had a very bad experience on hiki. There was an antisemitic post and I reported it. They banned me for 1 day because of inappropriate use of the reporting feature. wow. I didn't expect that ... by the way -- the app is no longer just for autistic people but for all neurodiverse people.

After the update, I can't open the App. But as soon as it works, I will delete my account.
I absolutely don't recommend hiki anymore.

Just saying, there's an Autism-specific Mastodon instance here:
https://autistics.life

After spending some time on Mastodon, the mobile experience is great. What's not great is that there's considerable effort needed to "Mute" a bunch of braying donkey people, who's posts border on abusive, as they try to shove their various social causes down one's throat. There's also a "Filter" feature to block posts from showing (which contain certain keywords which one is sick and tired of hearing about, ad nauseum). Mastodon has more of a "wild-west" vibe than here, for all the diverse content.

It makes me appreciate how this forum is a more close-knit group who all have something in common. I think the level of default respectfulness between users is quite a lot better here.

No.