Social Media Sites & Apps (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Tumblr, Etc.)

[Just Here]

A thread to discuss and ask questions about various social media sites/apps.

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FYI:  Twitter may delete "inactive" accounts in the near future.  As of now, this is just a pronouncement without any specific details regarding what qualifies as an "inactive account".   However, Twitter's "User Guidelines" essentially defines a non-active account as one that hasn't been logged into for over six months:

Quote

What is Twitter's inactive account policy?
We encourage people to actively log in and use Twitter when they register an account. To keep your account active, be sure to log in at least every 6 months. Accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity.

How does Twitter determine inactivity?
Inactivity is based on logging in. Please note that you may not be able to tell whether an account is currently inactive, as not all signs of account activity are publicly visible.

If you have an account that you haven't used in a while and would like to keep, it would be a good idea to log into the account (and perhaps even post a tweet or two).  Also, make sure that the account is connected to an email address that you check regularly.

Here's a link to a UPI article about the possible mass deletion, in case the above Insider article is paywalled.

[Anduin]

3 hours ago, Just Here said:

A thread to discuss and ask questions about various social media sites/apps.

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FYI:  Twitter may delete "inactive" accounts in the near future.  As of now, this is just a pronouncement without any specific details regarding what qualifies as an "inactive account".   However, Twitter's "User Guidelines" essentially defines a non-active account as one that hasn't been logged into for over six months:

If you have an account that you haven't used in a while and would like to keep, it would be a good idea to log into the account (and perhaps even post a tweet or two).  Also, make sure that the account is connected to an email address that you check regularly.

Elon Musk do something useful with his purchase? That'd be a change for the better. I wasn't able to get my preferred screen name when I joined. Someone had it and wasn't bothering to actually do anything with it. Considering that it was a word I made up, I was a little taken aback. But I was able to chuck a letter and underscore on the front. Thankfully, I joined mastodon early enough to get the proper name.

[Anduin]

Twitter is working pretty badly for Australia today. Very frustrating. Apparently one of the data centres was turned off, or whatever the official term is. Even though it was in America, it might have been one that dealt with Aussie traffic.

I don't get it. In my head, the best way to handle costs would be improve service and bring people and advertisers back, instead of slashing twitter to ribbons and driving people away.

Of course, I do use adblock. I might be part of the problem. If advertisers ever learned that less intrusive ads were better than more obnoxious ones, I might be prepared to turn it off.

[Anduin]

So, Instagram and ads. All was going well a couple of weeks ago until they started putting ads in the videos up top. I started claiming they were offensive. My account was suspended. Fine, create a new email account and sign up to everyone again. This time, I managed to avoid the ads. And they suspended my account again! I didn't do anything dodgy, I just didn't interact with the ads. Maybe that's enough. They have to force everyone to see this irrelevant nonsense. Has that been anyone else's experience, or am I just unlucky?

[Spartan Girl]

Twitter is down, at least the mobile web version and they haven’t even acknowledged it, let alone done anything about it.

[Anduin]

I made a new email account. I signed up to IG again. This time it was straight from sign up to account suspended. I didn't have a chance to post anything dodgy. They wouldn't even tell me what I apparently did wrong. Since I don't want to tell them my phone number, so much for that attempt.

So why do I want to get back on IG? Many celebs I like share pretty or interesting pictures. Am I shallow? Yes. But still. I just wish they'd tell me why.

[Anela]

On 4/30/2023 at 6:04 PM, Anduin said:

So, Instagram and ads. All was going well a couple of weeks ago until they started putting ads in the videos up top. I started claiming they were offensive. My account was suspended. Fine, create a new email account and sign up to everyone again. This time, I managed to avoid the ads. And they suspended my account again! I didn't do anything dodgy, I just didn't interact with the ads. Maybe that's enough. They have to force everyone to see this irrelevant nonsense. Has that been anyone else's experience, or am I just unlucky?

Adblock no longer works on instagram, when I log in with a browser. I've had ads in the stories, for a long time, and I hate it. I've blocked the pages of things like that greens supplement that everyone sells, and they are paid to post something like eight stories, and an IG post. Even blocking the page didn't stop the ads in between stories. I just don't watch them when it comes to the people I follow, suddenly posting glowing reviews again. 

