When a relationship is toxic, sometimes you can’t do anything but recognize that it’s not working for you and make a clean break. Thus ends our relationship with X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) as we join the millions of people and organizations leaving for other platforms, such as Mastadon, Threads, and Bluesky.
“After years of building and curating an active presence on Twitter, the decision to move to another platform is one we didn’t take lightly,” said Carley McDougall, executive director of Campus Manitoba. “Our move to Bluesky resonates with our core values: just as we advocate for open, accessible educational resources, the platform’s decentralized framework represents a more open, transparent approach to social networking. We’ve found that Bluesky’s emerging community includes educators, researchers, and open education advocates throughout the province and around the world who share our commitment to knowledge sharing and collaborative learning. While Twitter served us well in the past, its problematic privacy policies and increasingly commercialized environment made it challenging to foster the meaningful academic discourse our community wants and needs. On Bluesky, we can better engage with our network of educators, share OER resources, and participate in substantive discussions about the future of online learning, educational technology, and all of the possibilities within open education — without the noise and algorithmic interference experienced elsewhere. We are excited to build a new community upon the ashes of the former platform and we hope that you’ll collaborate and communicate with us within this new channel.”
BCcampus recently shared the reasons behind their exodus from X: “We believe that our digital spaces should reflect our values, and at BCcampus our core values include being inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist.”
“Should You Delete X? Millions Of Users Just Got a New Reason to Quit”
Joining the Fediverse: Decentralized and Interconnected
A significant advantage of moving to a federated platform, such as Bluesky or Mastodon, is that you have the ability to host your own data. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can spin up a Personal Data Server (PDS), allowing you to host your own data and set your own moderation policies and technical configurations. The federated network gives you a consistent user experience and better control over your data and interactions.
Customizable Feeds
Another benefit of choosing Bluesky is the ability to choose how you want your feed to evolve. If you only want to see posts from your connections — skipping the reposts and replies — you can do that. Want to curate a feed of all of the posts on the topics you love? You can do that, too. Want to mute specific words, topics, or people? A few clicks and you can have that blissful feed.
We’re still learning about what we can do on Bluesky, but so far, it’s looking pretty fantastic.
Recommended Connections
To help you find like-minded folks to chat and share with, we’ve put together this little list of potential followers:
- Assiniboine Community College
- Brandon University Research
- Creative Commons – The nonprofit behind the licenses & tools the world uses to share 🌍
- Open Education Network – A community of open education practitioners reimagining higher education so that all students can be successful.
- Rajiv Jhangiani, Vice Provost of Teaching and Learning at Brock University, has created a ‘starter pack of open educators’ to help everyone stay connected in this new space.
- University College of the North – 🧭 Located throughout Northern Manitoba 📚offering 40+ degrees, diplomas and certificates
- University of Manitoba – We attract people from around the world who share our ideals and vision for positive change. We are where imagination and action collide.
- University of Winnipeg Archives – We are the archives of the University of Winnipeg and its founding colleges dating back to 1871.
- University of Winnipeg Faculty Association – Representing faculty and librarians, contract academic staff, Collegiate instructors, and counsellors at the University of Winnipeg since 1981
Connect with us on Bluesky and LinkedIn, then sign up for our newsletter to get Campus Manitoba updates right in your inbox.
Note: If you plan to leave Twitter/X for another platform – don’t delete your existing account unless you’re ok with the risk that someone may pick up that handle and make it their own. Instead of deleting an account, many people delete their previous tweets and leave a single post about where to find them on the new platform. This effectively preserves your ability to maintain that profile, but as that platform evolves, the rules around ownership of your online persona may change significantly.
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