Black Twitter Is Quickly Finding a New Home

Over the weekend, Twitter was rendered effectively broken for users not paying to be there (if there are any of them left) when its owner Elon Musk announced rate limits on the platform. The rate limits, which prevent most users from viewing more than 300-600 posts a day—it seems like a lot but not really if you scroll for a little while—are apparently the result of third parties scraping data from Twitter, which Musk does not like.

For months, observers have been predicting that Twitter would eventually collapse under the stress of its talent drain. Ironically, that talent drain might lead to the next social-media thing for frustrated tweeters. Two former Twitter employees, Alphonzo Terrell and DeVaris Brown, started up a social-media platform, Spill, and raised seed funding to create a platform aimed specifically at Black and queer creators. It opened up a waitlist in December and is now seeing a surge of users as some flee Twitter or look for other places to go when Twitter is unusable.

Black-owned Spill bills itself as a "visual conversation at the speed of culture" and has shifted from mostly text-based to a place where meme-sharing is encouraged. "What's tea?" is one of its catchphrases. The plan for Spill also included financial compensation for users who post things that go viral, according to its creators.

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In June, Spill introduced an iOS app as well. The reaction seems positive so far, if TikTok chatter is any indication.

Spill was trending on Twitter, of all places, Monday morning. Filmmaker Ava DuVernay reportedly joined the network over the weekend.