As a former director for civic integrity at Twitter, I’ve been disturbed for some time about what Elon Musk is doing with his private global platform.
Today, I took the step of leaving Twitter, completely.
Why?
Here’s my last tweet:
https://mem.ai/p/e83QTrTPntGEmmZYQUEc
@rogersaner I agree, Roger.
I chose not to post any replies there, but I can’t count the number of times that I saw shallow or spiteful comments that made me think, “See? You’re making my point about what Musk has unleashed…”
Nice to hear from you, Kat. Thanks for writing!
@eddie1perez Thank you, Eddie: a very clear description of the hypocrisy of those who bleat about free speech while meaning to restrict it to those whose often abhorrent views they share.
And the existential danger that comes when the richest people in the world believe that they should be entirely free of responsibility & respect for every other human, & that they alone get to determine our species’ future.
My last tweet was more than 16 months ago & will remain that way unless …
@eddie1perez I stopped posting on Twitter in July of last year. I feel like a New Yorker in 1973 who got the hell out of a dump that’s gone to hell in a handbasket while the mayor/CEO twiddles his thumbs.
Every time I take a peek inside (typically for the few people I follow who haven’t left yet), it feels like it’s gotten worse than the last time.
@eddie1perez I truly feel for you Edward. One of the most difficult things to experience is the destruction of something you put time, effort, and EQ into, because you believed in it
But you are correct, the simple act of participating in an evil thing, even if the intentions are good, can itself become complicity in that thing
I removed all my activity from Twitter and left right after the mass layoffs for those very reasons, but I do understand why others kept trying to fight the good fight
@eddie1perez "After watching and tweeting dramatically less for the past two years, I’ve decided that (for me) even passive participation on this platform amounts to complicity in Elon Musk’s project of promoting anti-democratic values."
That's exactly why I deleted my Twitter account the day after the sale went through.
@mpanhans Thanks for calling that to my attention.
@eddie1perez @lisamelton If you don’t want to to click a link to get the gist, here’s a sample:
“even passive participation on this platform amounts to complicity in Elon Musk’s project of promoting anti-democratic values.
I will not have any part in that.
3/ Musk is a poster child for divisive racist, sexist, and plutocratic tendencies that undermine democracy’s commitment to equality for all.”
@eddie1perez Amen. I was one of Twitter's first 500 users, and later I went to work there, so the platform meant a lot to me. But I just couldn't keep doing free labor for Musk. I couldn't keep giving him eyeballs to sell. I couldn't keep donating the dopamine hits people get with my likes and replies.
I don't know whether Twitter will survive; network-effect platforms are hard to kill. But I know that I have better ways to spend my time than to support whatever Musk is up to.
@eddie1perez congratulations and welcome to the Twitter diaspora. I'm 18 months Twitter free and never happier.
@BartV Bart, I was aware of the reconfiguration of the links in that consolidated thread, and I do apologize for that.
I selected the link to that one-page consolidation of my long thread because I found it to be the most readable, with no advertisements and little visual clutter. But that tool did reconfigure the original links, and I cannot edit that page.
Here’s an alternative, which does preserve the originals:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1783457159348391994.html
If you have more ideas, I’m all ears. Thanks.
@eddie1perez @BartV
At least one parser was written to deal with many Twitter Problems, including this:
"The links are all obfuscated in a short form using t.co, which hides their origin and redirects traffic to Twitter, giving them analytics. Also they will stop working if t.co goes down."
@samueljohnson @eddie1perez
I had to delete all my older tweets again, at least once. A handful of random likes (from several years ago) kept reappearing.
Some tools were helpful to do things which were possible at the time (not all are possible now):
* Find my Twitter mutuals on Fedi.
* Archive my tweets.
* Parse my Twitter archive (bypassing the t.co links, saving images, etc).
* Delete my older tweets, RTs, and likes.
Mikko Alasaarela
Edward Perez
Roger Saner
Weathermonster
Marion Donnelly
Kat O’Brien
Mark McCaughrean
Micah Pollak
Kevin R.
Michael Kohlman
J. Nathan Matias 🦣
Helgi Crookehorne
Jack Yan (甄爵恩)
Stanley Black-Decker
stonedonkey🕹️🎮👾
Ben Foote
Von Javi
Lewis Edwards
Matt Panhans
Lisa Melton
Cardboard Robot
the_afflicted11
TheSwiftDojo
szakib
katze
William Pietri
–modo ⚛️ 🧬 🇪🇺 🇨🇦 🇺🇦
Kathleen Jones
Arx
Bart Veldhuizen 🚀
Dec.tar.gz
Jocelynephiliac 
Laurie
SamuelJohnson
Expert Plus 🍀🔱
Babs 💙🐝⌛️🦋🔻
YogaLamb