Twitter-Fan Rant — Why I'm Not Quitting, Yet.
The last couple of weeks have been hard for anyone who is a diehard Twitter fan. I am probably one of them. Change is never easy, but I know that this is actually one that might be for the better. Let me tell you why.
I have been using Twitter for about eight years now, and it is has been one of the platforms I use most for my media and news consumption. In the early days of me, using the platform, it was basically an RSS reader to me. I had curated lists of media outlets, and people that I found interesting and knowing that Twitter was the most up-to-date and fastest platform to get my info from.
Content has changed
Over the years, the platform involved. In the early days, anyone who posted anything on the platform was sort of anonymous. This opened up the gates to hell. Bots flooded the network and made it extremely difficult to tell what was real, and what was not.
A little over a year ago, I started playing with the idea of leaving the platform entirely.
I regularly struggle with the fact that it is unclear to me why so much of the content I am served feels fake, inauthentic and staged. But then again, this is a general trend that does not only apply to Twitter at this point. I could say the exact same thing for content on Instagram/Facebook/TikTok, alike.
At the end of the day, I decided that I have to accept that this is how all platforms are being used. I have to find my own way of joining the conversation, or finding likeminded people who use it, as I am.
But, the fact that I was able to curate my lists so well on Twitter, and only follow the people that I knew had some things, sensible and useful to say on the platform, made it irreplaceable to me. Long story short, this still holds true for me today.
Freedom of speech
I could seriously not care less about Donald Trump, Kanye, West, and all of their friends, being on the platform/or not. For the simple reason that they don't show up on my lists, as long as I don't add them.
Freedom of speech is a tricky thing. I do know that I would rather have opinions of people be out in the open, than have them happen behind closed doors.
Whether or not, I identify with a certain political party or other peoples ideals isn't really relevant at this point. I do wanna point out that I am glad that I can form an opinion on what these people say by looking at the type of content that they post.
That being said, we have to make sure that, from a legislative point of view, we have the tools in place to go after those who are out to hurt others, or the society at large.
Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram most certainly have an important role to play in this. But they cannot be held solely responsible for what happens on the platform, and what people say.
I'm going to stick around
I am certainly going to stick around for now. Not so much because I want to see how this unfolds, because I can do that from the shadows as well, but because I genuinely believe that there is a place in the world for the platform, Twitter.
I do hope we will stop paying too much attention to the tirades that Elon Musk holds on Twitter right now. He seems to be somewhat out of control. And to be honest, I simply don't like the graphic depiction's and provocative language that he is currently using to make his point.
At the same time I do think that there are people who have been using the platform "the right way" for quite a long time and would love to continue to do so if things "go back to normal" — or at least calm down.
Whatever happens, I'm still interested in finding out how this pans out. And I would rather be a part of it, then abandoned it. Maybe I can even be a small part of the solution by moderating and trying to add a bit of sense into some of the conversations.
Thanks for listening... And free to follow me on Twitter, of course.
—Remco