I was one of those people that loved Twitter.
Oh, sure it had its problems, as they all do. But for the most part I found it to be not only the most informative and easy to navigate, but also the most fun. I loved the character restrictions that forced posts to remain concise, lending themselves well to the posting of memes and one-liners.
It was also unique in that it provided a space for the average person to connect and engage with celebrities and brands, as well as to become exposed to people from all walks of life and with views very different than my own. I would block my fair share of trolls and extremists, but all in all the system was workable.
Then Elon Musk came.
It all happened so fast. First were the massive layoffs, which compromised their ability to handle content moderation and which disproportionately targeted women. Then came the decimation of their safety department. Musk courted with white supremacists and racist dog whistles. He engaged in casual transphobia in the guise of “jokes.” He re-platformed QAnon and other perpetrators of harassment, bulling, as well as the inciters of violence.
Those workers who publicly disagreed with him were publicly targeted by Musk, resulting in actual death threats from Musk’s frenzied base of tech bros all willing to take an online bullet for their billionaire overlord. The massive surge in harassment and hate speech since Musk took over is nothing short of staggering. Anti-LGBTQ slurs have reportedly jumped 1200% since Musk took over as “Chief Twit.”
To summarize, it’s all been a bit much.
Hands typing out negative social media posts. Image credit: DepositPhotos
I was previously in the camp of “wait and see what happens,” but as each day passed, more and more right-wing hate began appearing in my feed. While the reading of comments has long been a discouraged practice, it is also the point of social media. So, good luck not reading them.
Even still, I’m no stranger to being harassed online. A sad reality of human society is that there is no shortage of those who simply work to tear others down instead of working to build others up. If someone has a platform, there will be those that seek to topple them from it. That’s just the baseline, these days. But on Twitter it’s recently become something more. The proverbial volume has been turned up to 11. It’s an uphill battle everyday just being bombarded with so much hate, especially concerning since the mechanisms that had previously dealt with these issues basically no longer exist.
I started to dread opening the app to check my feed. It ceased being enjoyable and started becoming a mental and emotional liability. I realized that I just didn’t like being there anymore. I don’t want to be in a space that allows (and even encourages) its users to harass each other with slurs like the N-word or “groomer,” or by purposely and viciously misgendering people under the supposed guise of “free speech.”
So, I left. I politely explained my decision to my followers there and the next day I deactivated my account and deleted the app from my phone.
Part of me is still hoping that something will change in the next 30 days, which is the time it will take for that deactivation to become a permanent deletion. But I know better. It has only gotten progressively worse in the days since Musk took over, as more and more of my mutuals have sought alternatives to the bird app.
And we are not alone. Twitter is projected to lose more than 30 million followers in the next two years, due to technical issues and the proliferation of hate speech, according to a report cited in The Guardian. This isn’t the “suppression of free speech.” This is the marketplace making an informed decision and taking our participation elsewhere.
One argument commonly cited by those on the political right is that Musk is simply bringing free speech to the platform, something they claim has been previously denied them there. But the opposite is true, with a record of left-leaning voices being suppressed and right-wing voices being amplified. According to a 2021 study, the platform was already disproportionately favoring the right-wing. Musk’s takeover is the ethical and political equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire.
The “this is fine” meme, originally from the webcomic “Gunshow” by KC Green [KC Green]
While some will claim that restricting a user from harassing others is a violation of their “freedom of speech” (a gross misunderstanding and misapplication of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, but I digress) I argue that Twitter is absolutely responsible for what it allows to happen on its platform in much the same way that the owner of a physical business is for what occurs in their spaces.
I once owned a brick-and-mortar store, and if there was a patron in our space who began harassing other customers, using vile and incendiary language, targeting them for their race, or gender, or anything else, I would feel it was my responsibility to eject that person from the premises for the safety of my other patrons. What’s more, if I were patronizing a business that did not prioritize the safety and comfort of their customers, I would not patronize that business again. It has a degrading effect on society when we allow hate speech to flourish. Words matter because they inspire actions. When politicians are allows to target marginalized communities with no accountability, we see hate crimes increase and violence spread. And with that realization, I had to leave Twitter behind me.
One promising option for those who want to leave the bird app is Mastodon. Mastodon is the largest decentralized social network on the internet, consisting of a federation of interconnected instances, each with their own culture and rules. I am on the “Witches.live” instance, which is centered around, you guessed it, Witches. Additionally, it explicitly forbids “Feds, cops, abusers, TERFs, and fascists,” making it a solid choice for Witches on the political Left. It even has a cute Witchy theme to everything and makes a little magic chime sound when I get a notification. So cute!
The logo for the Mastodon instance Witches.Live
One thing that all this has taught me is not to invest too heavily in outside platforms for networking. I had been working to get my Twitter follower count up to 10K and was nearly there when Emperor Musk started fiddling and everything started to burn. Are we now going to see a return of cultural emphasis to individual blogs and email lists and away from these larger centralized platforms? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, I will enjoy a space decidedly free of right-wing Christo-fascist harassment and allow my blood pressure a much-needed rest. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I don’t feel the need to put up with anyone’s bigotry – no matter how rich they are.
If you are interested in joining Mastodon’s Witches.live instance and following me there, use this invite link: https://witches.live/invite/WG3V4iPF
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