Twitter has changed, and not for the better. Killing the links to third-party apps was terrible for me. I used Tweetbot to filter and organise. Without it I could be lost in a soup of distraction.

As a journalist I can’t afford to walk away. Twitter helps me stay in touch with dozens of people and news sources. Mastodon doesn’t come close to replacing that.

Yet I need to prepare for a time when Twitter could become more unbearable, unusable or otherwise too messed around with.

So I’m following key Twitter feeds using my RSS feed reader. I use NetNewsWire: a free app for Macs, iPhones and iPads. In my experience it does a better job than the paid apps, but I open to There are plenty of alternatives to suit everyone’s needs, although not every RSS reader can deal with Twitter feeds.

That way I don’t have to miss anything that happens on Twitter, at the same time I don’t need to waste energy ploughing through the inevitable distractions that Twitter seems intent on making harder to ignore.

I’m interested to hear if other people have new Twitter strategies.