On facebook, I've had times when I snoozed too many groups and pages, according to them, so I lose those privileges for a while. I hardly spend any time there now, because it's annoying. 

[Anduin]

Interesting! If I try again, I may use a different browser. There's always Chrome, and Edge isn't actually terrible.

[Anduin]

Apparently he's going to change the name of twitter to X. He's already bought the domain name. Combine that with everything else he's done and it's very much Ship of Theseus, if each new plank was worse than the one it's replacing. From pine to plywood or something.

Anyone have a spare bluesky invite?

[Enigma X]

Anduin, I will DM you.

[SunnyBeBe]

Does anyone have any suggestions to help with  for trouble logging in to FB?
 

My Dad was using the FB account fine, then FB suddenly went down in his area for about a day. Now, it’s up, but he can’t log in. It says there is no such account. Tried searching by name and email.  It doesn’t work.  One of his neighbors has the same problem!

 We’ve tried recovering the password, but it won’t work.  We know the account email address and password are correct, because we wrote them down on the ipad box when it was opened and we have the emails in the inbox from FB.  This is so frustrating.  

[Anduin]

I've picked up four new followers on BlueSky this week. I hear a lot of British people have been joining recently and have to wonder if I'm one of the people on starter pack list. Not like I have that much in common with any of them, haven't followed any of them back. It's odd.

[Anduin]

Over the last month or so, a lot of people have started following me on Bluesky. I've put out a call a few times as to why, but none of them have replied to me! Doesn't help that they all seem to follow a lot of people. Anyone else get a lot of new followers recently?

As a followup, why follow so many people you can't keep up? Anything in particular would get lost in the noise.

[ebk57]

8 hours ago, Anduin said:

Over the last month or so, a lot of people have started following me on Bluesky. I've put out a call a few times as to why, but none of them have replied to me! Doesn't help that they all seem to follow a lot of people. Anyone else get a lot of new followers recently?

As a followup, why follow so many people you can't keep up? Anything in particular would get lost in the noise.

This also bothers me.  Probably the only thing I miss about Twitter was the option to "remove" a follower.  I'm not someone who needs or wants a bunch of strangers following me and that was a good option to have to get rid of them without them knowing.  I did put in a request to Bluesky to see if they could implement that, but I think they're really busy now trying to keep up with the volume of new accounts. 

At this point, I'm just blocking the ones that give me a creepy feeling, but I sorta feel bad about that.  Although I'm not sure why...I don't know any of them. 

[Anduin]

I just wish I knew why. While I haven't started blocking them, I've certainly considered it.

[SoMuchTV]

Okay, I’m on Facebook mainly to see the photos my one kid uploads and to keep up with stuff in my neighborhood. But recently, I seem to be getting about 90% sponsored posts. It doesn’t help to “x” out and tell them why I don’t want to see it; it’ll just be replaced by something else.

Do I just not have enough friends who are doing anything interesting? I know advertising is part of the deal, but it seems like a drastic change in the last few weeks. Is this how it is for everyone?

[Anduin]

1 hour ago, SoMuchTV said:

Okay, I’m on Facebook mainly to see the photos my one kid uploads and to keep up with stuff in my neighborhood. But recently, I seem to be getting about 90% sponsored posts. It doesn’t help to “x” out and tell them why I don’t want to see it; it’ll just be replaced by something else.

Do I just not have enough friends who are doing anything interesting? I know advertising is part of the deal, but it seems like a drastic change in the last few weeks. Is this how it is for everyone?

I get a few of those, and mute them. But I follow several FB groups and bands. For that matter, I'm using an adblocker on PC. Maybe enough other stuff filters ads/sponsors out, or maybe it's the blocker. Of course, the peril is that by following more groups, you tell FB your interests so they can better target ads. I'm not sure there's a good answer.

[Anela]

I downloaded TikTok again, in November, and now I’m looking for alternatives for that, Facebook, and instagram.  I signed up for Neptune, a new app, using their website.  I don’t like Snapchat.