13/12/2022

It's Time to Leave Twitter

It was predictable that Elon Musk’s Twitter would become an unhealthy environment, but it was surprising how quickly it deteriorated. This, added to the despicable, sometimes criminal ideas of its new owner, leads us to the only possible outcome: it is time to jump ship, to leave Twitter.

The reasons are many, all documented in Twitter is Going Great, a real-time coverage, timeline format, of the permanent catastrophe that Twitter has become.

Last weekend, Musk managed the feat of offending, with just one post, the United States’ top health authority in the fight against COVID-19 and all trans people.

In another instance, he made unfounded accusations that Yoel Roth, an executive who headed Twitter’s safety department, had advocated pedophilia in his phD thesis. (This is not the first time Musk has accused opponents of being pedophiles without any shred of evidence.) It was a lie, a retaliation. Days earlier, Roth had resigned and publicly criticized Musk.

You can tell from this and other news that Twitter is controlled by an extremist with an inflated ego, someone dangerous and ill-intentioned, and who happens to be the richest person on Earth. There is no way that this can work.

Not that I believe that all the services and products I use are controlled by people who are well-meaning or at least in line with my beliefs. It is just that, in the case of Twitter, the rottenness became explicit; the rancid smell, unbearable.

Some say that it is valid to swallow your pride and stay in hostile environments in order to “occupy the space” and not give it up to the “other side”. This is nuts. In the fight between progressives and conservatives — in any dispute that takes place on Twitter, in fact —, there is only one possible winner: Twitter itself, now inseparable from Elon Musk, its sole owner.

To be there is in itself a defeat for us, a victory for Musk and his erratic agenda. I don’t want to be a part of that.

A week ago I wrote a farewell to Twitter. I was in doubt. Then I read that the Platformer newsletter, the outlet that has given the most scoops in covering Musk’s Twitter era, has decided to leave Twitter. It was the push I needed.

In January 2008, when I signed up for Twitter, my first post there was something along the lines of “If you can’t stand them, join them…”. Not anymore.

Discuss @ Hacker News.