There’s very little that can be said about the last few weeks on social media that hasn’t already been said in countless angry tweets.
Twitter was bought by Elon Musk, the work force was shuttered, policies have been changed, services launched, changed, removed, relaunched, and removed again, and now Trump is reinstated thanks to an easily botted poll.
Why give my views, and therefore more ad revenue, to a platform that is determined to be the new Gab? Why contribute any amount of my energy to a place that flies fundamentally against what I stand for?
This isn’t even about “conservative” vs “liberal” values.
There is a major difference between a place where the public masses can be balanced so that no “side” gets a direct benefit, where the left, right, or in-betweeners can co-exist and argue and flame and block each other, and a place where there is a culture of sarcasm, untruths, and misinformation boldly promoted to benefit the most harmful actors in society.
I’ve been on Twitter for nearly 15 years, and during that time I’ve learned from Republicans, Democrats, Anarchists, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, etc… etc… etc… At any moment you could read the news from a hundred different perspectives and see the reactions in the comments. You could interact with leading politicians and celebrities and scientists and get a genuine response in return.
Now it’s turning into a troll-fest, led by the biggest troll on earth with the deepest pockets.
Nah, I’m not interested. There may still be some gems out there to uncover in whatever future Twitter has, but it will be so overwhelmed with noise and sarcasm and clap-backs and bad-faith arguments (more than it has been, which was already a lot) that you’re better spent looking for those gems elsewhere.
At a certain point we all have to make a choice on if something has enough of a benefit to balance out the negatives. Twitter does not balance in my favor anymore, so I’m making my choice to leave.