I have loved Twitter over the last 13 (!) years. Maybe too much. I have loved the organic and idiosyncratic communities; the real-time reporting; the ability to reconnect with far-flung friends with shared interests; the memes and humor; and — yes, I confess — even the doomscrolling. I have live-tweeted court hearings, SCOTUS decisions good and bad, and of course lots of stuff about coffee and nerdy technology. Ok perhaps I am overly active on Twitter (relatedly, I drink a lot of coffee).
The site has never been perfect. There’s nastiness and conspiracy theories and other traces of humanity’s darker impulses. I’ve been called a “radical yiddish communi[st]” and other vaguely menacing things — which is surely a fraction of the hate speech received by my civil rights colleagues and by women of color. I’ve gotten into Twitter squabbles and posted things I’ll likely come to regret someday.
But the spirit of Twitter feels different recently. It’s not just that Elon Musk bought it and I don’t share his [latest] politics or tax bracket. I am not specifically opposed to paying $8.00 a month — or paying for content or social media generally (which could be a good thing for content creators and data monetization). I am not opposed to social media platforms revising their content moderation policies (which are complicated) or admitting that certain past decisions might have been mistaken. Nor am I against greater decentralization of the web, which can yield benefits in terms of antitrust enforcement or international censorship (although I am not sure that’s really happening here).
What actually bothers me is a host of other decisions by Twitter’s new leadership that are wrong and erratic. Musk’s ghastly insinuation about his former head of Trust and Safety, an openly gay, Jewish man who had to flee his home after getting targeted with violent and homophobic threats. Musk’s blocking links to Mastodon and other social media platforms, which prompted an international outcry and is manifestly anti-competitive. Musk’s pattern of playing footsie with alt-right accounts and ideas that no longer appears accidental. The mass firings and ultimatums and resignations that, among other things, don’t inspire confidence either (and may or may not comply with labor law).
Originally, Musk cast himself as a savior of free speech and convinced a lot of people, including Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey, that he was “the singular solution I trust.” But this is not what freedom looks like to me. And this is not the site I joined in 2009 and came to love. Frankly I am no longer sure I can trust the current owner(s) with troves of personal data, messages, and images.
So I’ve decided to suspend my Twitter postings. I hope this doesn’t come across as a vainglorious exercise in virtue-signaling, because that’s not my aim. But I felt the need to say something, before sulking off after so many years. I don’t judge those who choose to stay — to fight it out, wait it out, or just for fun.
Ultimately, part of the life cycle of technologies is that they can become obsolete or upgraded. Remember Geocities or AIM (ahem, BRB)? Those too, were once an indispensable part of our daily online existence. Today, they are but a distant memory tinged with the echo of a 36.6 modem. While fragments of our data may remain stuck to old sites like fossils buried in the mud — as users, we can choose not to be stuck to them.
Perhaps Twitter will eventually go the way of Geocities. Who knows how Musk’s tenure will play out in terms of regulation or profitability? In the meantime, one way to vote is with my feet.
So au revoir Birdsite. Maybe we shall meet again one day. Or maybe, decades from now, I’ll pull you out of a dusty box, like my vintage Nokia phone, for a touch of nostalgia about a place I once loved.