CleverJerzGirl
Judd LegumThis may or may not be my last day on Twitter
I'm going to continue to tweet out factual information until I get banned
To keep up with my reporting regardless, please subscribe to Popular Information
Musk's autocratic and arbitrary rule over this site is a particular threat to independent journalists.
About half of the current subscribers to my newsletter, which is how I support myself, found out about it through Twitter
I've spent almost 15 years building up a network on this platform of people who care about accountability journalism.
A lot of my reporting scrutinizes billionaires like Musk and the politicians, like Ron DeSantis, that he favors
Musk is attempting to chill critical reporting from journalists by making it clear that he can rip away a critical way we communicate if we make him mad.
I will not be cowed by this kind of bullying.
But we need to make ourselves more resilient to Musk's bullying. That means making sure you can get access to critical information with or without Musk's cooperation.
My newsletter is free. You can pay if you find it valuable and want to support it.
Up to this point, Twitter has been the central way that we've built up the newsletter, which supports myself and two other talented journalists — @[email protected] and @[email protected] — that work with me.
We can't rely on that anymore.
Unlike Musk, we are actually committed to free speech. Check out this piece last week from me and @[email protected] on book banning in Florida schools
How to ban 3600 books from school libraries
This year, at least 102 books have been removed from the shelves of school libraries in Clay County, Florida. Many of these books were pulled at the request of one man: Bruce Friedman. A conservative activist and longtime resident of New York, Friedman moved to Clay County this May.
We have an important follow up coming this week about book bans at another Florida school district.
Hopefully, I'll be able to tell you about it here.
But we can't count on that.
Fenix🔥 Resistance Starts NOW@juddlegum Please post your journalists’ mastodon handles!
Roj 🏳️🌈@juddlegum tell twitter users to move elsewhere. Silencing journalists and access to info is not going to be the only issue. Misinformation will be the main problem and it will be more insidious and hard to notice. Encourage folks to move with you elsewhere.
@juddlegum he is already training ALL journalists on twitter to think about whether they will be banned by him if they post something. The impact of what he just did is not reversible by reinstating the accounts who were banned.
Access is important but it is not going to be the biggest problem.
JucaIt's sad. When I first joined Twitter, I started by following journalists, and used it as a news feed. Elon is ruining that for everyone.
Barry Schwartz 🫖@juddlegum Twitter is HIS TOY. He is perfectly within his rights to do that. IT IS HIS PLAYTHING.
It is NOT the Twitter of before. It is a different thing.
No journalist should stay on Twitter. None. If they do, it shows they do not understand the situation. Maybe they should find another career.
@juddlegum Oh, sure, the EU is threatening him with a law they haven’t quite passed yet.
But that’s HIS problem, not that of journalists. It is insane of them to demand space in a stupid man’s playground, when they are perfectly capable of setting up elsewhere.
(If they aren’t capable of that, then, again, maybe they should change profession.)
Agora@chemoelectric @juddlegum, why is this so difficult for these people to comprehend? I am losing patience with these journalists tbh!
I am at my wits’ end. Everything in the world of journalists fits into some preconception they have.
Twitter WAS a company providing services, so now (for them) Twitter STILL IS a company providing services, even though in reality it is not!
The real news here is they are not reporting that the Twitter of before does not actually exist anymore! The news is their incompetence!
(Just as they haven’t reported on Musk’s silence about #Artemis1, proving he’s a fake space guy.)
If some #reporter wants to be RIDICULOUS and refuse to cow to ‘bullying’, when what’s really going on is said #journalist is TRESPASSING ON ELON #MUSK’S PLAYGROUND, then I can’t stop them.
But I CAN going around pointing at them doing it, and telling people they are damn fool trespassers trying to make themselves the story.
@chemoelectric @juddlegum I can't express how furious I am at their incompetence!!
JeanJaures@juddlegum You can do the same at Mastadon.
White Gandalf@juddlegum Judd, you’ve got 79K followers here on Mastodon. Please stop talking like Twitter is your only platform.
DamnKimberlee@juddlegum Popular Information and your entire reporting is some of the most important information on the Internet. Keep standing up to the billionaires and we’ll keep supporting you!
Brian Hawthorne@juddlegum I think you meant “that platform.” Clear sign of someone who is still posting first and foremost for Twitter instead of first and foremost on Mastodon.
will@juddlegum Reminds me a bit of how people were worried about Murdoch owning print and tv news outlets. What could possibly go wrong?????
Democat2@juddlegum Hang in there. Everyone will find you again. I just did.
Brewster Brownville@juddlegum Twitter is now just another Parler and the sooner you concentrate on growing your Mastodon audience, the less you’ll miss it.
Rui Craveiro@juddlegum The more people move away from the private property owned by Musk to this wonderful co-op called the Fediverse, the more of your subscribers will come from here and the less dependent you are from the humours of a single capricious person.
flexghost.@juddlegum we’ll keep the light on for you in the Fediverse
But it would be super cool if you lit a cigarette and flicked it at Elon on your way out.
jeannine harvey@juddlegum so glad to be following you here, then.
Elizabeth Rynecki@juddlegum I deactivated my Twitter account yesterday. You can do it!
SophieInBflo@juddlegum and you’ll keep posting to mastodon regardless? This is my only “home” now. :)
Tyler C 
@juddlegum I admire your commitment to go down with the ship, but it is better to reject the site and leave on your own terms, with no intention to return. This is more likely to make change happen; not to Twitter, but your industry.
Keith Ivey@juddlegum Since some of us are seeing this on Mastodon, are you going to start posting here rather than just automatically crossposting tweets?
Miles Offit... 🇨🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦@juddlegum PLEASE consider encouraging your colleagues to #deactivate or act collectively in some manner while you still have the power to wield, if you so choose.
Pat@juddlegum Twitter’s loss.
Ω 🌍 Gus Posey@juddlegum But why would you stay? What's the upside of supporting something we know is harmful?
Pankhurst2Please consider adding a donate button on your site. I subscribe to 3 newspapers but donate to progressive independents when I can.
Mxhrad@juddlegum "I'm going to continue making money for Musk until I get banned." is how I heard what you just said. I subscribe to your newsletter, but journalists have to bite the bullet and leave #twitter - it's not a site of free exchange of ideas anymore.
Exiled New Yorker- Connie@Mxhrad @juddlegum
I spoke with a journalist asking, WHY?
It’s his duty.
His obligation.
His job.
Besides, it isn’t as if journalists left everyone else would.
Dude, they WOULD!
Niall@juddlegum why wait for the thin skinned one to ban you? Journalists are the life blood of Twitter - you are all subject to his whims now so where is the 4th estate but part of his asset base. Your continued presence there enables him.