Unsocial media

Greetings, one and all.  I hope that January is going well for you so far.  I have to confess that returning to our usual routine has been a little bit of a letdown, after having our entire family together for full week over the holidays!

But I digress, as I stopped by this morning to address something that has been nagging at me for some time.

After many years of using Twitter, now called “X,” I decided to stop doing so and deleted my account. Why?  Well, for one thing, the current owner of that platform decided to end Twitter’s longstanding practice of making it possible to use what is called a “client” to view content from that platform.  In that model, it is possible to completely tailor one’s account to see only what the user wants, only those accounts the user follows, and no ads.

One of the earliest actions that rankled me was the elimination of these clients.  That meant using the native Twitter app, which meant that my feed was polluted by a growing amount of unwanted advertisements and posts from entities whom I did not and would not follow.  I spent long hours following online advice about how to prevent some of this unwanted content to appear, but it was no use.  The onslaught of garbage and misinformation grew.

Then, suddenly, in the past few months, it seemed that I was seeing posts FROM THE OWNER of the platform, reposting items highlighting anti-Semitic rhetoric and other inflammatory material.  The owner also restored a number of previously banned users to active status, including former President Donald Trump.

The last straw for me was when the owner reinstated the account of Alex Jones, of InfoWars fame.   In case you weren’t aware, I’ll mention here that Jones was found guilty of circulating misinformation about the school shooting at Sandy Hook from some years ago, an event that Jones continuously claimed never happened.  A group of the anguished parents of those children who were murdered in this event sued and were awarded a large settlement from Jones, who was unrepentant and filed bankruptcy.  To my knowledge he has not paid a cent to these parents who have had to experience this nonsense.

That was it.  That was enough.

Do I miss Twitter?  Somewhat.  I use Threads, the Instagram offshoot that became available last year.  Everyone I followed on Twitter is not on Threads, but many are.  And I’m a lot happier.

I read somewhere that the current owner told advertisers what they could do with themselves, and it was subsequently mentioned that the current value of X is now less that 1/4 of what he paid for the platform.

I suppose people ultimately answer for their behavior in one way or another.

Anyway, this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, so thanks for reading today!