# Leaving Twitter with Tim Bray

- Show: [Oxide and Friends](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends)
- Published: 2022-11-29
- Length: 1h 12m
- Episode: 36
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-11-29-leaving-twitter-with-tim-bray
- Listen: https://share.transistor.fm/s/ed378548

## Summary

Tim Bray, along with hosts Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, discusses his decision to leave Twitter following Elon Musk's acquisition, citing poor engineering leadership, the rise of extremist content, and the platform's descent into a 'hellscape.' The group analyzes the technical and social implications of moving to Mastodon and the ActivityPub protocol, debating whether federated social media can replace Twitter's role as a real-time public square. They also touch on the scalability challenges of Mastodon, the potential for news organizations to host their own instances, and the future of open protocols in social networking.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-11-29-leaving-twitter-with-tim-bray#t=0) Introduction and Tim Bray's Departure from Twitter
- [1:35](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-11-29-leaving-twitter-with-tim-bray#t=95) Tim Bray's History at Sun and Oracle
- [7:52](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-11-29-leaving-twitter-with-tim-bray#t=472) Reasons for Leaving Twitter: Musk's Leadership and Content Moderation
- [12:23](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-11-29-leaving-twitter-with-tim-bray#t=743) Mastodon vs. Centralized Alternatives and Algorithmic Engagement
- [39:46](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-11-29-leaving-twitter-with-tim-bray#t=2386) Technical Challenges: Scaling, DDoS, and Rails Implementation
- [42:56](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-11-29-leaving-twitter-with-tim-bray#t=2576) The Loss of the Public Square and Community Fragmentation
- [1:00:37](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-11-29-leaving-twitter-with-tim-bray#t=3637) Future of Federated Social: ActivityPub, Pluroma, and Elixir

## Topics

- [Direct-to-consumer & e-commerce](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/direct-to-consumer)
- [AI & machine learning](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/ai-and-machine-learning)
- [Careers & education](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/engineering-careers-and-education)
- [Policy, trade & tariffs](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/policy-trade-and-tariffs)
- [Open-source hardware](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/open-source-hardware)

## Most relevant to

large enterprises

## Mentioned

- Twitter (company)
- Mastodon (product)
- Elon Musk (other)
- ActivityPub (other)
- Pluroma (product)
- Elixir (other)
- Erlang (other)
- Rails (other)
- Hacker News (product)
- Blue Sky (product)
- Tumblr (product)
- Flickr (product)
- SmugMug (company)
- Sun (company)
- Oracle (company)
- Intel (company)
- IBM (company)
- Reddit (company)
- Gmail (product)
- WhatsApp (product)
- RabbitMQ (product)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [Live From The HIBT Summit: Kevin Systrom & Mike Krieger Of Instagram](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2019-12-19-live-from-the-hibt-summit-kevin-systrom-mike-krieger-of-instagram) (How I Built This)
- [Twitter, Medium and Blogger: Ev Williams](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2024-05-06-twitter-medium-and-blogger-ev-williams) (How I Built This)
- [Live Episode! Reddit: Alexis Ohanian & Steve Huffman](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2017-08-31-live-episode-reddit-alexis-ohanian-steve-huffman) (How I Built This)
- [Closing One Chapter, Opening Another](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/over-the-air/2025-12-01-closing-one-chapter-opening-another) (Over the Air)
- [Substack: Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2025-05-12-substack-chris-best-and-hamish-mckenzie) (How I Built This)

## Citing this page

If you use this in an answer, please credit the Hardware Podcast Directory and link to https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2022-11-29-leaving-twitter-with-tim-bray. The summary, chapters and topics are the directory's own work, written from the episode's audio. The episode itself, its title and its audio belong to Oxide and Friends.