I’ve had a Twitter account since 2007. I’ve no-joke learned a lot over the years of usage; I recall the hell Kathy Sierra — an early pioneer of technical training — went thru there, and elsewhere, an early victim of doxxing from what would become the Alt-Right. I remember the job in discovering Kevin M. Kruse, who wrote an American Political History, in Twitter form, including deep documentation on how the GOP embraced White Supremacy, over and again, for decades prior to Nixon.
That opened my eyes to so-called Academic Twitter, which was paralleled by Black Twitter, and so many other, marginalized and otherwise lessor-heard, voices. Perspectives I’d never have caught, I fear, had I not been on the platform.
As much as this space has, too, taught me a lot, these Twitter folx have educated me on issues from the diversity of living while Trans, to the current situations in Iran. That’s their work, their lives, they are putting out there. And it’s not just “for free,” it’s frequently a life where they are all at risk of the kinds of issues Sierra went thru, coming on a decade and a half, now. Be it from groups of assholes, or asshole governments — or both.
So no, Twitter was never “just” a cesspool. It was never just a place to pull quotes and opinions for a Front Page story here, for me. Nor did I use it to track what my ideological opponents were doing of the day. It was a place, primarily, to listen to people who I’d never hear from otherwise.
Even as unsafe as Twitter truly can be.
And then, as of this time, yesterday:
Just before midnight Thursday, Musk tweeted, “the bird is free,” and with that, all hell broke lose—or at least a little bit of fresh hell.
One Twitter user responded with, “Currently belong celebrated by thousands of Musk supporters shouting the N-word all over the platform.” And a simple search of the word proves this, not to mention the responses to this tweet alone.
I already had plans around the moment Musk took ownership. These plans were based upon not only the usual reporting on Musk, but the views into the echo chambers, both online and off, that follow and influence him, now. And, perhaps more critically, the well documented racism and sexism at Telsa.
And so, I have left Twitter.
A Personal Perspective on Musk’s TwitterPost + Comments (100)