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Page initially created: 2025-02-13.

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I've had an account on Twitter since April 2014. As of 2025-02-13, I had 3041 posts, 627 followers, 51 following. I've mostly used it to post links to my blog pieces. The last eight Music Week pieces have an average of 164.5 views (high 269, low 86), with totals of 27 likes, 2 repliles, 0 reposts. The two weeks with 200+ views coincided with the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. The view numbers only go up if someone else reposts them. Comments remain extremely rare. Until now, this is the only method I've had to push notices out.

Profile description:

Self-educated crank, sometime pazz & jop critic, retired software engineer, writes on music and public affairs when the latter can't be helped.

Grok's summary of my profile:

Tom Hull: Retired software engineer turned jazz critic, orchestrating the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll with a keen eye on music and a sharp pen for public affairs.

Tom's been tallying jazz poll ballots, sharing music reviews, and diving into historical insights from Hobsbawm.

The community appreciates Tom's work on the Jazz Critics Poll, with @BirdIsTheWorm noting his astute observations and @Missingduke thanking him for his hard work.

I'm still horrified, but Trump is really leaning into this "history repeats, first as tragedy, then as farce" thing pretty hard, don't you think? - @tomhull747

Bluesky

Billed as an alternative to Twitter, a lot of people have moved to it as Elon Musk's public profile becomes increasingly toxic. After Robert Christgau moved, I figured I should at least open an account. I did that on 2025-02-13, as tomhull747.bsky.social. Looking around, under Settings I see:

• Account: Has email address, birthday, password, handle, options to: export my data, deactivate account, delete account.
• Privacy & Security: Options for two-factor authentication, app passwords, logged-out visibility.
• Moderation: Tools for: muted words & tags; moderation lists; muted accounts; blocked accounts. Content filters: enable adult content (default disabled); non-sexual nudity (show); "Advanced" Bluesky Moderation Service.
• Content and media: Manage saved feeds; Thread preferences; Following feed preferences; External media; Option to autoplay videos and GIFs (on but I could see wanting to turn them off).
• Appearance: Color mode; Dark theme; Font; Font size.
• Accessibility: Options to: require alt text before posting; Display larger alt text badges.
• Languages: App Language; Primary Language; Content Languages: all set to English.
• Help: Documents on: Custom Domain; Bluesky User FAQ; Account; General FAQ.
• About: Terms of Service; Privacy Policy; Status Page; System Log; Version 1.97.0

Under Profile I have the option to Edit Profile, plus a table of: Posts, Replies, Media, Videos, LIkes, Feeds, Starter Packs, Lists. Edit my profile has unset options: Display Name, Description. Elsewhere:

• Lists, there are none.

• Feeds, I'm offered Discover and Following. I'm following none. Discover gives me selected posts, asking me to "like 10 posts" and/or "follow 7 accounts." I didn't see much I like here, or anyone I wanted to follow.

• Messages: I get none. Same for Notifications.

• Search offers: Suggested accounts [to follow]; Discover new feeds. I clicked the former five times without finding anyone I recognized. Although the guy who wrote "Dems allowed corporate price gouging to be marketed as inflation and still wonder why they lost the election" has a point.

  Home offers Discover and Following.

Edited profile for display name ("Tom Hull") and description ("Post-employed engineer, non-credentialed sociologist, has heard a lot of music, writes up utopian ideas and practical proposals, is a fairly decent cook"). Wrote up two initial posts, one a link back to my last Speaking of Which, the other to the 19th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll.

Very slow getting a reasonable list of sources to follow, let alone getting other people to follow me. (As I recall, I got moving on Twitter much quicker.) I need to look into strategy documents, and try to figure out what it makes sense to do here. One fairly obvious need is some kind of tool that would facilitate posting across multiple social media platforms. Preliminary search suggests Buffer, Fedica, and Openvibe as candidates.

Facebook

After setting up Bluesky, I went to Facebook, figuring I'd add a note or comment about my new account. Instead, I found that I had been blocked, supposedly for some infraction against their community rules, with no explanation, other than that the blockage was permanent, and that they intended to delete my entire account. I don't think I posted anything since my last Music Week announcement more than week earlier. Only thing earlier that day was a like on a post, and only things in recent days were a couple of comments relating to my server search.

I had been blocked once before. In that case, I had rebooted with 5-6 Facebook tabs opened, so when the system came up again, all of the tabs attempted to reload at once, and this seemed to have hit some DDOS tripwire. I appealed the block, and they rescinded it, although I don't think there were ever clear about anything. This time seems much more severe. When I clicked to appeal, I was asked for a face scan to verify my identity. (I don't know how they know what I look like, but I guess they know everything, or at least think they do.) I finally went to a different computer, attempted to login to Facebook, and was met with the same block message. I ran their camera scan, moving my head as instructed, and uploaded the video. Supposedly, they will examine this and render their final judgment. Meanwhile, they gave me the option of downloading my private data, so I did that. (Another sucky UI, by the way.)

Since then, I haven't returned to Facebook, and I'm disgusted enough I may never. I joined in the first place to keep track of nephews and nieces who rarely find the time to keep in touch, but half of them soon moved off. They've been supplanted with a few more family members and several dozen old friends: a couple going back to childhood, a few more from college, and more I know as friends of friends. These have been reinforced by virtual friends: some people I've never met, but have corresponded with over the years. But I've been reluctant to send or accept requests from more casual readers, especially musicians and publicists, who are more likely just interested in publicizing their work. I publicize my writing on X, but very rarely on Facebook.

I worry that leaving Facebook will diminish these contacts, but I wonder if they haven't served as a substitute or crutch. Perhaps I should just resolve to do a better job otherwise.

PS: After complaining on X about being blocked on Facebook, I got a spike of replies, virtually all of them plugging one tech recovery service or another (@ultimate_tech1, @Aaronsavetech1, @Jord_miles889, @Archie_techz, @WINSTONCRACK1, @Owen_techz) -- evidently there's a whole cottage industry out ther waiting to take advantage of your misfortune. The only substantive note was from James Chaffin, who reported a very similar experience, noting that his account was restored in a day or two, but has been hacked, blocked, and restored since.