Some Thoughts On Twitter

No, I’m not joining the anti-Elon club, or going to moan and flounce over whatever allegedly outrageous thing he’s done this time. In fact, I will start by saying that Twitter is in many ways more fun than it has ever been from the start.

The first Twitter account I had was at the start, and once Twitter became a sewer I left. I rejoined around the last election, and between the manipulation and the still rampant CSE and other sewer elements, I left again. I rejoined when Elon started having an interest in it, and have laughed my fluffy fuzzy rump off at all that has gone on since he bought the non-profit. Unless he does turn things around, I’m going to say he got fleeced. I’m hoping he does turn it around, but some major unforced errors this week have me concerned.

Twitter has an amazing amount of untapped potential. Elon has talked about his desire to make it a true free speech platform, and a platform for citizen journalism. The problem is, either through sheer incompetence by staff, or some termites from the old regimes still being in the woodwork (embrace the healing power of and?), any trust or credibility in Twitter by independent journalists and non-corporate journalistic organizations took a heavy hit.

In short, a user posted an “interesting” graphic about the upcoming “Trans Day Of Vengeance” which also included calls for violence. This was done the afternoon/evening of the day Christian children and teachers were slaughtered by a trans person. Needless to say, the account, the graphic, and the calls for violence were quickly covered by journalists, lawmakers, and others. In a flashback to the old regime, Twitter censored and shut down the accounts of the journalists, lawmakers, and others.

The account that posted the graphic never got taken down or censored as far as I know. If it did, it’s news to me. The accounts that were shut down had to delete the offending posts that shared the graphic (mentioned?), not sure if they had to admit guilt and to be paraded through the public square like in the old days, but were warned of strikes and worse if they continued to offend. Twitter later said no strikes were issued, but right now no one truly trusts them given all the issues in the past. Twitter has massively squandered any trust and goodwill that was being built. Major unforced error.

It also demonstrated a lack of knowledge about real journalism. The graphic has to be shared as it is evidence. It is what allows people to view, consider, and then make up their own mind about it and the messages attached to it. It is even potential evidence in court. In short, it is important and to just yank it down along with all the stories covering and analyzing the situation was totalitarian censorship at its finest as well as complete ignorance of journalistic purpose.

I’m hearing that a number of independent journalists and organizations are putting plans to make more use of Twitter on hold. Some are being vocal about it, and others just read the posts from Twitter, and smile and nod nicely and politely without saying a word.

I was looking at doing some things to try to make better use of Twitter, expand my reach, and even make use of some paid features. That’s going on hiatus, because this time Twitter didn’t put a finger on the scales, they sat on it and screwed over most of the real journalists who use their service in the process.

Now, add to that a campaign against tweets that were deemed mean or insensitive to the cowards of Uvalde, which went on at the same time. Trust level, fucked.

Now, for me, there are two other issues.

First, Elon wants Twitter to be a happy, positive place where no one says mean or nasty things. If you say something someone could possibly consider mean, angry, etc., then you will get throttled. The thing is, free speech is quite often rough, vulgar, and uncouth by the standards of those who live in the clouds.

Twitter still seems to have a problem with not recognizing a real threat (‘I am going to kill you and your family’) particularly when it comes from a progressive or other protected class to a less protected class (see the JK Rowling saga for one example). If you suggest that someone should pleasure themselves with a rusty chain saw, sideways, well, they are going to be all over your ass in a nanosecond, particularly if you are not a member of a protected class. And even faster if the person to whom you make the suggestion is a member of the protected classes. One is a clear threat, the other hyperbole. Twitter still seems to be willfully and deliberately ignoring one and conflating the other.

Attempts to force “niceness” have never worked, and have historically led to massive censorship. Not the first time or place it’s been tried. It also ignores the fact that some ideas are so abhorrent or idiotic, that pure mockery (which is rarely polite) is the only response deserved. You may not like it, you may not like dark humor, you may not like mockery. Problem is, if you try to force nice and censor others, guess what you become? That very tyrant you claim to hate. You go right back to being the Twitter of yesterday.

Second, for myself and others with brain injury, traumatic brain injury, and some related conditions, many of the “improvements and upgrades” to Twitter, Tweetdeck, etc. suck. Big fat hairy warty ones even. I’ve been hearing that a number of others are not happy with the so-called improvements, but for people like me using the system has become a figurative and even literal pain.

Now, I have to say that after being hit by lightning I’m incredibly blessed as things could be a lot worse. My short term memory is fucked, though they tell me that the missing long-term memories are still there but the brain doesn’t know where the files are right now. When my brain finished healing in a few years, that may change. Who knows, but there are no guarantees.

Since being hit, I have learned about “distractions,” “attention success,” “attention lapses,” “CES,” and other joys. There are fancy and nice ways to describe what is going on, but a good analogy is that almost anything can cause my brain to go “SQUIRREL!!” and send my train of thought not only off the rails but out into the swamps. It’s why I have to live my life off flippin lists to get anything done. It’s why a story that used to take me thirty minutes to write can now take three flippin hours or more.

I loved Tweetdeck as it allowed me to arrange information into lists and columns that allowed me to reduce distractions and get the most out of my time on Twitter. New tweets? A simple graphic on the side. Want to get to the top and see the latest? You tapped home and away you went. New message? Again, simple graphic on the side.

Now? Pop-ups you can’t make go away. A useless message bar on the bottom that blocks viewing information when I already have a column for messages. Additions to my columns with suggestions, advice, and other crap I used Tweetdeck to avoid. Seems like every flippin thing is now a mouse-over and pop-up. Scroll too hard to get back to the home column, and you go backwards to a blank web page (that one may be one of the bugs being passed off by Brave as a feature, just like no longer being able to turn off mouse overs, to be fair to Twitter).

I’ve gone from a low/no-distraction environment to almost total distractions. Twitter is even worse IMO. So, I either have to spend a massive amount of time to deal with all the cognitive distractions (and the frustrations of same), or I can just spend less time on Twitter. Guess which way I’m going?

Yes, some of us did reach out and try to get this addressed. I will be polite and nice and just say we were ignored.

I really would like to see Elon get rid of the remaining termites and turn Twitter into a true bastion of free speech. Heck, I would like to see him develop it into the communications, payment, and development powerhouse it could be. That said, I’ve also lived through the destruction of the blogosphere by the walled gardens of social media that promised an easy way to put everything into one easy to manage basket.

I’m not going to put my eggs into one basket, no matter what. But, I’m also not going to put any eggs into a basket without a bottom, and right now that is Twitter. There is no trust and there are no guarantees that Twitter won’t pull the rug out from under you on a tweet, much less something larger. There are still far too many blocked accounts (Stacy McCain, cough, cough), and with more joining them because of capricious and indifferent actions by Twitter, you are eroding trust not building it. When you add in making it harder for people like me to use, there’s even less incentive to be involved.

This week was a return to old Twitter, and it will take a hell of a lot of work to build shattered trust. It can be done, and I hope it is, but I’m not going to continue to invest significant time, much less move to adopt any paid services, for now.