I joined Twitter in 2008 and quickly started using it to promote my business. Since then I've gained almost 6,600 followers. I have enjoyed the platform for fifteen years. But the time has come to say goodbye.
I consider myself very tolerant. In fact, I get a fair amount of hate mail from both conservatives and liberals because I tolerate almost all speech and I embrace a complicated set of beliefs that don't fit nicely in a box. As a result, I have tolerated the political hyperbole of the last decade pretty well.
But now I am seeing things on Twitter that I don't want to see: People being killed.
Most often, the films are super quick. As you scroll, you see someone walking down the street and get smashed into by a truck, or some object flies in unexpectedly and kills them.
A close second is people being seriously injured. I'm not talking about slap-stick images of a pie in the face. People are finding entertainment in the actual pain and suffering of others.
If I see something like that once a year, I pay no attention to it. But now I see these videos almost every time I visit. Today I saw three within just a few minutes.
Ultimately, I do not want to get used to seeing people die or be seriously injured. That has never been part of my daily experience and I don't want it to ever be something I get used to.
Some will just say I'm a wimp or a snowflake or whatever. I don't care. I can make a simple change and eliminate something from my online life that I find disturbing. So I will.
The Business Side of the Decision
I have always (2008-2023) use Twitter to promote my business and exchange some humor or niceties with friends, primarily on the business front.
But I will really only miss one thing on Twitter: Richard Tubb. I honestly believe Richard's posts are the greatest thing on Twitter. I have already sent him a personal note about leaving the platform.
My daily routine has been to catch up with Richard's posts, and then scroll down and "like" various postings from friends as well as cute and funny posts I come across. So I look forward to reading, watching, and catching up with Richard on some other social medium.
As for my business . . .
We have been posting to Twitter for fifteen years. We do have something of a following. But this is not really a business decision. Besides, my ultimate marketing tool is my weekly newsletter. With luck, those 6,600 people are on that list already.
Karl -- I'm gutted to see you leave Twitter, but *totally* understand your decisions for doing so. Twitter has always had a reputation for being the wild west, but in the past few months the moderation of the platform has reached new lows. It'll be interesting to see how Mark Zuckerberg's new "Theads" Twitter clone takes off!
ReplyDeleteI left Twitter many years ago because of their high level of censorship but returned after Musk took it over. So, I'm not a big Twitter user but I have never seen a video there in which someone died. But, if I had been exposed to such videos, I would simply unfollow whoever it was that was posting them. Seems to me to be a fairly easy fix or am I missing something?
ReplyDeleteThis would be my approach, too. Musk, IMO, is trying to re-invigorate a platform that was dying from being overstaffed by time-servers, over-moderated and actively censored. It's understandable that quality will suffer in the short term. Block and move on is my approach, though, thankfully I've not seen anything heinous.
DeleteI to have been seeing a lot of violent videos recommended to my on twitter. It is disturbing. I've muted/blocked many. I don't use the platform that often however I was reading about the level of control FBI and other gov orgs had on censorship of the platform prior to Musk's take over and it's good to know this has now been made public. I think the disturbing videos are just a blip of twitter's roadmap - probably due to the amount of staff they let go. Going forward i'm sure it will get sorted. I feel the platform will help from a freedom of speech perspective and I almost see "threads" as a reaction to that free speech by Meta and probably so other interested parties. Keeping my account and looking forward to improvements. - Scott IT Rockstars
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen that on Twitter, but I have seen animals being hurt on Instagram. WTF? I guess we click on things and the algorithms "think" we like it and send us more of it. So much for AI. I just kept clicking "I don't want to see this" (or something similar) on IG and it went away. That said, why am I on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook AT ALL? We are probably better off without it. So, good for you.
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